Ethernet vs Wireless or a combination of the two? Best Route to go

Brilliant data, links and ideas folks …. appreciate you taking the time and plenty of reading this evening. Keep it coming …. super stuff and all being taken on board 👍

An update that may be useful to others in future in this position.

I spent an age with some very competent and helpful support from Netgear. They implemented the recommended Sonos STP settings and all appears well on a combination of wired and wireless connections.

The second managed switch was not performing well but a fairly substantial firmware upgrade resolved the issue. We did the same on the first switch and performance and consistency is much improved. Perfect I’d say.

Strangely the component we considered to be perfect had a firmware level automatically installed that Netgear considered better to degrade one level. They did this for me on the router and all 4 satellites. I’m not entirely sure it was necessary but certainly no issues as a result. 

Tomorrow I will move all the Sonos (that can be) back to wired and see what the impact is. Hopefully it will be the same. 

I’ve used the exercise to test every bloody RJ45 end to end, label and colour code every cable at both ends ….. something I’ve been promising to do for a decade. And no small exercise. Amazingly near all cables were in good shape even if some of the termination was poor quality. I’ve cut and re-terminated them all with better quality connectors and wall plates. Still a few to identify but the worst done.

So the Sonos recommended STP and STP associated settings are worth doing as is having the best FW on managed switches. 

Many thanks to those who took the time to help. All valuable stuff and is influencing next Sonos choices and purchases.

Actually I missed that I also contacted Sonos support and discussed configuration. They were more nuanced in ‘best practise’ definition. They seemed to think a combination of wired and wireless was best. 

I found it a little difficult to understand fully why if I’m honest. However in checking the diagnostics, they did identify that a was missing a few updates. This was a surprise. I thought I was doing OK in this department ….  app option was set to auto and every now and again I do see updates. I also use the PC app and that often prompts for updates.

But they were right …. and subsequently, if I option to manually search for updates, I’ve been getting quite a few. So lesson for me not to assume that ‘auto updates’ are actually that ‘auto’. And indeed it’s no effort to do a manual update in addition. It’s hard to have any feel as to whether the updates (or lack of them) were having an impact. But better be up to date as a rule.

And in fairness I notice that with these fairly substantial network checks and adjustments and the applying of all updates, the Sonos Android App definitely seems be working better. of course in reality my background issues were creating something of a false whipping post for the app.

Auto updates will only work if all devices are connected to the network at the time of the firmware update. Portables are a good example where they will miss auto updates if they are powered off. Even if all devices are connected, it is not uncommon in larger systems for an update to fail on a device and the update has to be rerun, potentially multiple times. Devices running different firmware could previously cause issues with audio when grouping, although with older devices now having their own specific firmware version, care now has to be taken when comparing the firmware on devices under About My System in the app. Regularly manually checking for updates is best practice to ensure the system is fully up-to-date.

My experience, for what its worth, this issue is more common in SonosNet / mixed environment, due devices restarting, SonosNet STP reconfiguring whilst other (potentially older/slower) devices are updating. It may appear they have failed, but actually they will have completed (or are still updating) and just not reported back to the App due to network reconfiguration.

With new App, in a fully wireless environment, with no Ethernet, just SonosNet between soundbar and Sub, I see the Sub appear to have failed maybe 1 in 5 or 6 system updates in iOS App when doing system updates, but if I force close the App, go make a fresh brew of coffee, and then re-open the App 10 minutes later, all is good, ie no need to rerun system update again instantly you see a failed message, just let it do its thing in the background whilst sipping your coffee.

I wasn’t referring to the app showing an update error due to the update timing out. In that situation, checking for updates again confirms the system is up-to-date.

I’ve ran both mixed environment and currently have a wireless setup. I wouldn’t say one setup is particularly different from the other in terms of updates. Sometimes updates would complete successfully at first attempt, others required multiple attempts. Personally, if there is a firmware update I update all non-portable devices first if the auto update hasn’t already completed, then I power on all portables and run the update separately for them.

The 5GHz connection between soundbar and sub is not SonosNet. SonosNet operates on 2.4GHz.

Terminology clash. Yes, a dedicated 5GHz channel. The Wireless Info shows SONOSNET on network matrix for WM:2.

So not the dedicated 2.4GHz SonosNet WM:0 we all used to love before we migrated to wireless setup WM:1 , maybe I should have referred to it as “SonosNet WM:2”, rather than just “SonosNet”.

In a wired SonosNet WM:0 setup you have root node, secondary node(s) and tertiary node(s), if a secondary node is restarting whilst a tertiary node is updating (ie via a tunnel to secondary node), the update will be interrupted whilst the secondary node restarts and/or the SonosNet WM:0 network STP reconfigures. With a mixture of older/slower and newer/faster devices, the network is unpredictable during the update process.

In a WM:1 wireless the network is more predictable, as no STP, all Sonos devices are connected to the WiFi, only bonded HT speakers maybe affected that use (SonosNet) WM:2

The 5GHz connection between soundbar and sub is not SonosNet. SonosNet operates on 2.4GHz.

Terminology clash. Yes, a dedicated 5GHz channel. The Wireless Info shows SONOSNET on network matrix for WM:2.

So not the dedicated 2.4GHz SonosNet WM:0 we all used to love before we migrated to wireless setup WM:1 , maybe I should have referred to it as “SonosNet WM:2”, rather than just “SonosNet”.

In a wired SonosNet WM:0 setup you have root node, secondary node(s) and tertiary node(s), if a secondary node is restarting whilst a tertiary node is updating (ie via a tunnel to secondary node), the update will be interrupted whilst the secondary node restarts and/or the SonosNet WM:0 network STP reconfigures. With a mixture of older/slower and newer/faster devices, the network is unpredictable during the update process.

In a WM:1 wireless the network is more predictable, as no STP, all Sonos devices are connected to the WiFi, only bonded HT speakers maybe affected that use (SonosNet) WM:2

I’m not fully understanding the scope or even if I have SonosNet invoked.

Is this visible in the mobile app or laptop app or even using third party tools? Interested to see the setup you describe.

Also is there a web page or explanation page within the Sonos web site? 

Thanks

In 99.9% of cases, the use of the term SonosNet in the community refers to the dedicated wireless network created by wiring at least one Sonos device to the router.

In the app, under Settings > Network, you will see SonosNet Channel with option to switch between 1, 6 and 11 which are all on the 2.4GHz band.

Previously the WM (wireless mode) was visible in the mobile apps within About My System, so you could see relatively easily how each device was connected, but this has still not been implemented yet in the new app, but still visible on desktop apps.

Explanation for each WM mode given here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us//article/check-if-sonos-is-in-a-wireless-or-wired-setup

A useful tool in the past was reviewing the Network Matrix when using a wired setup, but with newer devices and portables not compatible with “SonosNet”, there is less useful information to help potential troubleshooting now than before. 

A good starting point for the Network Matrix/SonosNet however is this article:

https://freetime.mikeconnelly.com/archives/6050

Edited to make clear which version of Sonosnet this applies to.

SonosNet (the system-wide 2.4 gHz version) status is easy to figure out, if you:

- Have a SonosNet capable device.

- Have it connected to Ethernet. 

- Have the internal radio enabled.

Then you have SonosNet running.

The only way to stop (the system wide) SonosNet is to remove one of the three above conditions.

I really wish we had a Disable SonosNet option next to the Disable Wi-Fi one.