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Please help me understand how sonos fails so i can mitigate

Hi All,

I’ve been fighting with my sonos speakers for about 5years now. I never seem to lose hope and each year I think I figure it out, then a few weeks go by and im back to square one.

 

This year I really thought I had it figured out by creating a dedicated network just for my speakers and then advertising a 2.4Ghz only wireless network for that network which again only my speakers connect to. That way there is no more sonosnet. There is no other interference on the network. 

 

Everything worked great for 16days and then i wake up to:

 

Here is what the speakers look like on my network when this happens(notice the “wifi” column - theyre all dropped off from a router standpoint...but in the app theyre in a state where they are connected to the wifi, but they arent responding? how?..):


So I reboot my entire network. All devices go offline. This is very disruptive, but its gotta work right?:
 

​
Nope theyre jacked up still...everything else on my other networks are connected right back up. Sonos app just shows the same screen with the gear icon and “Lets Fix it” at the top (which never works).

 

The final fix (its been over an hour now), is i have to walk around the house and unplug each speaker, wait 5mins, plug them back in...its insane. Theyre hard to get to so this isnt a sustainable solution.

 

 

TLDR:
What is happening with my speakers? How do they all just drop off a very stable unifi network, where they(speakers) have their own dedicated network and 2.4Ghz SSID? And how can i fix this next time it happens WITHOUT resetting each speaker’s power?

 

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25 replies

Bumper

I can’t see your pictures very well on my phone but it looks like you have a UniFi gateway and switch?

There are some STP related settings you must set in UniFi.  If you’ve already done this ignore, but if not check this out:

https://github.com/IngmarStein/unifi-sonos-doc?tab=readme-ov-file

C
Userlevel 6
Badge +12

TLDR: KISS

No need for dedicated networks for Sonos, with separate SSIDs, wireless channels, VLANS, etc. It does look like UniFi from the screenshots. I would just connect all the Sonos devices to your home 2.4/5GHz WiFi, dont plug any in to ethernet (SonosNet), and all will be good.

As soon as you try to make things more complicated, it will break, even though you may (or may not) enjoy the network problem solving/learning exercise of trying to fix a more complex setup.

buzz

I don’t recommend wiring SONOS units to the UDM PRO, wire them to switches.

H
Badge

Yep its all unifi router/switches/ap’s

Thanks @Bumper I havent seen that before. It looks like the author is calling out folks using wireless & wired at the same time? I do have one single speaker wired to the UDM Pro…i’ll look into that

@craigski  appreciate the idea not to create SSID’s and separate networks. I did that for years and it was a fine until it wasnt. It ended up being a headache as my network grew. I’ve seen the best success creating a separate broadcast domain for sonos.

@buzz thats an interesting one too. Is there perhaps some issue with my one-and-only wired “Laundry” speaker patched to my UDM pro port 4, i’ll just make it wireless?

after considering all this for a minute...

I find it really hard to believe that my one single Play:1 being wired is the main culprit to the full outage. I will put that thing back on wireless and see how long it lasts. I doubt i had that STP issue on the single Play:1 because there weren't any other wired devices on the whole network that couldve created the STP issue...i wouldve only saw the single “Laundry” speaker go down in that case.

buzz

UDM PRO does not support STP (unless they’ve recently made a change). The UDM PRO’s setup menu is nasty because there is an STP option to click, but this is simply setting the default for downstream UBIQUITI switches, not the UDM PRO.

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Tell me you’re a Uni user without telling me you’re a Uni user.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

I can’t see your pictures very well on my phone but it looks like you have a UniFi gateway and switch?

There are some STP related settings you must set in UniFi.  If you’ve already done this ignore, but if not check this out:

https://github.com/IngmarStein/unifi-sonos-doc?tab=readme-ov-file

Or follow Uni’s advice for Sonos

https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/18930473041047-Best-Practices-for-Sonos-Devices

but for the love of all things, don’t expect it to work out of the box on a Uni system.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
H
Badge

Its now been 15days of success, I had the system running ALL WIFI. No speakers wired. Only sonos speakers and the two iphones that control the speakers are up on this network. 

 

Today i went to the app and blammy….empty screen, “Lets fix it” popup...reboot phone...nothing...go to 2nd iphone, it shows now playing, i can add/remove now playing to all speakers for the currently playing group...but they dont play anything.

