Sonos customer service hung up, never called back, and my Playbar still cuts out

Why should a CS representative in India be less capable of dealing with complexity than one in the US?

Sonos has never publicised the matrix or encouraged users to use it.  It is just something that some users know about.

The wireless radio on the Arc is probably more powerful than that on the Playbar, so it doesn’t necessarily follow that swapping positions should make no difference.  Please confirm which device(s) you have wired to your network in the setup that produced the matrix shown.  When you swap the positions of Arc and Playbar, what is wired?

Do the dropouts on the Playbar occur only when it is played alone, only when it is grouped with the Arc, or in both scenarios?

Hi @Jonnydrama32, 

I’ve checked our system and have found your most recent case. From what I can see in the call log itself, you weren’t hung up on but the call was disconnected, this is also what my colleague handling your case has listed in their notes.

You also have a few duplicate threads on the community, and I would advise against creating more. Duplicate threads make it harder for community users and myself to provide assistance, and we’ll likely end up repeating support steps you’ve already heard and tried. I’ll close your extra threads and leave this one open.

I’ve flagged your case internally with our team, and a colleague should reach out to you soon, if not today then tomorrow. For now I would wait for a reply from my colleague to continue troubleshooting this issue.

I can tell you with certainty that CS in India is not as capable. For one, when I tried to return two defective arcs they sent me, I was sent around to half a dozen different call center reps who couldn’t figure out the basic task of returning an item. They insisted the items weren’t defective, until I proved it was a bad batch of Arcs. I proved that by having to buy an Arc from Best Buy that didn’t have the issue that both Arcs Sonos sent had. When they finally agreed to let me return it, I spent something like 25 hours trying to get a shipping label for both arcs and my money back. You wouldn’t be believe how infuriating it was. 

I posted the incorrect matrix in the last post. The one below is when I swapped the Arc and Bedroom. Bedroom used to be in my upstairs bedroom; Arc used to be in my main room. When I switched positions and hard-wired the Bedroom into my Eero on my main floor, this is the matrix that I got. The bedroom satellites show a poor signal here because they were still upstairs when I moved the bedroom downstairs. Note that they still played fine despite being red and orange.

So if a call is disconnected in the middle of a 45 minute conversation, and you’re in the middle of asking a customer to move around equipment, which takes time and some unraveling, do you think it makes sense to NOT  immediately call them back to find out why the call dropped? They asked for my number at the beginning, so he could’ve easily called back. Instead I got a generic email a minute later. Furthermore, I had no way of getting him back on the line because it was after 8pm PT. Good customer service would’ve tried me back when it was clear it got disconnected in the middle of a conversation. Bad customer service leaves a customer hanging.

If they reach out, it needs to be after 730pm PT. I work until then. But honestly, I don’t think they have any clue what’s wrong. They just generically say it’s interference. I can’t move the Playbar anywhere else in the room since it needs to be below the TV. I’ve spend hundreds on new equipment (the Eero) to fix the issue, but to no avail. I’ve tried every channel on Sonosnet without a resolution. I can already tell you I’m going to be told to shell out for a newer model since the Arc clearly worked and the Playbar can’t in that spot. So I will spend these hours on the phone with Sonos to likely get an answer that just costs me more money rather than them taking responsibility for making a product that can’t do the very thing it was designed to do. Nobody can turn off every piece of interference in their house. And while Play:1s can be moved around, soundbars are usually placed right below a tv. If there’s a signal issue, nothing can be done.

The Network Matrix was never documented and it’s usefulness in displaying troubleshooting data is waning. The latest S2 only units do not report any data for the Network Matrix. In my own system the Network Matrix is mostly blank. Only an ancient SUB reports interference levels. 

When Community members seem to have technical curiosity, mostly older units, and post about issues that are likely caused by wireless interference, I’ll reply with instructions on how to display the Network Matrix. If the Network Matrix is sufficiently populated, it is useful for pointing out units that are experiencing interference or very low signal strength. The user can then move SONOS or other nearby units and immediately see if there is any improvement.

I wish that the Network Matrix could be restored to its original glory -- and improved to incorporate WiFi improvements..

@Jonnydrama32,

For the snip of Network Matrix recently shown, Bedroom surrounds are experiencing some interference. Probably it is not practical to move these units, but you could explore the nearby area for equipment causing the interference and move the interfering hardware.

I once had a neighbor’s cordless phone system causing major issues for my SONOS system. Fortunately, I could wire the SONOS unit closest to the phone base station and eliminate the issue.

Hi.  If it is Bedroom (ie 9ie the Playbar) that is wired in the above setup then it is odd that it is shown as “undefined” in the matrix, when acting as the root bridge for SonosNet.

I would try the following experiment (but cannot guarantee it will help)

(i) Remove the surrounds  and sub from the Sonos soundbars (this step may be unnecessary, it’s up to you whether you do it, but I think it is best to keep everything simple to start with)

(ii) Power off all your Sonos and Eero devices

(iii) Wire the Arc to your Master Eero device.  Do not wire any other Sonos devices.

