Google Fiber router dropping Sonos devices

Go to the router’s DHCP Settings page, assign all Sonos a static/reserved IP address.

Power down all Sonos, power down the router and extensions.

Power the router back up, wait a couple minutes then power up your Sonos, any wired ones first.

A lot of folks see issues with DHCP’s normal random IP address assignment process.

Thanks Stanley. Giving it a try. Fingers crossed. 

Where can I find the routers DHCP settings page? What is that? Is it an internet page or something? 

You'll need to read through the router's documentation. Usually this is available online. The keywords to look for would be ‘Reserve' or ‘Fix' IP addresses. Most, but not all, routers support this.

For me, I had to go to the Google Home app > WiFi > network settings > advanced networking > DHCP IP reservations. Then add the devices. Just pick any number for the last digits of the IP address. Make sure to save. 
 

Worked for me 🙂

Well, not ANY number. It needs to be one that isn’t already assigned to a device connected to the router. It’s unlikely out of 254 numbers you’d pick an existing one but if you do, that existing device and the Sonos speaker will be in constant conflict…

Good to know. I think I was lucky 😀

Thanks 

IP addresses are “leased” for a period, typically 24 hours. A client must return to the DHCP server and “renew” its lease at this time. 

Best thing to do is to assign the DHCP range to issue leases only from .50 to .254, and assign any static leases to values between .5 to .49… That way you are guaranteed to avoid any IP conflicts.

Some older devices do not use DHCP, never lease anything, and simply use an address. These devices should be assigned addresses outside the DHCP managed range. SONOS devices use DHCP. 

?

I’ve not come across any device that doesn’t get issued an IP address by DHCP. 

SONOS devices have always used DHCP.

Some devices do not use DHCP and some applications work better if the controlled device uses a static address.

There are some devices that can be assigned a static IP. It can be good practice to use static IP’s (and not DHCP reservations) in some limited cases for technical reasons.  But its been decade(s) since I’ve seen a device that didn’t support DHCP/Bootp.

Interesting.  Outside of network infrastructure (e.g. routers, DHCP servers, DNS servers, switches), can you name such devices?  I suppose devices with poorly written network firmware can be an example?

I feel like I’m needing to keep saying the same thing, with people thinking I’m saying the opposite...!
 

I specifically said it’s good practice to allocate static addresses to a certain small range if any devices need it, and allocate DHCP to the rest of the range. Some of my devices are connected with static IP through necessity for stability, the rest are on leased DHCP. No devices I have owned for practically…well, ever… have not been assigned IP addresses via DHCP unless I have already given them a static address.
 

Thank you for that.  I probably am being misunderstood as well.  I didn't mean to "question" you or others on the use of static ip (vs reserved dhcp).  I was genuinally curious about your experience in the advantage in stability using static vs reserved.  

I won’t mention a name, but I once used a router that claimed to hash MAC addresses in order to avoid duplicates. ‘Great’, I thought, I’ll not bother reserving IP addresses. Evidently it used a very tiny hash table because I was dealing with duplicate addresses in about three days.

Thanks @buzz and @Rhonny.  

Like the two of you, I used to set static IP addresses for most of my devices that supported it, while using DHCP for the rest. Later on, I found this approach didn’t work well for me. Swapping in new routers became more difficult since some routers wouldn’t seamlessly update their ARP or MAC address tables with static IP addresses they weren’t aware of. For my needs, using DHCP reservations in the router turned out to be less troublesome than assigning static IP addresses on the devices.  To say nothing of the countless mistakes I used to make between the IP addresses I manually assigned  on my devices to the excel file I used to keep track of my network 😂

Luckily, I haven’t had to deal with "devices with poorly written network firmware” like  @buzz gave above since I “made my switch”.