How do I stop my new Sonos One SL dropping off my controller?

Hi @scottyboi08 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I took a quick look at your recent diagnostics and it seems your Kitchen speaker (Sonos One) is connecting to your WiFi on 5GHz, whereas your other speakers are using 2.4GHz. This shouldn’t be a problem, but I think it points us in the right direction to look.

By far, the easiest fix would be to connect 1 Sonos device to the router with an ethernet cable - is your Beam close enough for this? If so, please try it out and see if it improves things in the Kitchen. Please note that you should keep your router 1m away from any WiFi devices.

You should also try rebooting your router by switching it off for at least 30 seconds - try this first.

Or try disabling 5 GHz in the router. Some routers can have difficulties bridging between the 2 bands.

Thanks for the response. No I wouldn’t say any of the devices could be permanently wired to the router. Maybe temporarily as a means to resolve the issue, but not permanently due to the layout of the house.
 

I’ve rebooted both the SL, and my router, prior to posting on here, and neither have fixed the issue.

I’m not sure how to do this, regarding the 5 GHz change. I’m quite good with tech, but admittedly not that good. So any assistance would be needed if I was to do anything like this moving forward.

You’d have to look in the routers manual how to deactivate 5 GHz. If you don’t have the manual a Google search may be helpful.

Is there a negative for doing this?

There shouldn’t be. 5 GHz is faster than 2 GHz but 2 GHz has better coverage than 5 GHz. I doubt you’ll note the difference. However, 5 GHz tend to be less exposed to wireless interference than 2 GHz.

That depends on your internet connection. If it’s 70 Mbps or less, you’re unlikely to notice the difference, unless you make a lot of use of screen mirroring to your TV, or something else bandwidth-heavy and local.

If you have 1 Gbps internet (lucky you) then 2.4 Ghz will provide you with less than 1/10th of that, so disabling 5GHz would limit your access speeds.

I have around 133mbps. Just ran a check.

So not sure if that will be heavily impacted.

Now as an update, the Sonos One SL is on my controller but the other two have completely dropped off. I just ran another diagnostic 1820905494. 
 

Just all over the place since I got the new SL last week.

Hi @scottyboi08 

Ok, so 2.4 Ghz will only give you half of your total internet speed. Any ethernet-connected devices will not be affected.

Unfortunately, the BT Smart Hub 2 doesn’t allow separation of bands - all you can do is disable one completely.

I recommend that you disable 5GHz temporarily, long enough to see if that’s what the actual issue is, and then decide what to do from there.

To disable 5GHz on BT Smart Hub 2 (it looks like that’s what you’ve got) please do the following:

1. Open http://192.168.1.254 - this is the configuration page for your router. You can open this on any browser, but I recommend using a screen bigger than a phone’s.
2. When you see the purple boxes, click on Wireless
3. At some point (perhaps not right now) you’ll be asked for a password to log in. This can be found on a sticker on the router, and is called the Admin or Settings password
4. You’ll see a page with details for 2.4 GHz and for 5 GHz. Turn off 5GHz only - there will be an on/off switch for it.
5. Save your changes.

Test for a day or two until you’re happy it’s better or have determined that it hasn’t helped. If it hasn’t helped, turn 5GHz back on again. If it has helped, but you’re not happy with the loss in speed, I recommend you get in touch with BT and see if they’ll swap the router for one that can split it’s bands (like a BT Hub 6). If they refuse, you’d be better off splashing out on a 3rd-party router instead anyway. Just don’t spend less than about £60.

Best of luck and if you’re unsure about anything, just ask!

My Sonos Beam and Play 1 will no longer return.

I even reset my beam, and the controller said it won’t appear in your system tab, but is connected? It plays sound from the TV through HDMI but I can’t adjust anything on the app other than the One SL. I’m not gonna lie I never thought buying another Sonos system would make me want to get rid of them all.

It’s infuriating. The 2.4ghz change was a mess, it was so slow. I couldn’t do anything, so had to change back to 5, too.

Hi @scottyboi08 

Thanks for trying.

Please don’t reset Sonos products without being advised to by Sonos technical support - it only helps in very specific circumstances and comes with an inherent risk. Often, you just end up with a worse situation, like not being able to add the speaker back on due to environment issues.

Speaking of environmental issues, what is within 1m of your Beam, other than the TV? On average, whenever your Beam transmits to your router it has to repeat itself 80% of the time. This is not good, and I can see it’s not due to a weak signal.

In addition, what is near the Living Room Play:1?

Edit: And in addition to that, what’s within 1m of your router?

The only things within 1m of my beam that’s a form of technology? It’s connected to my TV via hdmi. Then I’ve got my Sky box, and PS5 below the beam.

Then over the other side of the room is the play 1. That’s it?

As for the router, other than what I’ve just mentioned, it’s our bt landline phone. Then obviously when we’re sitting down we may have mobile phones and/or iPads with us.

I don’t know if these photos help. The clock photo and door of the router, is from the same standing spot, as is the tv photo, and the cabinet one (pretty much). Then I’ve shown you the router behind the door.

they’re not far apart at all.

