Music cutting out, skipping songs, unable to stream with 12 Sonos devices

Providing a little more info about what seems to work well and what does not work. One of my Sonos rooms is Office which is comprised of a Connect attached to network by ethernet and connected to two self-amplified speakers. When streaming music to Office alone, I seem to be able to play some of my Playlists from multiple sources, including TIDAL HiFi streaming- but even in this one room TIDAL songs will not play to completion, they will skip to next song, etc. The grouping I would like to use most often is a collection of Bedroom (Playbar/etherrnet and 2 Play1/wireless)+Bathtub (Play5/wireless)+Shower (Play5/wireless)+Living Room (2 Play1/wireless and Sub/wireless)+Pantry (Play 3/wireless) and this group is unable to play without stopping/skipping/errors.

When it acts up submit a diagnostic and post it here or call it in to Sonos support.

Hi, Stanley_4. Thanks for your feedback. The Sonos system is continuously acting up and I submitted a diagnostic code in my original post above. I just submitted another diagnostics while the problem is occurring and that code is 154608053.

Hey there, gadgetnut Thanks for posting your diagnostic report. I am seeing quite a bit of wireless latency on the Sonos network. This usually points to wireless interference. I see you are using a Ubiquiti network, are any of the Sonos players nearby any of the satellite units?

Hi, Keith. My home has two Ubiquiti access points indoors. One of the Ubiquiti access points is in the Living Room and has a Play1 connected wirelessly located about three feet away. The other paired Play1 and Sub in living room are 15 feet away or further. The living room also has a Boost connected by ethernet about seven feet away from the Ubiquiti WAP. The other Ubiquiti WAP is in an office on the other side of the house, where a Connect connected by ethernet is about twelve feet away from the access point. As I said, I have changed Sonosnet wireless channels from 1 to 6 to 11 without long lasting improvement and I have added and deleted my WiFi network credentials, also to no lasting improvement. Thoughts?

Understood. What else is nearby the BOOST? I am seeing quite the fluctuating noise floor which means that it is picking up a wireless signal from another device which is interfering with its ability to serve the rest of your Sonos system.

Hi, Keith. Since I have several Sonos devices (Playbar, Connect) connected by ethernet, I'm not sure I even need the Boost at my house. The Boost is centrally located in the home, in a Living Room in open air on top of an AV cabinet. Within three feet of the Boost are a wireless phone base station, AV components, and a managed ethernet switch. I've tried using Sonos with the Boost disconnected, no improvement. I could relocate the Boost or move the telephone further away. Suggestions?

Thanks for the helpful description. I'd like to learn a little more about your network and how Sonos is currently plugged in.

gadgetnut wrote:

Since I have several Sonos devices (Playbar, Connect) connected by ethernet, I'm not sure I even need the Boost at my house.

How are these other Sonos players plugged into the network? Are they plugged into the Access Points or into the main routing unit (connected to the Modem)? Are any plugged into the managed switch?

Thanks again in advance.

My network structure is: Xfinity Gigabit Gateway>Ubiquiti UniFi USG-3 (router)>UniFi 24 Port Managed Switch>UniFi AP access points and ethernet-connected clients.

Here is my understanding of the Sonos connections.

PlayBarBedroom connected via ethernet to UniFi 24 Port Managed Switch Port 10. Play5Bathtub, Play5Shower, Play1BedroomLeftSurround, Play1BedroomRightSurround, and Play1YardFrontRight appear to be connected wirelessly via Sonosnet to this PlayBar.

Sonos Boost connected via ethernet to UniFI 24 Port Managed Switch Port 12. Play1LivingRoomRight, Play1LivingRoomLeft, SubLivingRoom, Play3Pantry, ConnectYardBack, ConnectScreenRoom, Play1YardFrontLeft appear to be connected wirelessly via Sonosnet to the Boost.

For the room known as CJK Office, ethernet from UniFi 24 Port Managed Switch to UniFi AP-Pro access point then ethernet to an unmanaged switch for the office devices including ethernet to ConnectCJKOffice.

