Drastic action - Reset and go back to S1 App - Hints/tips appreciated

Need all speakers powered on to see their connections.

Kept in mind the enablr wifi toggle is horribly mislabeled. It disables wifi, sub, surround and Sonosnet, not just wifi.

The green down the left is good.

What device is the second column from?

Will get that done now.

​@Stanley_4 

I haven’t got a clue

​@Stanley_4 

​@Mr. T 

All powered up, only the beam is connected to the LAN

Thanks ​@GMR, the communication between speakers is good.

The yellow boxes in the left hand column shows some intermediate interference for those rooms. In the Sonos app, you can select between channels 1, 6 and 11 for SonosNet. You could try switching to a different channel than the channel currently being used to see if the yellow boxes turn green. After changing channel, give it a couple of minutes for change to take effect, then view the matrix again. The matrix is always just a snapshot in time. Interference can be intermittent. Also check your router settings to ensure whatever channel your 2.4GHz band is operating on, is not the same as the selected SonosNet Channel. Again for your router, only select between channels 1, 6 and 11.

The mac address will give you the answer, every device on your network has one.

In this case the second screenshot has the name shown. Patio Doors.

I grab a mac list from my router and pencil in any that don't have good names.

​@Mr. T 

​@Stanley_4 

Many thanks for your help in understanding this info.

I assume the data matrix is showing the “performance” of each speaker relative to the Lounge TV being connected to the LAN?

The Media Room is probably the furthest from the Lounge TV as the crow flies and potentially has a fridge and a few radiators to get past. Distance being about 15 meters.

Should I concentrate on this speaker first.

Why in the first column of the matrix is the Lounge TV white, I assume its because its the “Master Device” managing everything. If so why is the Office  white as well.

Correct, the matrix shows the communication of each room relative to the wired Beam.

The Media Room still has a fair connection. If the box was Orange or Red then I would’ve concentrated on fixing that.

I’d start with my previous suggestion of trying different SonosNet channels and checking the matrix.

The white boxes on the far left column are for your Beam and One. “Newer” devices from around 7-8yrs ago no longer show as much info in the matrix.

Nothing shown in the matrix above attracts major attention. OFDM ANI of ‘5’ indicates moderate interference. ‘0’ is best, ‘9’ is max. You should refresh the matrix display from time to time and check the OFDM ANI for changes. If there are other WiFi devices near OFDM ANI 5 players, try moving them.

For the two newer players that do not report in the matrix you can go to settings and check the signal to noise ratio.

​@Mr. T 

​@buzz 

I will try various settings and see what happens.

If this was your setup, would you try and improve it or would you leave it alone. Being an engineer I always strive for the best I can get. Rightly or wrongly.

There is nothing of immediate concern in the matrix. Rooms can show OFDM ANI of 9 but still play music, but if you are experiencing issues with the app or playback then looking to reduce interference for the yellow rooms is a good starting point.

What issues are you having with the system currently?

Based on many years of experience, given the matrix above, I see no reason for concern — unless you have intermittent issues.

There is more (undocumented) data available if you open a player’s info above the matrix:

/proc/ath_rincon/status gives some more data about a unit’s RF conditions.

Note that all data on this page is static. Refresh to observe changes.

​@Mr. T 

​@buzz 

It was good to hear that you didn’t think I had a “big” issue. So my intention is/was to leave alone for a week or so and see what happened.

System has been playing a radio channel across all speakers for the last two hours. As I write this message to you both the system has just gone off.

​@buzz 

Copy of the rincon/status.

My system is currently going on and off every 5 minutes…..not a good sign.

​@GMR - By “going on and off every 5 minutes” do you mean the sound is dropping? If so, is it dropping in one room, or them all?

What does the matrix look like when this is happening?

If you are going to group everywhere for music playback, start the stream initially on the wired Beam, then group the other rooms to the Beam. The initial device becomes the group co-ordinator, so you want that to be with with a good connection.

​@Mr. T 

Sound is dropping across all speakers. It goes off for say 10 seconds, comes back for a minute or so, then drops again for 2 minutes, comes back and then stops completely.

As an aside has the beam got to be the hard wired device or could I pick a more centrally located speaker, say the kitchen?

This is the current matrix

​@GMR - the communication between your speakers is excellent as it is, it’s the interference around the speakers that appears to be the issue. Try a different SonosNet channel and check the matrix after a couple of mins to see if any of the yellow or the orange box change to green.

That really sounds like there is an issue, sadly consumer grade Wi-Fi gear is very misleading when reporting issues. Much of it only looks at signals that exactly match the Wi-Fi spec, they won't even show the 2.4 gHz Sonosnet signal, much less other signals in the shared Wi-Fi frequencies. 

I don't have a good solution to offer. My expensive and a bit frustrating one was to switch to a Ubiquity Access Point and a Cloud Key controller. Far from perfect but it does allow the network functions to be suspended and an RF monitor tool to run.  It gives a complete picture of the average RF health of all channels, it isn't great at finding/showing pulsed noise issues as it averages them into the reported data.

Sonos is so dependent on continious communications that  my solution, with the average readings, can miss things that are enough to disrupt the Sonos system.

If there is something better, that gives instant RF and noise readings I'd love to know what it is. Be even better if it was actually affordable for a home user.

Try systematically excluding each player from the Group and keep notes. If you can wire other players, experiment with that too. This is not a fun task, but checking PHY errors for each unit may uncover something. Don’t expect zero, that’s not how WiFi works, but if one player has high bursts, this is worth attention.

I don’t have the need or spare time at the moment, maybe we could encourage Stanly_4 to brew something for a Raspberry PI to periodically monitor each player’s ANI, noise floor, and PHY errors. There are other things to watch, such as dropped packets, overruns, etc.

​@buzz 

I appreciate your time and assistance in this matter.

I started the initial post as I haven't got a clue with network configurations. So guidance has been a massive help to me. 

I will keep on working my way through the various options given by all posters and let you have my findings.

​@Stanley_4 

Does this mean, if you had everything hard wired you should turn the wifi toggle off on everthing bar your beam and surrounds?

Sort of, Sonos doesn't recommend wiring the Sub or Surrounds as the wired connection is slower than the (confusingly also called Sonosnet) private 5 gHz dedicated network Sonos creates for that task. There is discussion of that around here somewhere.

Been a while for me but working with folks here and at support resulted in me pulling the Ethernet connections to all but primary speakers. It improved my situation and eventually led me to my current wifi only setup.

​@Stanley_4 

Many thanks for the time you have given me with this matter.

I will keep working my way through the options and see what happens.

Is this the “holly Grail” of connectivity and low noise:-

or am I getting delusional?