[Solved] Sub disconnects from Arc frequently

Hi @SoundAndFury , thanks for your post!

Its good to hear that you were able to find a solution and we appreciate you sharing this step which could potentially help others. For the majority of customers it is indeed possible to have all the home theater components on a wireless connection, the issue you report could be related to the specific network set up and how Sonos interacts with it. While I’m not aware of any widespread issues of this nature being tracked at the moment, if you have time it may be worth reaching out to our technical support who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

Hi Craig
I spent a long time with your technical support team on this before I ran an Ethernet cable (which I resisted doing - and defeats the purpose of the Sonos value proposition for me).
Their advice was that it would not work without the wired connection.

I have the exact same issue. Everything was working fine until the last Sonos App update however since the last Asus firmware update also happened in May, I am told the issue is with the Asus router rather than the Sonos App…. I know.

Since I can’t run an ethernet cable directly to the Arc, I will try to run an AIMesh network with an old Asus router I have and see if connecting it to the Arc to it via cable can serve as a workaround untill Sonos fix the app.

That’s a very creative idea. Please let us know if that addresses the issue. 

It does not, the Sonos app is a total gong show, it finds the components, starts the process to add them and then craps out. 

That's not surprising. I believe the Ethernet connection must come from the primary node only. 
It’s BS, but as an experiment would you be open to testing with a non-asus mesh system?

I could test with a non-Asus router but getting a comparable high-end router would set me back $600 or more. I prefer Asus routers, and I rather spend that money on a non-Sonos surround system given the way things are going. There’s no guarantee future software updates won't break the system anyway.

As a long-time (and current) Asus user, I totally agree. 

Was just interested to know if it actually turns out to be an Asus-related issue or not.

I’m with you, I’m just lucky that I was able to run a cable.

We should not accept this as “an Asus issue”. It is obvious Sonos rushed the new app with some major changes to the market without proper testing. They had 3 months to figure out the issues, and if it is indeed a router issue, identify which setting/firmware version/etc. is the culprit. I also don’t believe these issues are isolated to Asus routers only?

Update, I downgraded my Asus router to last year’s firmware and no change, the Sonos app is as buggy as ever, perhaps even more. 

Just a hunch. I’m not familiar with Asus, but I read there is a recent Asus firmware update to resolve ARP poisoning  google search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aasus.com+firmware+arp+poisoning

In a Sonos HT config, the IP address of the Sub will be bridged through the MAC address of the soundbar, this could be detected as a false positive ARP poison. If possible check the Asus logs?

If you have a PC or similar, check the IP addresses of soundbar and Sub from about my system in the App. Then ping both addresses, and look at your arp table ‘arp -a’ you will see the Sub has the MAC address of the soundbar.

Based on the release notes and timing of the firmware for various Asus devices it could be coincidence. or related to the issues the 2 posters above are experiencing?

Hi @craigski 

Thanks! That may well be useful!

If you’re not familiar with Asus, I’m guessing you can’t supply a diagnostic from a Sonos system suffering from this ARP poisoning? If you can, it would be appreciated - just let me know when it’s done.

I don’t have Asus kit, I can supply a diagnostic, but it would be from a working system 😀

Someone with Asus kit should be able to oblige, if they are familiar with the Asus router management, and are able to pull logs from the Asus router even better.

My theory is possibly the  Asus has blocked the Sub, as it sees 2 IPs with same MAC address, so I assume Sonos diagnostic would show its offline.

Unless I’m missing something, doesn’t plugging a cable into the soundbar then create Sonosnet, which any other Sonos devices (not the surrounds and sub) will switch to in preference to using the main WiFi? Now you might say if that works great, but if you’ve invested in whole house Mesh WiFi (often for Sonos) doesn’t using Sonosnet under the covers so to speak somewhat negate that investment?

I totally agree. As I said in my original post above (that started this thread) - I do not think running a wire is a good solution, and doing so erodes the whole value proposition of Sonos. Had I known their equipment would not be compatible with mesh wifi, I’d have bought a different audio system for my entertainment.

Correct,  you don’t need to run cables to get Sonos ‘wireless’ speakers working. There maybe a simple option to enable/disable on Asus. I recall @AjTrek1 has Asus Mesh, maybe they can comment?

