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I cannot understand why this keeps happening - if anyone can help, please do! 
 

I have the following set up:

 

A BT Home Hub 2 connected by ethernet to a Netgear Orbi RBR350 Router.

 

Two Play:1 speakers in a stereo pair, connected by ethernet to an unmanaged switch, which is connected by ethernet to a NetGear Orbi RBS350 Satellite, which is connected by ethernet to the Orbi Router. Both of these Play:1 speakers have WiFi turned off.

 

I have a Play One connected by ethernet to a second Netgear Orbi RBS350 Satellite, which is connected by ethernet to the Orbi Router. This Play One also has the WiFi turned off.

 

To all intents and purposes, there is no wireless communication at all for the Sonos products: they do not communicate with each other wirelessly, with the router or satellites wirelessly, or with the internet wirelessly. 
 

And yet, every ten of fifteen minutes (mostly with the stereo pair) one or more speakers will completely cut out and disappear from the Sonos app, sometimes for several minutes.

 

I know that Sonos’ wireless performance is ‘fragile’ (to be kind) so I thought that an exclusively wired set up should avoid this problem, however if anything the problem is now even worse than when it was all running off of wifi.

 

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can resolve this extremely frustrating issue? I have heard about assigning permanent IP address to Sonos speakers and wonder if this might help? To do so I would be best to seek advice from an Orbi forum?

 

I have a number of other Sonos speakers which are currently powered off at the moment, so as to help troubleshoot this issue, but they will also be connected in a similar fashion, if I can get past this challenge and don’t decide that Sonos just isn’t really worth the hassle…

 

If anyone can help, I would be very grateful, as I had hoped that Sonos speakers would be a little more universally user friendly than this - obviously I was wrong.

Hi

If as you say the WiFi has been disabled in your Sonos products here’s what happening IMO.

From what you say you have a “wired” Backhaul to the Satellites. That’s good. However,  in the  admin page for the main router make sure Ethernet is the default communication for your mesh network. If it’s set to auto the main unit will decide when to use the “wired” Backhaul vs the “wireless” Backhaul. When using “wireless” Backhaul your Sonos will may disappear until you reboot or the router decides to switch back to a “wired” Backhaul.

Assigning IP Addresses may help as well. However I’d try the above first because if what I suspect is occurring assigning IP Addresses will not completely resolve the issue.

Hi

If as you say the WiFi has been disabled in your Sonos products here’s what happening IMO.

From what you say you have a “wired” Backhaul to the Satellites. That’s good. However,  in the  admin page for the main router make sure Ethernet is the default communication for your mesh network. If it’s set to auto the main unit will decide when to use the “wired” Backhaul vs the “wireless” Backhaul. When using “wireless” Backhaul your Sonos will may disappear until you reboot or the router decides to switch back to a “wired” Backhaul.

Assigning IP Addresses may help as well. However I’d try the above first because if what I suspect is occurring assigning IP Addresses will not completely resolve the issue.



 

I’ve assigned IP addresses for the speakers, and now one of the stereo group won’t show up at all. It’s incredibly frustrating how difficult it is to get this all just to work.

 

I’ll try and find the backhaul setting you mention and see if that makes any difference. I can see why so many people are turned off of things like Sonos though: the average non-techie person simply wouldnt even know or want to mess around this much with things that arent user friendly, especially when the marketing material makes everything seem so simple and ‘plug and play’…

 

 

Edit: Ive looked and apparently there is no option to disable the wireless backhaul feature even if all the satellites are wired. Does this mean my Sonos system is basically f****d?

Strangely my non-techie kids each have wireless Sonos systems that work fine. And I’ve had a mostly wireless largish Sonos system for 16 years. But moving on…

I haven’t checked but I suspect that the Orbi will default to the wired backhaul. Assuming all the wired connections are good my guess is that IP conflicts are to blame. The symptoms are consistent.

If the Orbi isn’t in bridge/AP mode you’ll need to make the IP reservations in the RBR350, otherwise in the BT Hub. FWIW BT Hubs have ‘sticky’ IP assignments, based on MAC address hashing, that mostly stay fixed so IP reservation is generally unnecessary. 

Strangely my non-techie kids each have wireless Sonos systems that work fine. And I’ve had a mostly wireless largish Sonos system for 16 years. But moving on…

I haven’t checked but I suspect that the Orbi will default to the wired backhaul. Assuming all the wired connections are good my guess is that IP conflicts are to blame. The symptoms are consistent.

If the Orbi isn’t in bridge/AP mode you’ll need to make the IP reservations in the RBR350, otherwise in the BT Hub. FWIW BT Hubs have ‘sticky’ IP assignments, based on MAC address hashing, that mostly stay fixed so IP reservation is generally unnecessary. 

Ive double checked and there are no IP conflicts at present and I cant find any reason for this particular speakers disappearing act. 
 

Ive only done things that people suggest are needed to improve stability and its just made things worse so there must be something im doing wrong somewhere…

 

The missing speaker shows up perfectly fine within the Orbi attached devices listing, just not in the Sonos app…

How does the Orbi software show duplicate IPs? None of my previous Netgear routers have had that facility, they only show items that are connected ’now’, not ‘over time’

Is the radio (“WiFi”) disabled on all the wired Sonos devices? 

@dennyleegamble 
So what happens if you remove the two Orbi satellite Hubs from the mix completely (this is just a temporary measure to test things here) and just wire the stereo paired Play:1’s to the mentioned switch and wire that switch directly back to the Orbi router and secondly, just wire the third speaker back to the Orbi router, bypassing the 2nd Orbi satellite Hub?

Check/ensure the BT Hub WiFi adapters are disabled and just use the Orbi router WiFi with your mobile Sonos controller?

Does that then work for you?

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