See I would do that with the router, but it’s the only place I can plug in a router (crazy I know). So not really sure what to do with that. 
As for the beam and play 1, I don’t know what’s happened but for the last 2 days, they’re no longer on my controller, and can’t be added back, as they drop off the moment they do get added back on. So now the situation has almost reversed, and all I have is the new Sonos SL on the app, and none of my other two older systems, which never had an issue before the SL arrived. So I can’t play music from the beam anymore to run this test with the sky box.

@scottyboi08

I think you should get in touch with our technical support team as they can lead you through various real-time troubleshooting steps. As this new issue - highlighted in blue above - is currently undocumented on our knowledge bases, please make sure to mention the diagnosis when you get in touch. You will likely be referred to BT, however, because if the router is not behaving as expected anything could happen. I suspect your phone might be switching WiFi bands and can only “see” the devices on the same band as it at that time.

I was on the chat with Sonos all night last night. We got the beam and play 1 to appear again after endless reboots etc, but then it dropped off again within 5 mins and hasn’t returned since, again only leaving the SL. My controller can’t find them anymore. My BT hub shows the SL is on 5ghz and the other two are on 2.4. Not sure if that is the issue?

Anyway, they couldn’t solve it, so now I need to call the Sonos tech team. What time are they open til? I’ll do it tomorrow.

Also, BT are sending me out a disc to see if that sorts out the issue with the speakers, and will move my master socket on from the 21st for me.

We are open 9-5, Mon-Fri in the UK. It’s such a new problem that the agent you speak to might not be aware of it (though there was an internal email about it today) - if this seems to be the case, ask the agent to search for “System not Found on iOS with BT Smart Hub 2”

I’m glad to hear BT will take your router out from under the stairs - once we get past this router issue, that will help WiFi in general, I feel.

To be honest, I don’t think adding a extender disk will help in the slightest, but I guess we’ll have to let them go through their process.

What I don’t understand is the Beam and Play 1 have worked perfectly when we moved in June last year. Literally since I bought the SL 2 weeks ago, everything has gone to pieces.

So it’s not the internet, it’s the SL that I believe has caused it to become unstable. This is why I said could it be that the SL is on the 5ghz frequency, and that’s why I can’t see the 2.4 devices on my Sonos controller, because it’s thinking they’re on separate channels? The beam still projects sound through the TV, just can’t control volume via the app, only the remote.

The only issue with calling between 9-5, is you’re likely to ask me to reboot the internet etc, which doesn’t help when working from home now. So not sure how I can do tech support with you, if when I finish work, you’re no longer open to take the calls?

Update: I remembered that I turned my Sonos One SL off and have kept it turned off, and then turned off the beam and play 1 this morning, and booted them both back up, and now I’ve just checked my app after writing the prior message, and low and behold, they’re both back fine. So it is the SL that is doing something to cause an issue, as the other two work fine without it turned on?

The Sonos One is the only Sonos device you have that’s willing to connect to 5GHz, and that’s what it’s doing. This is why it’s only this speaker that’s affected (and your iPhone, because it’s doing the same). So, if your iPhone is connected to 5GHz, you’ll presumably only see the Sonos One in the Sonos app. If your iPhone is connected to 2.4 GHz, presumably you’ll only see the Play:1 and Beam. This is a new issue, however, so some of this is supposition on my part. Which frequency band your iPhone connects to will mostly be dictated by it’s distance from the router, objects in the way (like walls) and possibly where the last successful connection to WiFi was found.

Although this seems to be the router at fault, it seems Android devices are not affected in the same way by this BT Smart Hub 2 issue, which, to be honest, is pretty weird. Presumably, that’s why we want anyone affected to call in and create a case so we can get metrics and data on the situation.

Hi, I’ve been directed here from another thread.  Although my problem is different to the one above, disabling 5ghz on the BT router has solved the problem. Obviously I’m now having problems with speed. 
 

I would also like to add that country to the above comment my problem is also affecting android version of the app. 
 

hope this helps in some way. 

This whole thing is ridiculous really. I’ve paid £150 for a speaker that I now don’t want to use, because the moment I switch it on, it’s going to blow my whole system. So what do I do from here? It could be months, to years, before Sonos or BT solve this issue. I would’ve been better getting another Play 1 thinking about it...

Hi @scottyboi08 

I completely understand how you feel, and sympathise, but Sonos cannot take responsibility for changes to 3rd-party hardware, software, or firmware changes. As mentioned, Sonos makes use of your network in ways that many devices do not, therefore our systems often highlight network issues that other devices do not. This does not mean, however, that we are culpable for those issues.

I don’t like telling people to spend more money in any situation, but if you’re looking for the quickest solution to this problem I can only recommend you replace your ISP-provided-at-the-lowest-possible-cost router for a 3rd-party device that will be more reliable. As you’re with BT, you will either need an ADSL router or configure your new router to use your existing router’s internet connection but run the local network itself. A mesh system (which expands the reach of your WiFi) will also act as a router and will also suffice (but these are typically much more expensive). If you do purchase a router, I highly recommend spending at least £60 on it (from previous personal experience) and go for a known brand.

A slower option would be to wait to see what BT are going to do - I’d certainly contact them if you haven’t already as the more people who do, the more likely they are to action a fix.

Finally, disabling 5GHz on your router, or wiring any one Sonos product to ethernet should bypass the issue for now.