In the UniFi USG-3 (router), I configured DHCP reservations for all Sonos devices. I have restarted the gateway, the router, and all Sonos devices numerous times. Playing music in a single room can sometimes work fine but playback to multiple rooms simultaneously is predictably unstable. It feels like adding the Living Room to a play Group is destabilizing.

Understood. Whenever Sonos is routed through managed switches, things get a little odd. Ideally, we want Sonos to have full control of the data being sent through SonosNet. Is there any way to plug the Boost directly into the Ubiquiti UniFi USG-3? If you unplug the other Sonos devices from the network leaving just the Boost hardwired into the USG-3, we should be able to get things in a better position. At that point, we will need to take a closer look at the wireless interference. This is because the AP's will likely be adding interference to the wireless environment Sonos will be using to talk from player-to-player.

If this is possible, please test the audio for about 20 minutes and then submit another diagnostic report. Be sure to reply here with the confirmation number, and I'll be happy to take a look and see where we stand.

Hi, Keith. Thank you for your help. The next steps you have asked me to do are possible and I'm willing to do it. You gave me an idea though and I wanted to try an interim step first. I eliminated the two ethernet connections to the Players (PlaybarBedroom and ConnectCJKOffice), restarted those Players and rebooted the Sonos Boost. Now, only the Boost has an ethernet connection and all the Players are wireless. The Sonos apps on iOS and macOS seem faster and responsive. I played four different music sources across the house for fifteen minutes- things seem to be working better- and I just submitted new Diagnostics. Today's confirmation number is: 17589762. Would you please take a look and let me know the next step you recommend? And I'll continue testing over the weekend to see if I experience any lasting improvement with the changes so far. Thanks!

Looking better! Most everything is now directly talking to Boost and the Boost is talking to the network for Sonos. One thing I did notice is that your Bedroom L+R Play:1's are stuck on a 2.4 GHz channel when they should be on 5GHz talking to the Playbar. Give those a quick reboot (unplug and replug into power) and they should be good to go.

Test the audio over the weekend and let us know how it works. Fingers crossed!

Hello, Keith. The Group most frequently used is Bathtub, Shower, Bedroom, Living Room, Pantry playing together. Since the last changes, playback is a bit more reliable but still stops, cuts, and skips.

What I experience is: you start playback of a playlist to the Group. To begin you hear playback in some rooms but not others, within about ten seconds all rooms come online. It may play a song or two OK then skip a song. If you manually change playback order, some rooms will drop out then they might come back.

Based on a new support thread about Sonos at Ubiquiti, it was suggested to enable Multicast DNS in the USG-3 router. I turned on mDNS and sent new diagnostics to Sonos. Today's confirmation number is: 712881562. Any thoughts about next steps?

The drop-out dialogue has been going on since the dawn of Sonos. "Ideally, we want Sonos to have full control of the data being sent through SonosNet." doesn't seem to work where there are solid walls and/or bigger distances. My solution has been to throw ethernet-over-power at the problem, but that has run into problems recently. Buildings, wifi and data networks are always changing, mine and my neighbours. Some sort of incremental network management tool might help. The Google wifi one is ok-ish. The http://:1400/support/review tool may have the data, but is opaque.
Apologies if Im launching into the middle of a conversation, I'm struggling with a playback issue just now.

Hello, fdotr, thanks for your feedback. I, also, have relied on powerline ethernet network extenders, but find that they are also somewhat hit and miss. Over the last two weeks I've been trying different setups- most recently *removing* all ethernet connections and allowing all players to connect via Sonosnet, etc. But even now, my system is not working acceptably.

Followup to Keith or Sonos Staff- After a few more days experimenting, I find the recent infrastructure changes have not helped. My Sonos system is dropping rooms, skipping and stopping. As of now, there's no joy, it is intolerable and unusable.

Keith's suggestion had been to remove my UniFi managed ethernet switch from the equation by connecting the Sonos Boost directly to the UniFi USG-3 (router.) This could be tested but is almost too broad of a stroke because in disconnecting EVERYTHING else, including all WiFi access points, my home would have zero network/zero wireless and while Sonos might be expected to work flawlessly in a vacuum that doesn't seem to be a practical help because I can't live that way.

My goal is to determine whether the network architecture can be revised such that Sonos players can function acceptably within my home life.

