help needed - Sonos One won't stay connected as a surround to the Beam

bmturner2000,

Perhaps try these things… reboot the Beam and ensure its ‘WiFi’ has not been switched off in its room settings as the WiFi adapter is used to connect to its ‘bonded’ surrounds over the faster 5ghz connection. 
 

Also try setting your routers 2.4ghz WiFi channel to ‘fixed’ channel 1, 6 or 11 with a channel-width of 20MHz and your routers 5ghz WiFi band to ‘fixed’ channel 36 or 48 with a channel width of 40MHz.
 

The SSID name for each of the two WiFi bands should ‘ideally’ be different. 
 

If you have any Sonos devices wired to the LAN, then set the SonosNet channel in the Sonos App “Settings/System/Network” so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen routers 2.4ghz channel… and keep any wired Sonos product at least 3 feet away from your router, or any other Wireless device.

If you have any other WiFi access points/extenders in your home using the same network subnet then set those up with the exact same settings as your main router… (same SSID’s, passwords, channels and channel-widths).

You may find this video helpful to reduce wireless interference:

Wireless Interference and Sonos

This Sonos support document is also often helpful too:

WiFi Interference

I do have some complications with my internet provider, but it’s not a new thing either.  Could there be an update that may have allowed for more wifi interference?

My beam and 2 different Ones are all on wifi, I see the beam has the wi-fi connection enabled and network shows my SSID in use.  I guess I can try to unplug the beam to see if that helps.

I have Cox Internet Gigablast with the panoramic modem.  So I have high speed internet but the modem only outputs one SSID now and it chooses if a device is on 5ghz or 2.4 and I don’t have 2 different SSID channels.  I did just set the 2.4 ghz to channel 11 and channel width of 20 mhz.  The 5ghz has a channel of 48 and width of 80mhz.  I changed that to 40 mhz but it wouldn’t allow that on channel 48 for some reason so I’m now on 36 and 40mhz.

another interesting thing is that the Ones didn’t reconnect just now after unplugging them for a few minutes…. getting so freaking annoyed.

Those sound like all good steps so far, perhaps set SonosNet to channel 1  - try powering on/off the Beam and leave it cabled and then see. If the dropping continues, try the Beam uncabled too, then it might be a case of getting the Sonos Staff to look at another diagnostic report (whilst the speakers are showing in the Sonos App).

I can run the cable to a surround but it won’t reach the beam unfortunately.

I have one of the Ones connected and it was showing up in my modem device list but wasn’t showing connected in Sonos for awhile, it is showing as a SonosNet channel of 6.  The 2nd One isn’t showing up yet, I may have to connect it to a cable as well and now I’m back in a conundrum.

Is the sonos staff engaged here or does that require a separate support ticket?  Also, thank you for the help Ken.

Don’t wire either of the surrounds, particularly as the Beam isn’t wired, it’s not recommended. I would just leave all unwired but do reboot the Beam. Do you have any other Sonos devices besides the Beam and the two surrounds? 

no other Sonos devices.  I have to wire the surrounds to get them on the network, but once I go to connect them as surrounds then I’ll unplug the cable, but that’s when they fall off the available products as well

Holy cow that did it.  I unplugged the ethernet from the One.  Unplugged the beam and let it sit for 10s or so, when I plugged it back in all devices were showing so I did a diagnostic check.  Then I added the surrounds, but it failed at first.  I decided to try again - why not for the 19th time right…. After trying again, it paired within 3-4s and everything is connected again.

Sonos has beautiful, great sounding speakers, an amazing community but very frustrating troubleshooting....

It sounds like the WiFi card (possibly) isn’t working on the Beam - you can only switch the card off when it’s wired, so my only thoughts are to possibly either wait and contact Sonos support, or you could perhaps try a factory reset and see if that resolves the matter. If you decide the latter, I would suggest these ‘initial’ steps first of all, to save you time later... 

1. Temporary wire the Sonos surrounds and unbond/remove them from their connection to your Beam. That’s done in ‘Settings/System/[Beam Room Name]/Remove Surrounds’ .. leave your Sonos One speakers separate (this is just a temporary measure).
2. Next ensure you have entered your (case sensitive) 2.4ghz WiFi credentials (SSID/Password) in ‘Settings/System/Networks/Wireless Setup’
3. Now uncable the Sonos Ones and report back here what you can then see in the Sonos App.

All being well, I can then go onto give you the next steps to factory reset your Beam to see if it fixes the issue for you. 

Let me know what you prefer to do - you will lose nothing with the reset if you follow the steps and come back to me before resetting the device.

Another helpful tidbit, now that everything is connected, only the beam is showing up on my wifi.  I assume because Sonos is using it’s own SonosNet and doesn’t need the satelittles on the network at the same time.

Thank you so much @Ken_Griffiths !!

Do you have something called ‘Airtime Fairness’ enabled on your router - if so, just switch that off too.
 

It’s still a possibility the 5ghz WiFi card on your Beam is disabled, or isn’t working. Let’s see what happens when you ‘unbond’ the (temporary wired) surrounds. Do steps 1, 2 and 3 as mentioned above and let me know what happens.

Oh our posts must have crossed. I see you now have it all working… is it still working okay? 

Go to Settings/System/About My System. 

The Beam should say WM:1.

The surrounds should say WM:2.