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Hi All,

I am having issues with groupings in my system and it is causing me a lot of frustration haha. I have searched a lot of topics but haven’t really found anything that aligned with my issue. I suspect it is something to do with my router and/or my beam however that is where I am stuck. I will give some context on what I have tried and what works/does not work.

System 

  • Arc with sub connected to tv close to router
  • Amp driving two in ceiling speakers and amp is placed in cupboard under arc
  • Beam gen 2 connected to TV outside about 18m direct line of sight to router
  • Router - Netcomm NF18ACV

So as it stands and in my ultimate set up, all devices are wireless. I can see them all in my system this is where my issues start. I only just added the beam to the system and that, the arc and amp were working well together without it.

What happens under a wireless set up:

  • Arc will group with amp 
  • Amp will group with arc 
  • Beam will not group with arc
  • Beam will not group with amp 
  • I can cast Spotify to the beam just fine so it is definitely on the network and signal strength out there seems fine

So what I did next was I put the beam inside and just sat it where the arc was and plugged the arcs power supply into the beam. For this test, I just had the amp and beam in play to see if the beam would group with anything. I now plugged an ethernet connection in the amp from the router. Under this amp wired scenario the following happened:

  • Beam grouped with amp 
  • Amp grouped with beam

Great, now at least I knew the beam could group with something. I unplugged the ethernet from the amp and plugged it into the beam:

  • Beam would not group with amp
  • Amp would not group with beam

I thought this was strange. I re-plugged the ethernet back into the amp and the grouping worked again. I then took the beam outside to where it sits full time and left the ethernet in the amp. The beam did not join the network. Perhaps signal strength from amp not strong enough to reach out there?

So that is where I am at. Under certain setups, I can get it to do what I want but I can’t get it all working together as it should. My ultimate wish is that I just have them all connected wirelessly as they are now but where I stand is that I can use them individually ok, I can use the arc and amp together, but I can’t use the beam with anything else. I really want to be able to group the beam with the amp as that was pretty much the whole reason I got the beam. It feels like it has something to do with the beam/router however I was hoping someone on here who knew a lot more than me could give some suggestions.

I have also factory reset the beams quite a few times. I have been in chat with Sonos and we tried a lot of things but it got to the point where they recommended calling the help line when it was open (which I will if I can’t figure it out myself). I was also considering purchasing a meshed wireless system as I have been looking at one for a while and this would push me over the edge to purchase it if the router is the issue but if that isn’t going to fix it then I don’t want to rush out and buy one yet. 

Thanks all!

If possible, try wiring just the Arc to ethernet. Then wait a couple of minutes for the other devices to connect to SonosNet. If the Beam doesn’t connect, unplug it for a couple of minutes and plug it back in and wait a couple of minutes.


I’d suggest wiring your Arc to the router too.

You might try using the router’s DHCP settings to reserve IP addresses for all Sonos followed by powering off all Sonos and rebooting the router. Power up the wired Arc first then the other Sonos and see if things get more stable for you.


Thanks for your replies!

When I plug ethernet into the arc, the arc and amp is ok but the beam says “not connected”. I can group the arc with the amp. I restart the beam and still nothing. I then unplug the ethernet and everything reconnects to the home router but back to the grouping issue.

I’m getting to a stage where I feel like turfing them all - surely it shouldn’t be this hard.


Hi @Matt.D. 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

Please refrain from further factory resets - if the first didn’t help, neither will any others.

 


Hi All,

Just an update. I had a couple of lot of tech rounds with Sonos support and they couldn’t get it working so concluded there must be a hardware issue. Ended up having it replaced as it was still under warranty and the new one worked perfectly out of the box.

 

Thanks