 

Ran a tcpdump on the Unifi UDM Pro to troubleshoot:

  • 0 traffic from my speaker(i chose one to tshoot with)…
  • reboot the speaker…
  • 0 TCP traffic from my speaker(yes i am sure my tcp dump is proper, i’ve confirmed it prior to my test)
  • ping speaker...pings just fine, no issues
  • go to app, take the speaker off “now playing” and put it back
  • bam, starts playing???
  • still 0 TCP traffic occurred...now im convinced i dont understand sonos, this shit is 100% for sure talking over some medium that is not on the wifi network
    • its gotta be airplay right? Does the iphone just switch the railroad tracks to airplay after i setup whats playing? 
      • just toggled “Group non-airplay products” to ON under settings in a desperate attempt to make any positive impact...idk what that does
    • or is it that my Beam (which is NOT wired) still using sonosnet to create a mesh behind my back?
      • cant be, sonosnet is greyed out in settings
  • 5mins later, speaker drops music...no tcp traffic indicating any network issue nor is there any packets related to speaker 192.168.4.153 regardless 

TLDR

These speakers dont run on your network like everyone thinks they do. Yeah there are tcp sessions where SSL is setup between some hosts in AWS from your speakers out and yeah there is SSDP traffic for discover initially, but ultimately its not constant back and forth 3-way handshakes from your speaker to the media source...i’ll need to understand whats under the hood by researching. I think peoples wifi or “network” get blamed far too much with these stupid speakers. Theyre honestly garbage. Like we’re literally talking a dedicated network and wireless network. Its essentially a sonos lab im working with. Theres no “interference” or faulty unifi settings. Its just a bad product.

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Its now been 15days of success, I had the system running ALL WIFI. No speakers wired. Only sonos speakers and the two iphones that control the speakers are up on this network. 

 

Today i went to the app and blammy….empty screen, “Lets fix it” popup...reboot phone...nothing...go to 2nd iphone, it shows now playing, i can add/remove now playing to all speakers for the currently playing group...but they dont play anything.

 

Ran a tcpdump on the Unifi UDM Pro to troubleshoot:

  • 0 traffic from my speaker(i chose one to tshoot with)…
  • reboot the speaker…
  • 0 TCP traffic from my speaker(yes i am sure my tcp dump is proper, i’ve confirmed it prior to my test)
  • ping speaker...pings just fine, no issues
  • go to app, take the speaker off “now playing” and put it back
  • bam, starts playing???
  • still 0 TCP traffic occurred...now im convinced i dont understand sonos, this shit is 100% for sure talking over some medium that is not on the wifi network
    • its gotta be airplay right? Does the iphone just switch the railroad tracks to airplay after i setup whats playing? 
      • just toggled “Group non-airplay products” to ON under settings in a desperate attempt to make any positive impact...idk what that does
    • or is it that my Beam (which is NOT wired) still using sonosnet to create a mesh behind my back?
      • cant be, sonosnet is greyed out in settings
  • 5mins later, speaker drops music...no tcp traffic indicating any network issue nor is there any packets related to speaker 192.168.4.153 regardless 

TLDR

These speakers dont run on your network like everyone thinks they do. Yeah there are tcp sessions where SSL is setup between some hosts in AWS from your speakers out and yeah there is SSDP traffic for discover initially, but ultimately its not constant back and forth 3-way handshakes from your speaker to the media source...i’ll need to understand whats under the hood by researching. I think peoples wifi or “network” get blamed far too much with these stupid speakers. Theyre honestly garbage. Like we’re literally talking a dedicated network and wireless network. Its essentially a sonos lab im working with. Theres no “interference” or faulty unifi settings. Its just a bad product.

 

I have only been a Uni user for a few days, but your description indicates broadcasts and/or multicasts are being blocked somewhere, which is why SSDP fails to find any speakers (which uses UDP, not TCP by the way). There are plenty of options that can do this.

 

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
H
Badge

Thanks! I just enabled the following from How to configure your UniFi network for Sonos lets see how it goes...

  • Multicast Enhancement (IGMPv3): on
    • Settings -> Wireless Networks -> $YOUR_NETWORK
H
Badge

So far its been at least running, half of my speakers go in and out while playing. My theory is that unifi likes to adjust its wireless channel based on any congestion nearby. So i see some on channel 11 while others are on 6...perhaps the reason why i hear this inconsistent playing?