(iv) Power the Eero back on and let it come up fully

(v) Then power on the Arc and let it power on fully.

(vi) Power on Playbar and any other Sonos devices except for surrounds and sub

Leave any satellite Eero devices powered off and see if the system is stable at this point.  Post back with the results.

Does wiring it to the mesh hub in the room do anything, or is that pointless unless it’s a direct ethernet cable from the router?

I did this when I first got the devices. It didn’t make a difference.

The problem is there’s little to be done about interference. The soundbar is going to go under the tv. The TV can’t be moved. There’s nothing else in the area that can be moved, and I’m not even sure what could be causing it. The fact that the Arc works fine tells me the Playbar has some technical issues that the Arc improved upon, but as someone who’s invested a lot in the Sonos ecosystem, I’m not sure how to proceed. Do I really need to spend another $900 on a second Arc?

There are certainly things you can do about interference…

My own choice would be not to wire the Playbar, or any Surround, or Sub (if using) initially, as I would not want it as ‘root bridge‘ for the SonosNet STP… I would aim to wire a non-HT Sonos device direct to the Eero primary Hub instead (Such as a Boost or standalone One, just as examples) …and keeping that wired device at least one metre away from the Hub too.

If there are no Era or Sonos portable Sonos products, it would also be sensible to remove the WiFi credentials from the Sonos App network settings as outlined here…

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/remove-a-wifi-network-from-your-sonos-system

I would then scan/discover the Eero 2.4Ghz channels in use and set the SonosNet channel so that it coincides with one that isn’t used, or is least used.

Playbar uses a 2.4Ghz connection to the SonosNet wireless network, so I would set any devices around it like the TV, Fire TV, Apple TV, XBox or PlayStation etc. to all use the Eero 5Ghz band and see that the Playbar and bonded devices use a different ad-hoc wireless channel. 

If there were still issues after this, then because I had wired a Boost, or One, to the Eero router as the root bridge, I would consider purchasing a small switch (unmanaged) and insert that between the Eero primary hub and the wired Sonos device and then (now) wiring the Playbar to that same switch aswell.

The one thing I would not ‘ever’ choose to do, is to wire any Sonos device to the eero satellite hubs. That said, if the Eero satellites were also wired back to the unmanaged switch I mentioned, I might also try the Eero hubs ‘bridged’ to the ISP provided router instead, just to see which router performed best with SSDP multicast device discovery of the Sonos players by the Sonos controller App.

So there are quite a few things to try here, even with an Eero WiFi mesh setup, which it seems is sadly not very user-configurable and maybe not much better than the original Google nest mesh system that was being used before.. actually I’ll take that back, it is better than a Google mesh WiFi setup, but it does lack in user-configurability in some otherwise useful areas of Home networking.

I already ran a scan last night and found that Channel 1 was the least used, however, that didn’t fix my issue. I also plugged the ethernet into my arc to trigger the Sonosnet and deleted my wifi network from “networks” to ensure everything was using Sonosnet. That didn’t help.

The only other Sonos device I have and could set up is an additional Play:1. I’m not sure what “HT” is, but is a Play:1 part of that? And why would that make any difference vs hooking the ethernet to an Arc?

A tier 3 support rep emailed me today and looked at my diagnostic from last night. He said my TV was putting out packets even though it wasn’t on. Unfortunately, I’d already tested the Playbar in that room without the optical cable attached, so that wasn’t the issue either.

HT - ‘Home Theatre’

If the Play:1 is standalone, then yes, I would choose to use that initially as the wired ‘root bridge’ device (set at least 1m away from the Primary Eero Hub), just  to take some network traffic away from the Playbar. That’s mostly applies to any other non-bonded Sonos devices. You can always wire the Playbar too, but make the Play:1 the root bridge in your matrix. You can change its priority, if required, to force it as ‘root bridge’, if you wire both, but just see how it goes.

Note as you change things around too, that what was not using channel 1 last night might be using channel 1 today, after you make a change to your configuration, so be mindful that eero is liable to do what it wants until things have been left to settle fully. 

If I had the ability to wire the Playbar, I would’ve done that long ago because then there would be no way interference would affect the speaker. I can only wire the Arc and a Play:1. But why would changing the root bridge make any difference? Seems like the Arc was working fine even when connected to the ethernet.

If the Sonos Arc processor is busy whilst playing Music, or the more demanding TV audio, then do you really want it also handling the SonosNet network traffic aswell to your Playbar and any other Sonos players, when a standalone Boost or Play:1 can do that instead? - It’s the reasons why I would have personally chosen to wire a Play:1 and have it set as the ‘root bridge’ instead, but it’s entirely up to you.

I would have just simply tried the things mentioned and (if necessary) put the Eero system into ‘bridged mode’ too, especially as Sonos Staff have suggested that Eero configuration in the past, in threads on this forum, but I guess it’s down to which router and configuration works best.

Given the same situation, I would have just tried these things anyway to see what worked best in my Home environment.

As I say it’s really up-to you how far you choose to go with the hardware you have.

