HI @arattray 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

This is almost certainly due to your extender - in fact, it’s exactly why we don’t support the use of extenders as they typically don’t do a very good job of what they claim to do. If your computer were to connect to the network via the same extender, you’d likely have the phone issues on the computer too. In other words, Sonos can have just as many problems if your controller device connects to the extender instead of/as well as the speaker

Connecting a speaker to ethernet will typically make all your Sonos devices use their own WiFi network, created by the wired device and repeated by any that pick it up. Thus, Sonos may actually get better coverage than your router and extender combined. If this produces the best results, then I recommend you do this.

As you clearly need an extender for other devices, however, I recommend you replace it with a mesh system as these are much more robust. If you do this, it will be important to tell the mesh to work in Bridge mode (just Google the mesh name and “bridge mode” and you’ll find instructions). The disadvantage of meshes is that they’re a good bit more expensive than an extender, typically starting at the £170ish mark. I would recommend you avoid Google Mesh as they can be difficult to put into Bridge mode.

It may be worth rebooting the router - I recommend you do this several times a year even if you’re not having any issues, especially with those that come for free from your provider.

This is all general advice - you will get more specific advice if you give our technical support team a call as they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to gain a better picture of what your system needs.

Hi,

Thank you for the response. Unfortunately, I dont think it addresses the root cause of the issue and after some further investigation today, I have found the solution.

As I mentioned in my original post, when the Extender is turned off and all connectivity is via the router, the Mobile S2 app still couldnt connect, whereas the Controller app on Win10 had no issues connecting to all speakers. This suggests that the Extender isnt the issue.

To demonstrate this point further, I connected the Windows 10 laptop to the extender and the Controller app continued to display all speakers.

I tried connecting with additional devices and discovered that an Android tablet was able to see all speakers, whereas an iPad could only see the speakers connected to the Extender.

Looking at how each of the devices were connected to the router, it was apparent that the two non-working devices use “randomised MAC addresses”. Adjusting these to use the device MAC address resolved the problem.

Therefore, I think the Extender is actually the device which is working correctly- a Sonos speaker connected to it is able to communicate with a device using either a randomised MAC address for privacy/security, or a device using standard in-built MAC address.

Any speaker connected to the Router however is only able to communicate with devices which are using standard in-built MAC address. It will not communicate with any device using randomised MAC address.

Setting the devices to use their own MAC address is a workaround, although I am happy to leave as is, since it is an internal network so privacy issues are less. However, I think this suggests there is a setting I need to enable in the Router to allow Sonos to communicate with these devices correctly?

I have had no other connectivity issues with other devices using this router, this limitation only seems to affect Sonos.

Thank you for any help!

Hi @arattray 

Ah. The new Private Address feature in iOS! Yes, this has been causing problems for some. There’s a thread about it here: 

I believe a reset or reinstall of the Sonos app, followed by reconnecting it to Sonos (with the Private Address feature active) will solve the issue.

It’s not confirmed, but I believe the change of the phone’s MAC address since the first connection of the app makes your Sonos system mistrust it.

FWIW Samsung also by default uses a randomised MAC. You can change it to use the device MAC in the WiFi advanced settings for the SSID in question.

Moreover some extenders mangle the MAC address of attached clients, substituting their own OUI (Organizationally Unique Identifier) for the first 3 octets, as seen from the rest of the network. Since this ‘virtual MAC’ differs from the real MAC visible when the station moves upstream of the extender, IPs could change and/or ARP fail when it roams between the two sides of the extender.

Thanks - I thought something like that might be going on, as the extender was making a difference.

Just as an update, as of this evening, the behaviour returned to previous on the Samsung S21 phone through the S2 app- it can only see the speaker that is connected to the Extender, it cannot see the other two which are connected to the Router. Regardless of whether the S21 is connected to either device.

Yet, the iPad remained with no issues and has visibility of all speakers.

So, I am really not sure what is going on, but rebooting the router has fixed it. Will see how long for.

Is the Sonos system visible on the Samsung phone and on the iPad when you disconnect the extender?

Just to add that the problem still remains. I went away for a week and when I returned the problem appeared to be resolved, but it seems that if I disconnect from the wifi for a period of time then reconnect, the issue is resolved but temporarily before the issue eventually reappears.

To clarify on the point about the extender- No, the Sonos system is not visible at all on the Samsung Phone or iPad when the extender is disconnected. The Extender seems to be the part of the network that does not have any issues with this.

So, in summary-

1.) Devices initially connected with Fixed MAC are able to see all speakers, regardless of whether they or any Sonos speaker is connected to either the router or the extender.

2.) Devices initially connected with Randomised MAC are only able to see speakers connected to the extender. Any speakers connected to the router are not visible.

I therefore believe the issue is essentially with how Sonos handles Randomised MAC devices when they are passed through from the router, but not with the extender. The extender is not the issue. So it is quite a speciic set of circumstances.

If I move all the speakers and make sure they are connected to the extender, then all speakers are visible on all devices. If I move all the speaker and make sure they are connected to the router, then no speakers are visible to Randomised MAC devices, but all speakers are visible to Fixed MAC devices.

The problem here is that I think I have isolated the issue, but there is nothing I can do which appears to permanently fix it. Temporary workarounds like connecting all the speakers to the extender, or connecting one speaker to the router, are just temporary and not really practical.

Setting the device to used Fixed IP does not seem to work for a prolonged period of time- something appears to be remembered about the setting and ultimately it resolves back to the same problem. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app and it doesnt make a difference, even with randomised MAC turned on -so this is not a solution either.

Just to clarify, as per my most recent response (detail in the above), this did not resolve the issue.

Hi @arattray 

Do you have a BT Smart Hub 2? It appears a recent firmware update for it has caused problems whereby devices on 2.4 Ghz are erroneously being isolated from devices on 5GHz and are thus unable to communicate.

If you do have a Smart Hub 2, I recommend a read of this reply on a related thread (specifically, the part in blue):