Question

Mysterious network

  • 17 October 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 153 views

I would be so grateful if anyone can help with this. I can’t be the only person who has experienced it but I can’t find any documentation or discussion on it. I have eight Sonos speakers in a pretty small house. My Wifi is excellent near all of them. Quite often, speakers disappear from the network. I have to unplug them and plug them back in again or sometimes hard reset them to get them back on. I can usually get them back but it’s random and it can take a lot of tries. But here’s the weird thing. Every once in a while, I will open the Sonos app on my phone and it’s showing only the speakers that I thought were missing! In other words, they don’t just fall offline. They disappear to some mysterious other network. (I don’t have any other Wifi network in my home. This is all on the same network.) My phone app (and always my laptop app) usually shows the “primary network” but every once in a while reveals the “other network.” That doesn’t help me. Ultimately I still need to get my phone back to the primary network and get all the speakers on that one. This happens often enough that it is really affecting my experience and wasting a ton of time. Anyone have any answers to help make sure this never happens again?!


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5 replies

How do you see this ‘other network? What is this other network’s name in relation to yours?

Without that comment, I’d say that you’re experiencing a duplicate IP address issue, but that wouldn’t show as a second network, but just occasional disconnects/not being able to see some or all speakers for a period of time. 

Thanks so much for jumping in! It is probably wrong for me to refer to these as first and second networks. It’s just one network. A speaker or a few speakers will disappear. I have to try to fetch them back. But, everyone once in a while, the app will suddenly connect to all the speakers that I thought were missing and none of the ones that were available. If I open and close the app a few times and maybe get off and on the Wifi network, it will go back to connecting to the available ones and the missing ones will be missing again. Ultimately, the problem is getting all of them to be available all the time. Was that any better? Duplicate IP address issue?

Let’s say more understandable by me, and leave the whole ‘better’ judgement out of it ;)

So, from inference, it’s likely one of two issues, either wifi interference , or indeed a duplicate IP address issue. So, beyond reading the FAQ I have linked, it certainly wouldn’t hurt for you to refresh the Sonos network by unplugging all Sonos devices from power, then performing a reboot of your router. In fact, before rebooting it, it may be wise to check to see if there is an update for it. After it recovers from the reboot, plug back in the Sonos devices. That should clear any possible duplicate IP address issues, if there are any, as well as a couple of other items that may be niggling. 

But it’s also worth reading the FAQ, and being aware of any potential issues there. 

I had a similar issue where the sub would randomly disconnect from Playbar.  Sonos support sent the name of the mysterious access point, Pagatron.  No such device on my Network.  Later discovered that Pagatron makes the components for IPhone.  One the IPhones on my network had always on hot spot.  I turned it off, connectivity issues disappeared.

I gave it a shot and was able to add the missing speakers again. The test will be to see whether speakers continue to disappear over the coming days and weeks (as they always seem to do). We’ll see. I really appreciate your help.