My frustration with Sonos continues. I tried to reach tier 3 support, and the tier 1 rep put me on hold for 30 min then told me T3 had already gone home. I called at the only time I could, which was 730p PT (read: customer service hours). After 30 mins I said give me tier 2. He transferred me and then it was kicked back to the t1 rep. He said that since it’s now 8p P,  T2 reps had also gone home. Insane. He then refused to help me since I’d already spoken to T3 via email. My starting issue today was that all my devices went offline. I eventually fixed it by unplugging every device, but this rep was very antagonistic.

Back to my initial problem with the cutting out, the T1 rep said only my Arc and 300 surrounds were connected to SonosNet, not the sub in the same HT system or any of my other speakers. The reason was that the rest of my speakers are too far away. That’s odd since my place is only 1400 sq ft and the Arc is about halfway between all the rest of the speakers in the townhouse.

He told me that it’d be best if I wired my Playbar via my google mesh hub, which contradicts the advice above. I did it and it hasn’t cut out yet, but the matrix still shows heavy interference in the bedroom. I asked the rep how to know whether all the devices were on the SonosNet; he said only internal people have the ability to see that. Is that true? I thought the matrix showed it. And the “about” section in the app shows WM:0 for all devices other than surrounds. It does this when I have an Ethernet connected only to the Arc.Hard to troubleshoot if you can’t tell if some speakers are on the SN and others are not, especially when part of the goal is to change the channel to a clear one. 
 

I’m posting the current matrix, which has the Arc wired via router->google mesh-Arc, and the Playbar wired via Google mesh hub → Playbar.  No devices in the matrix are labeled root, but I’d think that’s what the Arc would be.
 

thoughts?

I would not rely entirely on the Sonos matrix for a clear view of what’s happening in your current setup. Modern Sonos devices don’t even report to the matrix any more, such as your Arc, it seems.

You mention using ‘Google’ hubs in your last post - did you mean Eero? I would not go back to using your Google WiFi, you will likely be better off using the Eero mesh instead and a ‘good rule of thumb’ is to never wire anything ‘Sonos’ to a WiFi mesh satellite hub, especially not a HT device as you can’t switch off their radio on most occasions …and you don’t want the network backhaul using SonosNet and slowing everything down if it’s due to go wirelessly via that satellite to the router, which ‘may’ sometimes happen in some circumstances.

If still using Google Mesh @Jonnydrama32, also note that the ‘Nest’ mesh system does not support ‘bridged AP’ mode with multiple hubs (it can only be done with one Hub only, apparently). I only mention that just in case you ever think you might try that setup with those hubs instead. So don’t waste your own time going down that route, although it is perhaps worth a try with the Eero mesh system if your issues do persist, but even in that case I would recommend not using your ISP routers WiFi adapters, so leave them disabled. 

All that said, I don’t see why the Eero mesh setup should not work for your Home and Sonos system here, if configured correctly.

This is where I’m confused. Why is T1 support telling me to connect directly from the Google Mesh hub but you’re saying don’t do that? I can’t connect directly from the Eero, as those hubs (other than the main one), don’t have ethernet ports.

I ended up going back to the Eero anyway, because when I moved over to Google Mesh, half my smart devices in the house wouldn’t reconnect.  The music is still cutting out on the Playbar, and even with the Arc wired, the rest of the house is showing up on wifi. And even when everything was on Sonosnet, the Matrix was showing poor signals in the bedroom still. The T1 rep said whether I wired or not, the interference would be in those areas and likely still cause issues.

I don’t know who’s right here, but I’m so frustrated with Sonos that I’m considering selling all my speakers and just switching over to another company. Customer service is everything and it seems like the lower tier is not properly trained and the upper tier is too hard to get in touch with. 

Another company is going to have the very same problems, unless you switch to non-wireless old school amps and speakers.

​I was merely suggesting that as your Eero Hubs have no Ethernet ports that if you wire your Playbar that you wire it to a small unmanaged switch linked back to the Primary Eero Hub (router). Also to use your Play:1 as the ‘root bridge’ (initial device) off that same switch - there was no mention earlier that you were still using your Google Nest Hubs, but even then I would not suggest you wire the PlayBar to a Satellite Hub for a variety of reasons, including the fact it may cause you network backhaul issues.

That said, it’s entirely your prerogative of course, to go with whatever advice you gather, but surely you have tried the things Support mentioned already and clearly things are still not working for you.

I personally would not use both Eero mesh and Google mesh together,  as you may just make matters worse, rather than better. Perhaps just use the Eero Hubs for now, as clearly you upgraded to those for good reason. 

I also mentioned earlier in the thread to only try the suggestions mentioned if you had no success with your T2 Support interaction. I suspect that’s still ongoing.

There are lots of suggestions in this thread that I still suspect you have not yet tried yourself and it seems unnecessary to ‘throw in the towel’ at this early stage, before trying the various things mentioned. 

As @jgatie mentions you will likely end up with the same issues anyway with a different brand of wireless speaker - I think you would just be wasting your money too and will be better off first resolving the issues that have been discussed here.