Surrounds keep dropping off

Hi @StuMcBill 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Your Symfonisk speakers will be connecting directly to your Playbar via a dedicated 5GHz link, not to the Boost. The Playbar is reporting interference near it, not the Symfonisks, so it’s near the Playbar that you need to direct your attention. OFDM ANI refers to 5Ghz interference specifically, and the Boost, Play:3 and Playbar are all reporting this, 9 being as high as that reading goes.

The source of this around your Playbar could be a WiFi access point (this includes Sky Q TV boxes) - the WiFi points can be moved, and if you have Sky Q, you could disable 5GHz on it (on the remote, Menu » highlight Settings » 0, 0, 1 » select Settings » Network » 5GHz wireless » Confirm changes).

Range may also be a factor, or obstacles, though these are less likely.

After trying anything, you may need to reboot the Playbar and/or the surrounds to make them cooperate.

I hope this helps. 

Hi Cory, thanks for the reply. 
 

I have figured this out since posting this message.  I guess the problem with disabling 5Ghz on my Sky Q box disables the streaming to the mini boxes. 
 

I have moved some stuff around in the area, and seem to have reduced the noise on the 5Ghz spectrum. Although I sometimes still lose the left hand surround speaker. Can you have a look at the new diagnostics I’ve just sent and see if anything looks untoward? 1299485487

I am planning on moving a few more things away from the area to try and reduce the noise further. 
 

Thanks,

Stewart

Hi @StuMcBill 

For diagnostics analysis, you should really be getting in touch with our technical support team, but I did take a quick peek - the noise levels are much better now, across the 3 devices reporting 9, they now report 5 or 6. I’m surprised to hear about the Left speaker - there are no issues reported in the diagnostics. If it happens repeatedly, I recommend technical support.

If you disable 5Ghz on the Sky Q box, it will still use 2.4GHz, so streaming should be fine. 2.4GHz is less likely to interfere with the link between the Playbar and satellites, so it’s worth trying this. If there are issues with streaming TV, you can always enable 5GHz again.

If you find no solution, Sonos Ones (or SLs) would probably perform better than the Symfonisks, in the same locations.

Hmmm, it still keeps dropping off. I’m wondering if it’s a faulty speaker?

Might swap it with the right one and see what happens. 

Hmmm, something seems to happen at night. I’m now seeing lots of interference. I’ve done diagnostics (I realise you said that this should be tech support only - I was on a chat with them earlier but I got cut off), 1000726559, any ideas?

Figured out what happens at night. Baby monitors!!  
 

Still doesn’t explain why I keep losing this surround through the day in seemingly good wireless conditions?

Could the Symfonisk or PlayBar be faulty?

@StuMcBill 

Baby monitors are definitely a possibility - as far as I am aware, they tend to use 2.4GHz rather than 5GHz, but maybe that’s changed in recent years. If it has a video feed, 5GHz would be more likely, I suppose.

Still not seeing an issue in the diagnostics - at least not in Living Room. Master Bedroom and the Boost are having trouble communicating with each other, but this wouldn’t cause an issue with your surrounds.

I recommend what you suggested - swap the shelf speakers and see if the issue follows a unit, or stays with the location. Please remove the surrounds from the room and set them back up after swapping them over. If the issue follows a unit, call technical support with your findings. If it sticks with a location, please take a photo of the speaker in-situ and post it here - I’ll be looking for plant pots, books or thick wood surrounding the speaker, or similar. I would assume the Playbar is not the problem as the right surround speaker doesn’t have an issue.

I notice you have an Eero mesh. Who is your Internet Service Provider, and is their router still configured as a router? 

Yeah, they are video baby monitors, as soon as I turn them on the bedroom, playbar and boost turn red and go to level 9, and drop back to 5/6 when they are turned off. 
 

Ive moved the speaker and the issue seems to be following the speaker, I’ve contacted ikea and they are replacing it for me.

Yeah, I still have my BT home hub doing the PPPoE authentication in front of my eero, wireless is turned off on it. 

Ah ha! Caught red-handed!

Fantastic! - I’m glad to hear you’ve got a solution in the works. You’ll need to Remove Surrounds before you can add the replacement to the Playbar room.

Does your BT router still have DHCP turned on? If so, I recommend you make sure Eero is set to take a static address manually and turn it off on BT. If, however, you connect anything other than the main Eero node to the router, you’d be better-off disabling DHCP (enable Bridge mode) on the Eero system. Instructions here: https://support.eero.com/hc/en-us/articles/208276903-How-do-I-bridge-my-eeros-. Either way, the end result should be that you only have one DHCP server on your local network. It’s probably not causing any of the issues you report, but it’s good practice - the issues you do get can be pretty weird and difficult to figure out.