 

 

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

So far its been at least running, half of my speakers go in and out while playing. My theory is that unifi likes to adjust its wireless channel based on any congestion nearby. So i see some on channel 11 while others are on 6...perhaps the reason why i hear this inconsistent playing?

 

 

Look at the network logs for one of the problem devices and see what it says. Its possible they are switching to 5GHz and you aren’t configured to handle that change.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
H
Badge

thanks i hard coded the SSID to only use 2.4Ghz so ill be shocked if i see it flip to 5Ghz at all

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

thanks i hard coded the SSID to only use 2.4Ghz so ill be shocked if i see it flip to 5Ghz at all

Well the logs should reveal the truth.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
H
Badge

i setup remote logging to my synology server, the logs are very verbose, no idea how im going to parse this...looking into “graylog” possibly.

 

5/27

Annnnd we’re back to speakers just disappearing. There should be 7, there’s only 3 now...(im even on the new app they released):

edit: there’s only 2 left actually...”bedroom” is showing but i cant interact with it^ you can see it in the screenshot, theres no volume number next to it

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Well the new app adds its own special problems, I would stick with the Desktop app for now and see if the speakers stay around in that.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
H
Badge

thanks i’ll try that, its getting to the point that this sonos lab is really barebones. I’m even afraid to join the SSID with a 2nd phone so as to not “disrupt anything”...actually per your suggestion, i’ll eliminate the dedicated iphone from the mix and only use a desktop app as a single controller

H
Badge

today i forced my (sonos-only) network across only one wireless access-point. This seems to be helping, we’ll see how long it lasts.

 

working scenario at this moment:

  • all speakers wireless
  • 2.4Ghz only network
  • ONLY sonos speakers on this SSID, no other network devices
  • 1 single wireless access-point
  • “multicast enhancement” is off (unifi setting)
  • still using the phone app(i cant seem force myself to use the pc)

 

Also fun fact from all this monotonous attention i’ve paid to these speakers, when you go to factory reset a speaker and pair it on iphone, if you have a phone call running on your phone the stupid app wont let you pair the speaker, buuuuut a mysterious new function appears like “pair without microphone” and you can simply enter a PIN found on the bottom of your speaker. Did this twice now, the speakers pair way faster.

H
Badge

nope failed that day, had to “pause” and then “resume” the SSID then reboot the wireless ap’s to fix the below

 

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

The error above indicates the phone has disconnected from wifi, which doesn’t sound like a Sonos problem to me.

I have my new Uni system up and running now, so I know enough to be slightly dangerous:

Go to Client Devices on the Uni page for your router. Select your phone. Select Insights. Scroll down to Connection Logs. What does it say?

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
H
Badge

i think its the software (sonos app) searching my SSID named “noneya” and NOT finding sonos...which is bizarre. Not a bad idea, i didnt check the phone insights that time. This particular issue has stopped happening lately.

 

Currently my annoyance is the speakers just going in and out constantly. I have a theory its the spotify integration. If i play “sonos radio” it seems to stream more consistently to the speakers…

Apparently the next time the problem happens i can submit a system diagnostic to sonos, so ill try that and report back
 

H
Badge

Still experiencing terrible speakers cutting in/out but the worst seems to be over for now, the app has not been saying “Lets fix it” nor have speakers dropped out of the app:

Thus far these parameters are the most stable for unifi/sonos i’ve seen on my network:

 

  1. a dedicated network for sonos
  2. a dedicated ssid for sonos
  3. a dedicated single AP (unfortunately...hope to move away from this)
  4. Settings Under Unifi > Networks :
  1. Settings Under Unifi > wifi(for sonos ssid):

     
controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Here’s mine but its my main network, I see zero point in keeping Sonos on its own network plus then my phone has to be on that network too, so what’s the point?

Note: I have 5GHz enabled as well for the newer devices, and Band steering too because why not.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Plus mDNS which is now critical for the new app:

 

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
H
Badge

thanks @controlav ! I’ll try your settings next time i see a failure.

 

Looks like i have mDNS

 

I also disabled “meshing” on every AP in my house, since theyre all wired.

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