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Help with sub connecting to “Room”


Greetings all,

I have been trying to figure out why my Subs will not connect to the playbars in my rooms.  I have two subs and two playbar that used to all work.  I moved and had to set it up with a new router.  Playbars, plays 5, play ones all work wireless.  When I try to set up the subs.. I can detect it set it up, but adding it to a room with a playbars it fails.  It gives an error about unable to find sub.  If I factory reset and add it to a room without any devices, I can add the sub, but it comes up as unassigned.   When I assign it to a room, it fails again.  If I do it directly, plug it into Ethernet, it works fine.  It updated, and when I unplug it, the sub disappears.  I then retried again after the update, and no luck.  Same error when adding it to a room. Help?  Any ideas?

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Best answer by ratty 5 April 2021, 17:56

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15 replies

Hi.  Are your Playbars connected by Ethernet or wirelessly?  Are the Play:5s and Ones connected as surrounds or are they standalone?

Is your router dual band?  Does it have separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5 GHz?

Is any Sonos device connected by Ethernet to your router?

What type of network do you have?  Mesh or traditional?  Any access points, extenders?

All my Sonos Devices are set up through wireless without any issues.  I have AP’s broadcasting on 2.4 and 5 on different SSID.  It’s a traditional network.   I don’t think it’s a wireless issue as I am able to detect and add the sub wirelessly.  My issue happens when I try to connect it to a room/playbar.   

Some routers don’t get along with Sonos home theatre satellites when the system is in ‘wireless’ mode (i.e. using the router’s WiFi). It’s not Sonos’ fault; the router doesn’t correctly interpret the IP request when the satellite is connected indirectly through the HT master.

Adding the Sub to the system would therefore work, because at that stage it’s talking directly to the router’s WiFi. It’s when it’s being bonded to the Playbar that problems would arise.

The obvious workaround is to wire a Sonos component and run the system on SonosNet. If it’s not convenient to wire one of the players then add a Boost.

I was about to suggest the same thing - I see you have a Play:3.  That would do to test.  Leave it a minute or two to reconfigure and check in About My System that all but your Move have WM=0 not WM=1 next to them.

@ratty .  According to profile these are gen 3 Subs.  Is it possible that if these connect via the router’s 5GHz radio it is then no longer free to make the direct bonding connection to the Playbar?  It seems unlikely, but just wondered…..

@ratty .  According to profile these are gen 3 Subs.  Is it possible that if these connect via the router’s 5GHz radio it is then no longer free to make the direct bonding connection to the Playbar?  It seems unlikely, but just wondered…..

Good question. No, the Sub should simply be instructed -- by whatever means -- to transfer its allegiance to the HT master. After that the Sub’s L2 comms would presumably use the HT master’s MAC as destination.

Unfortunately there’s no easy way to wire one component.  Would there be a reason why I can add sonos one for home theatre set and not the sub?  It worked until Sonos replaced my play at because it was making a buzzing noise.  I have a sonos bridge but I was hoping I wouldn’t need to get a boost. :(.   I have service through ATT and use their router but have to Rukus AP connected. 

If the surrounds added okay then it’s not a router IP problem. 

However there are umpteen reports of problems with Ruckus kit not correctly handling multicast traffic. Can you use a different WiFi as an experiment?

I actually can.  I’ll connect directly to the ATT wireless router instead of the ruckus APs.  Be back with results in a few.

You only need to wire something for a few minutes to test (but don’t wire a Sub or surround).  You can’t use the Bridge as it is not compatible with S2.

Edit - pls ignore until a different wifi tried.  You will need to reboot all your Sonos stuff to get the new IPs, I imagine.

It didn’t work, however I am not sure if the playbar switched to the new network properly.  The signal isn’t very strong there.  I google ruckus AP and saw people with some issues but I am just dumbfounded why it worked for a little bit.  

Sorry to labour this, but I think it’s really worth moving a speaker close enough to the router to wire it temporarily, so as to shift everything onto SonosNet rather than WiFi.

Hi John,

I moved the Sub and connect it directly to my router. It created the sonos net and it it comes up.  l am on the phone with tech support to figure out why I can’t connect my subs to any of my wireless networks.

That’s okay as a temporary test, but having a Sub or surround as the only wired device will lead to intermittent problems, which is why @John B said you shouldn’t.

  1. The wireless connection to home theatre satellites fluctuates from time to time, as it changes channel.
  2. Loading the satellite connection with internet traffic could impact latency, causing the satellite to drop.

 

BTW, if you can wire the Sub surely you could wire a Boost instead? It could be hidden out of the way.

Thanks all for your help.  I ended up paying for the boost… everything hooked up without any issues.  The issue was first the ruckus APs and multi casting, sonos support couldn’t explain why a separate wireless router had the same issue.  In the light of the time I spent trying to figure it out thought it would just be easier to add a Boost.