As a test, are you able to connect one Sonos device in to the Sky router with an ethernet cable?

My first question is why so many APs (nodes)? 
Are they all hardwired to the Sky router? If not, that could be one reason the 2.4 GHz channel has issues.

Hi

No, only one AP Node is hardwired to the Sky Router. We then have the rest of the AP nodes set up wirelessly. The nodes were needed as I had a lot of dead spots in the house, the house seems to have something in the walls that means the wifi signal doesn’t travel easily. Added a picture below. 

​@UKMedia I can plug a Sonos directly into the router? Just so I understand a bit better what would I be testing there? 

Adrian

Have a look at this page from Sonos’ support site:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/choose-between-a-wireless-and-wired-sonos-setup

And this page:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/recommended-settings-for-using-sonos-with-ethernet-networks

If one (or more) speaker is connected to your network with ethernet, it then uses Sonos net to connect the other speakers. This was what Sonos used initially and since all your speakers are compatible with Sonosnet, it may be a great option for you.

Hi

I have just installed everything and will let you know how it goes. I do have a Sonos Era 100 which is not compatible but it seems to be playing nicely at present. 

Hi

So it hasn’t worked, the issue is still there with consistent drop outs and even a new message today with songs “not encoded properly”. I am pulling my hair out… (I am already bald so it’s hard). Any other suggestions?

So it still appears to be a network related issue, please see my article below:

Thank you for the above. I think it makes sense. Would you suggest reserving IP Addresses for all the  Sonos speakers once I have followed your reboot suggestion? 

I suggest that you reserve an IP address for all devices normally connected to your network.

By looking at my IP table and can only see 8 of the 12 speakers.

Do the subs and surrounds get given an IP Address?

Also, would you expect to see duplicates in my IP table? I have exported the table to Excel and there are no duplicates. 

If you use the Sonos app to look at the about my system you should see the other IP addresses and be able to confirm which speaker has which IP address.

Appreciate that!

Note that because of the way that addresses are “leased” to the device and the polling and storage routines that routers use on startup duplicate IP addresses are incredibly rare with modern routers.

Are you suggesting the reserving of IP addresses is not a solution to my issues? Or I should continue with the action?

If the problem is local the chances are that it is a “noisy” device on your network. This has only ever happened to me once, back in the days when I needed an extender, and absolutely every thing on my network suffered when the device basically flooded the network with unwanted traffic. It took a while to isolate which device was the issue and I tracked it by systematically turning off individual devices rather than rebooting the router. Then I invested in some tools to help, in case it happened again, but ironically they now just show me my network works properly 

Reserving IP addresses will not do any harm so is worth a try.

Is there a particular tool you use? I have a lot on my network and have a little knowledge but am really struggling to isolate the constant issue.

Is it only Sonos that is playing up or do other devices performs badly?

It is mainly Sonos but I have random drop outs, especially on the 2GHZ network at different times but the Sonos is now unusable. 

I would start by reserving the IP addresses as this may well solve your Sonos problems because it seems to have worked for others in this group.

As ​@Gaham says, it’s worth reserving addresses, if nothing else to rule out this as a possible cause.  It is surprising how many times this resolves issues similar to yours but you’d think with modern routers this wouldn’t be the case.

No they wouldn’t show in the router as if it was aware of a possible duplicate, it wouldn’t create one.

My router only shows Sonos Rooms as attached so that means that 6 speakers in my setup have IP addresses but are not showing as attached.

Taking out “personal” details this is what my setup reconciles to.

Interesting, mine looks something like this, with each speaker as an IP Address. 

​@Canaryyella based on what I can observe in my setup I suspect that the way to reserve IP addresses for all of the speakers in a Sonos room will be to turn them on one by one so that they show as attached and available to reserve.

Every Sonos product will be renewing its “lease” of the address on a regular basis so even the ones that you can’t see in the router table need to be maintained so should be fixed like the others.