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Hi everyone,

 

The system: I own a pair of Sonos One (about two years old) and a Move (7-8 months old). The Ones are placed on opposite ends of the apartment. The Move is back in the back corner.

 

The network: AT&T fiber with two UniFi boosters.

 

The problem: The Move works great, anytime, all the time, no matter what I’m doing with it. My issue is with using both One speakers and how it affects the app on my phone. Here’s a list of what happens on a regular basis, sometimes all at once:

  • Music cuts out intermittently
  • Speakers don’t show up
  • Delays with the controller
  • The controller being completely blank
  • Not having any control on which speaker is being used
  • Music playing on a speaker or simply not stopping even when it’s not showing up

This has been going on for the past 3-4 months. No issues with ANY other smart device in our home except the two One speakers. They’re not connected to Ethernet cables and it’s not an option. The option to change channels is greyed out. 

 

Things I’ve done to try and fix it:

  • Endless unplugging and plugging back in
  • Endless rebooting and resetting
  • Making sure everything is updated
  • Moving the two speakers in countless different locations at varying distances….close to each other, far from each other, closer to the boosters, different rooms, places where there are no other smart devices nearby. Every combination I can think of.

None of this has made a noticeable difference, with the exception of maybe all of them being literally lined up next to each other. Again, there is almost NEVER an issue with the Move speaker, no matter where it’s at or how I’m controlling it.

 

What I’ve deduced - and these are very questionable deductions:

  • The biggest one is that the majority of the issues seem to occur when I’m using the One speakers for the first time for the day. There will be 30-45 minutes of the speakers and controller acting completely possessed, and then it’s suddenly fine again. Sometimes it never gets better. Sometimes it comes in waves.
  • Sometimes something as simple as changing the song or changing something on one speaker will make the whole system go weird on me.
  • It seems like it acts up less when I’m using Sonos from my Macbook than my iPhone, but I’m not sure. Could be a coincidence.

Again, I have a great internet and a great signal. All of my other devices work great (including the Move speaker). But these One speakers are just annoying the crap out of me.

One more thing, nothing really significant happened to trigger this issue. The only thing that comes close to fitting to the timeline is when we got the UniFi boosters to replace out Google ones. But the two events have a gap in time. 

I wanted to be as thorough as possible so someone could give me the most concise answer. This whole thing has been so baffling to me and I can’t believe that speakers this expensive could be this sensitive and unpredictable. In the time that I’ve taken to type this on my Macbook, they’ve been working 1,000% awesome. So maybe it does have something to do with controlling it from my laptop???? 

Someone please help me before I have a total breakdown. Thank you very much.

Have you considered connecting one speaker to your router with an ethernet cable temporarily just for testing purposes? You should also consider getting a Sonos Boost.

Wow…..one whole reply. What an awesome community. :thumbsdown_tone1:

 

The the one person that had anything to say: Thank you. I didn’t know the Boost product existed. Went and got it this weekend and I’m unfortunately still having the same issues. Gonna try to hook up one speaker with Ethernet and see what happens. 

In general, most of us prefer not to barge in on someone when we feel the original answer is likely correct. 

Connecting the speaker would be essentially the same as connecting the BOOST. 

But Sonos and Unifi tend to not get not to get along, as you’d see if you did some research in these boards, there are many threads. In most cases, it was resolved by doing what you’ve said already, setting up the Sonos on its own mesh, using either a BOOST or a speaker. But then I’m not a Unifi user myself, so it’s hard to always accept proposed solutions as final, as networks, especially Unifi’s version, are fairly complex. 
 

I’ll bow back out, and let GS continue. 

If it’s a Unifi issue, I guess I’m pretty screwed.

 

 

 

 

Airgetlam, thanks and you’re right…..I wasn’t considering Unifi and now I’m seeing all these posts about it in the community. What a mess. My husband set up this whole system and now he’s trying deny that’s it’s the problem, but I think it’s pretty obvious. 

Apologies to @GuitarSuperstar again…but it’s not that Unifi is bad, but more the fact that the way they designed their system is for point to internet, rather than the way Sonos works, which is much more a peer network of its own.

Each Sonos speaker is looking to talk to all other Sonos speakers on the system, and the music source, and the controller. Unifi makes that hard.

It’s a great system, except when you try to run something like Sonos on it. This is why GS was suggesting either a wired speaker, or a BOOST, which should remove the Sonos from the Unifi wireless signal, and put it on its own.

Which is essentially just another wireless signal, which can be affected by all the things discussed in the wifi interference FAQ, up to and including some interference with the band the Unifi is using. Of course, at that point, it also makes sense to to remove Wifi data, from the controller, so the Sonos isn’t potentially flapping between the SonosNet signal and the Unifi signal.

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