I have wifi extenders so I’m using a wired system. My Sonos Play 3 is wired directly and the 4 other speakers are scattered through the house. When I add speakers to my playing system the app keeps telling me I have to wire a component directly but when I check, the Sonos 3 on the app it indicates that its directly wired. Why does the app keep telling me to wire it? And why do some speakers sometimes not play even when the app indicates the are playing?
Best answer by ratty
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WiFi extenders are not supported. A warning will popup if you attempt to group rooms which are connected to them.
Where is the Play:3 wired? If you go to Settings/System/About My System do all the units show WM:0?
The play 3 is wired directly to the router, the other speakers are in other rooms some of which depend on wifi extenders which is why I wired the play 3. It was my understanding that wiring one speaker automatically bypasses the wifi system and uses a sonos specific network to connect the other speakers at least that’s what the instruction indicate. The play 3 is indicated WM: 0 but the others all indicate WM: 1 and won’t allow disabling of wifi. I have rebooted all speakers to no avail. All speakers appear in the app and even indicate that they are playing but some are and some are not.
The WM:1 means the other speakers have connected to WiFi, presumably the extenders. Hence the warning when grouping.
Mention of “disabling WiFi” makes me suspect you may have done so on the wired Play:3. If so, you’ve killed SonosNet. (The “disable WiFi” in the controller has to be the most misleading labelling imaginable.) Disabling SonosNet will of course make the other speakers connect to WiFi, assuming there are credentials stored in the system.
Re-enable “WiFi” (SonosNet) on the Play:3.
Wait 5 mins.
If all the players are showing WM:0 then go into Settings/System/Network and remove the WiFi details there.
If some remain stuck on WM:1 try powercycling them, ideally close by the wired Play:3, and check again.
Once the WiFi credentials are purged from the system the system will operate entirely on SonosNet. *
* EDIT: See follow-on post.
I do have a Move and I have not attempted to remove the wifi from it. I think no, it won’t allow that because it can’t be wired. Each time I try to add a player to the group the app warns me about the wifi extenders. Strange, sometimes some components work and others don’t. Very frustrating.
Okay so you can’t remove the WiFi details. However speakers other than the Move should be showing WM:0 not WM:1. Is the “WiFi” (i.e. SonosNet) disabled in the wired Play:3? If so re-enable it, as noted earlier.
If you can’t prevent the Move from connecting to the extender WiFi you’re going to see the warning message when grouping, and components will sometimes work, sometimes not. Choosing different SSIDs such that the Move ignores the extenders is one solution.
You could use access points in place of the extenders. It may be awkward to run Ethernet cable from the router to those locations. For the purposes of connecting the Move you could instead wire an access point to a nearby Sonos unit. SonosNet would provide the (slow, but adequate for audio) wireless backhaul connection to the router.
I have a workaround, not ideal, but satisfactory. I have 5 Sonos speakers including 1 Move and as long as the Move is not included in the group, the others work in sync fine, and I can also play the Move as a lone speaker. The move is a second or two out of sync with the others but its far enough away that it really doesn’t bother me.
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