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davehen
Trending Lyricist I
November 8, 2021
Answered

Can't hear sound from surrounds when playbar is cabled

Hello,

I have a Playbar (wired) and a Sub (wireless), to which I want to add 2 Play:1s as surrounds.

When trying to add the Play:1s, the configuration always fails with message “There was a problem adding your surrounds...”: after the failure, the 2 Play:1s appear to be there (+Sub+LS+RS), their controls work correctly (eg: I can volume up or down the sound coming from the Playbar), but no audible sound is perceived from them. This happens ONLY when the configuration is started with the Playbar wired.

If I put the Playbar in wireless mode, the configuration succeeds and sound comes from the Play:1s: however, as soon as I put the Playbar back to wired mode, the Play:1s are silent again.

I tried everything: I reset the Play:1s to factory, reset the router, changed the SonosNet channel, but nothing works. If the Playbar is wired, the Play1:s are silent, no matter if I am playing homecinema or streaming music.

I submitted 2 diagnostics:

  • 1260792362, where all my tests described above are logged
  • 1698362511, where I succeeded to add the surrounds with wireless Playbar, and where they fail again when switching the Playbar back to wired mode.

Thank you in advance for helping,

Davide

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James L.
James L.Answer
Retired Community Staff
November 8, 2021

My question is this - how are you moving your Playbar from wired to wireless? What is the process you’re using to switch it over?

I just switch on and off this option:

while the network cable is always plugged in.

Yeah that’s the issue. When you disable Wi-Fi that essentially cuts off all communication between the wired Playbar and wireless surrounds. You need to have that enabled or have both surrounds wired (plus your Sub) if you wish to have the wireless card disabled on your Playbar.

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John B
November 8, 2021

James, I do really appreciate your help, but how do you explain that this setup always worked in the past?

Actually I had it working for months on end, with these very same Play1:s and even with 2 Play5:s.

You must be mistaken

James L.
James L.
Retired Community Staff
November 8, 2021

James, I do really appreciate your help, but how do you explain that this setup always worked in the past?

Actually I had it working for months on end, with these very same Play1:s and even with 2 Play5:s.

Without a diagnostic showing that setup fully working in that state I can’t answer that, I’m afraid.

 

I did find one diagnostic from April (the only one before the ones you’ve listed in this thread) and I see your entire system was connected via WiFi (nothing cabled). 

 

I can assure you that this has always been an unsupported setup and should have never worked in that state, but if you’re ever able to get it “functional” like that again, I’d love to see the diagnostic report and explain to you how that is.

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John B
November 8, 2021

What is your objection to having the wireless capability of the Playbar switched on, given that the system will still use the cable to send data to the Playbar?

davehenAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
November 8, 2021

@James L. , @John B ,

I will keep the Playbar with WiFi enabled then, and if I will manage to reproduce the same weird behaviour (Wi-Fi disabled, yet with surrounds working) I won’t hesitate to post the diagnostic report.

Let me point out that - at the very least - this whole wifi/no wifi/SonoNet thing is confusing for the end user.

    John B
    November 8, 2021

    You have confused two things that are totally different.  Wireless mode vs SonosNet has absolutely nothing to do with the setting you are changing here.

    I think you must have previously operated with the Playbar itself connected wirelessly. In that configuration it would not have allowed you to disable WiFi on the Playbar and everything would have worked.

    With the Playbar (or any other speaker in you system) cabled, your system  is in SonosNet mode irrespective of the Enable/Disable WiFi setting.

    But if you set Disable WiFi  in the Playbar settings then the surrounds will not work. The simple solution, as I suggested in the first place, is to leave the setting at its default of Enable WiFi. 

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