@craigski  - I hope you are understanding the distinction between Sonos wireless speakers and the Arc-Sub-Surrounds. On my Asus mesh wifi system, all my other (ten or so) Sonos wireless speakers (mostly Era 100, some One SL) work _perfectly_. The issue is not Sonos wireless speakers as much as it is Arc-Sub-Surrounds.

I’m pretty sure your One SL’s (non-surround) will now be on SonosNet. If you go to 

http://speakerip:1400/support/review

and click on one of the non-surround SL’s, and then click

/proc/ath_rincon/status

You’ll get an information box showing a MODE line which will say Sonosnet if that is indeed what it is using. Likewise I expect the soundbar. 

The Era’s don’t use Sonosnet at all even if you buy the ethernet dongle. 

Yes I understand, which I why I am commenting. Your Arc and Sub will have a unique MAC address each, but when they are bonded, the Sub (and surrounds) will connect directly to the Arc, and appear on your Asus network with a singe Arc mac address, but multiple IP addresses.

Asus released some firmware for most of their routers, from what I can see, in April 2024, just before Sonos released their App,. to deal with arp poisoning. There maybe a false positive being detected by the Asus firmware, that is preventing your HT Sonos system from working. I maybe barking up wrong tree, but its worth investigating based on what I have seen in this thread.

Don’t ASUS routers allow you to downgrade their firmware? So that could be a simple way to eliminate the firmware as being responsible?

Adding an ethernet cable is potentially a big network topology change… 

According to here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/supported-wifi-modes-and-security-standards-for-sonos-products

It looks like the Soundbars only use the 2.4GHz WiFi as they use the 5GHz channels for bonding to surrounds and subs if connected, which in your case they are. 

So all interaction with streaming services, Sonos cloud, local files and all your other speakers, will be via the 2.4GHz channels at those speeds. (Not fast, congested.) Your Era’s and One SL’s will presumably be on the less congested 5GHz channels. 

When you plug in your ethernet cable to the soundbar it changes to:

All streaming, local libraries, and interactions with your Era speakers will take place over ethernet (And be a hell of a lot faster with no congestion as far as the soundbar is concerned). The 2.4GHz interface will probably be dealing with just your non-bonded One-SL’s via Sonosnet, so a different 2.4GHz channel now to before, so less congested but possibly still subject to more interference. 

5GHz remains bonded speakers only. 

If as we suspect, the new Sonos ecosystem is more chatty than before, it’s possible that this could be why it behaves better as the soundbar is no longer potentially being held back by a busy 2.4GHz network. 

There are a lot of unknowns as we have no idea really what Sonos have changed in the app or firmware that makes it more vulnerable to stability issues, and also don’t know if soundbars behaviour is permanently changed once their firmware is upgraded. Can third party apps control surround systems? I don’t have one so have no idea. Audio here can come from HDMI/optical as well as more traditional Sonos sources. 

On (just) speakers there’s evidence to suggest that the old API’s for starting music from 3rd party controllers and the Sonos desktop apps are more stable than the ones the new app where speakers can vanish etc. appear to use. 

I guess if you have a spare WiFi router that can run in bridge mode, an interesting experiment would be to move as much non-Sonos 2.4GHz stuff as you can onto that router, and then see if running a soundbar wirelessly improves at all. If it did, that would point to 2.4GHz congestion. 

The reason I say move the non-Sonos stuff is because I’m not sure how well Sonos speakers respond to different WiFi networks (albeit on the same subnet) and also I would not be confident of mDNS being broadcast correctly between different WiFi routers either… With all Sonos speakers, 2.4 and 5 on the same WiFi, you would hope discovery etc. would be handled better. 

EDIT: Of course the elephant in the room remains the question of what has changed to make a system that previously worked not work on the same networks? And are systems with soundbars more susceptible to issues due to the soundbars reliance on the worst network in any home, the 2.4GHz one? This would make the feature request to be able to disable Sonosnet but keep WiFi on, quite important on Sonos soundbars IMO. 

My POV: Sonos should be investing the time and resources to do the testing and resolution. It’s shocking to me that Sonos does not have an Asus mesh wifi set up in their testing lab - to reproduce exactly the issues we (many many of us) are experiencing. Frustrating (to under-state) that it isn’t happening, and every Sonos person I’ve engaged with - including tech support - has zero experience with Asus routers (Asus is a market leader - though I’m not sure I should have to convince Sonos this.)

Don’t disagree!! 😉

I have done just that, and no difference, the firmware is not the issue.