Thanks for the update and fresh diagnostic report, gadgetnut. Since enabling mDNS, have the dropouts reduced? Looking closer at the recent diagnostic report shows that the Bedroom, Bathtub, Living Room are the rooms with the best connection to the BOOST, but they cannot seem to reach places like the Screen Room or Chirs' Office with the same strength. Is it possible to plug any other devices to the network through a wireless extender (in Bridge mode) or unmanaged switch?

fdotr: Sonos is not supported in networks using Ethernet over power. Might I suggest, creating a new topic with more information regarding the dropouts you are experiencing? Typically, problems like dropouts are due to latency on the network or interference. If you submit a diagnostic report and post your confirmation number in the new topic, I'll be happy to take a look and see what advice I can give.

gadgetnut: My suggestion was to plug the Boost into the USG, not remove your Unifi AP completely.

Keith N wrote:

Understood. Whenever Sonos is routed through managed switches, things get a little odd. Ideally, we want Sonos to have full control of the data being sent through SonosNet. Is there any way to plug the Boost directly into the Ubiquiti UniFi USG-3? If you unplug the other Sonos devices from the network leaving just the Boost hardwired into the USG-3, we should be able to get things in a better position. At that point, we will need to take a closer look at the wireless interference. This is because the AP's will likely be adding interference to the wireless environment Sonos will be using to talk from player-to-player.

If this is possible, please test the audio for about 20 minutes and then submit another diagnostic report. Be sure to reply here with the confirmation number, and I'll be happy to take a look and see where we stand.

Thanks for the feedback, Keith. You're right, although it's not far away (less than 40 feet with one wall), the Screen Room and Chris Office are the rooms furthest away from the Boost. I will connect the Chris Office Connect by ethernet again- but its ethernet derives from hard wires from the same managed switch, not a wireless extender or unmanaged switch. In any case, I'll connect this way, try it out and submit diagnostics again.

To answer your question: no, since enabling mDNS the dropouts have not reduced.

Regarding your earlier suggestion- sorry if I misunderstood you. The USG has one LAN jack. To make that one jack available for the Boost, I would have to disconnect the 24 port UniFI managed switch which is connects and powers everything (PoE) else including every AP, etc. Given what I've described, what do you suggest?

Thanks again.

Bingo. Thank you, Keith, for explaining things again in a way I understand. I will connect the Boost ahead of the UniFi switch in the way you have described and test and submit diagnostics.

I'd like to commend you. It's not easy to provide tech support effectively by long distance- and you're doing a great job. It's easy to be snarky on the internet and yet you choose to be kind. Wow. Thanks again, Keith. Have a great day.

Hello Keith. I wanted to followup with results after the last network revision. I connected the UniFi USG to Sonos Boost and my UniFi managed switch to the Boost's 2nd ethernet jack. I wasn't happy with my network because I was getting 100Mbps across the entire network (maybe Boost switching is not gigabit?). I placed an unmanaged gigabit switch so now the Boost and the managed switch are connected to the gigabit switch. No Sonos players are connected by ethernet so it's all Sonosnet from the Boost.

Playback is about the same: unacceptable stopping, skipping. I submitted new diagnostics and the confirmation number is: 1049574322.

My preferred music source has always been TIDAL HiFi. I'm finding playback is terrible using TIDAL but when I play the same songs from Amazon or Apple Music, playback seems to work fine.

So perhaps this is not just my "network problem," but rather an inability of TIDAL HiFi flowing through the Sonos system?

I truly hesitate to give up TIDAL (=my favorite) but playback quality currently is unacceptable. Thoughts?

Thanks.

Thanks for the update and giving that a shot. Tidal works without a problem on the wired player here at my desk, so I'm not sure it's a problem with the platform.

Perhaps if we work at this in real time with one of our technicians over the phone, we can run some tests while playing Tidal audio? While I appreciate the effort you've put in on this so far, I think it may be better to attack this in real time. Additionally, we can collect data and escalate the ticket to our senior technicians, if needed.

Hi all,

Interesting read. Does anyone have an update on this topic? Has the issue been solved in the meantime?

If you are having a problem probably best to submit a diagnostic and post the number here so the Sonos folks can get a look at your system internals.