Question

Major Issue with Sonos Performance

  • 23 October 2020
  • 9 replies
  • 371 views

I need help with my Sonos which has been riddled with performance and reliability issues for as long as I can remember.

Sonos issues

Cannot connect to Sonos at all.

App can connect but cannot access music services

Speakers/Rooms missing from app list

I have a Samsung S9 and S10 and they can be next to one another on the same Wifi network and they have rooms on one phone but not the other and the other phone has the missing rooms from the other device

When I do have audio playing it stops and starts

App connected and audio playing buy cannot add any additional rooms

The list of problems goes on

My system

1 x Playbar in Kitchen

1 x Sonos 5 Gen 1 Master bedroom

1 x Sonos 3 Bedroom

1 x Sonos 5 Dining Room

1 x Sonos Amp with speaker in bathroom

1 x Sonos 3 Lounge

Sky router

S1 App as I have 2 speakers not supported by S2

I have called tech support twice but they were no help, the only advice is turn your router on and off, uninstall your Sonos app and re-install, remove a speaker from your network and re-connect. None of advice helped.

Have also attached a speaker directly to the router to create a Sonos network but this did not help either.

I did have Sonos Bridge but they were failing to help so was advised to by Sonos Boost which would solve my issues but it didn't. The network and speaker and app connectivity improved when I switched the Boost off and disconnected it.

I also separated the WIFI into separate 2.4 and 5GHz signals as I read Sonos works on the 2.4 and having a combined signal can confuse the system but still issues persist.

After I separated the 2.4 and 5G signals I wanted to tell the Sonos app to connect via the 2.4 signal but when I go into System/Network/Wireless Setup I hit a screen telling me if I plan to change the password on my router please do the following: …

I'm not looking to change the password I want to tell my Sonos to connect to the 2.4Ghz signal but I'm blocked by this advice screen and it's always there blocking my access to Wireless Setup….

I do have WiFi extenders from TP-Link and I cannot remove these as I need these for a signal into the office so I can work.

Do I remove every trace of Sonos in the house and start from scratch?

Please help as it is driving me mad and I have spent so much time trying to fix these problems.

 


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9 replies

Thanks guys and the Sonos channel is greyed out hence no wired device yet (v busy weekend)

Yes it is a Sky Q hub and I see you have the same challenge with the channel width.

I have also changed the router channel to 1 and I have been looking into the extenders via their utility app and PC SW but struggling to see anything relating to DHCP but will keep digging.

If you want to check channel widths on Android I recommend https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrem.wifianalyzer

No need to recombine bands.  Mine are separate and give me no issues

Hi.  The SonosNet channel must be different from the router channel.  If you have the ability to change the SonosNet channel you must already have a wired device.  (If you don’t have a device wired at the moment I would expect the SonosNet channel to be greyed out, and to become active when a device is wired.)

I doubt that mode is the same as channel width.  Is that a Sky Q router?

Edit - my Sky router has no means I can find to set channel width!  I’ll assume that it defaults to 20 MHz as anything else wuld be foolish on Sky’s part - so let’s not worry about that.

Thanks John I have changed the router channel to 11 which is the same as the SonosNET channel.

Should I re-combine/syncronise the 2.4 and 5Ghz router bandwidths or is there an advantage to separating them for Sonos?

I will wire the Boost again and in my router setup i don’t have the option to change the mode which i believe is the same as the channel width you refer to, it is greyed out and set to auto.

 

Btw, the extender manual may refer to ‘disabling DHCP’.  This is the same as putting it into access point or bridge mode, which is where you want to be (and may be already - but we need to be sure).

Hi.  I am only willing to try to help if you have a wired Sonos device.  Sorry - it may not have helped when there are other issues but it is an essential part of finding a solution in my view.  Your router should be on one of channels 1, 6 or 11, with channel width set to 20MHx, not 40 or Auto.  SonosNet should be on a different channel (you only have 1, 6 or 11 to choose from).  You should not be changing the router’s wireless channel  daily, in fact, hardly ever. There is something fundamentally wrong here.

You could try the extenders on the same channel as the main router, or on the remaining option out of 1, 6 and 11. 

Any wired Sonos device should be at least a couple of feet from the router.

Sonos depends on a correctly configured network.  It can cope with less than perfect conditions, but it cannot uninvent the laws of physics.

Thanks for the quick response.

I had a Boost wired to my router and the performance and reliability of the Sonos improved after I removed it and during one of the Sonos support calls I was advised to wire my Sonos 3 to the router and again it did nothing to improve the system. 

The 2.4Ghz channel is 13 but I have to change this almost on a daily basis and when I do it normally helps improve Sonos but only for the day and then then issues resurface and I have also tried the Auto select channel but no difference.

I will have to dig out the extender settings as I’m not a network expert so learning as I go. To be honest one of the key reasons I was attracted to Sonos was the ‘simplicity’ of the platform. 

OK.  First, you can stop trying to tell Sonos to connect to 2.4GHz - it will sort that out by itself.  

You absolutely have to have a wired Sonos device with that many speakers and with those extenders.  It can be the Boost or a speaker located close to the router.  Do you currently have anything wired?  

What 2.4GHz wireless channel is your router using?  What about the extenders?  And, importantly, are the extenders set up in ‘bridge’ aka ‘access point’ mode?  If you aren’t sure, consult the manual and make sure that they are.

If we get that much clarified, we can work from there.