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Roam Unable to Play files, but the One can

  • 29 August 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 46 views
C

My general question is should I expect different speakers to be able to play more file formats, container types, etc than others?

My Setup

- Sonos One

- Sonos Roam

- Plex is serving audiobooks

- Initiating Audiobook/s through the Sonos app

My Issue

- I am working through all the Harry Potter books.

- Had no issue until I got to Book 3 & 4.

- When I try to play the Book on only the roam, I get an error "Unable to Play - Harry Potter.The co.. " or "Unable to Play Selected Item,  and skips until it hits a playable file.

- however, I am able to play on the roam if I start one the One first, then join the Roam in after play begins.

- If I deselect the One and play just on the roam, The playback will error out and skip until it hits a playable file.

- reviewing each file using mediainfo, the only real differences I'm seeing are title and length - codecs, formats, channels, compression, are all the same between playable and unplayable files.

Is there a place where I can access the logs these speakers may be generating? Or can someone suggest another troubleshooting technique?

 

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Best answer by Airgetlam 31 August 2022, 01:32

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5 replies

Airgetlam

Sonos does have logs, but most are inaccessible to us users. You’d need to submit a diagnostic, or several for them to compare, and then call Sonos Support directly to discuss the issue, and whatever data shows up in those diagnostics.

As an outside guess, I’d suspect some sort of minor wifi interference , just enough to mess with that speaker initiating the service, but not enough when it’s started from the other speaker. 

Bruce
J

All Sonos speakers will handle the same music fie formats, so I agree with Bruce that this is likely to be some form of comms glitch.  I assume your Roam is on your network, not using Bluetooth?

What happens if you place the Roam a bout a metre from your router?

 

Ken_Griffiths

@clstewar 
If the router has separate SSID’s for its 2.4Ghz/5Ghz WiFi adapters and the Roam is using the routers 5Ghz band, then maybe try it connected to the 2.4Ghz WiFi signal instead. See this link:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1061

If the Roam is operating on the 2.4Ghz band already, then maybe try a different WiFi channel using either channel 1, 6, or 11. See this link:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4769

C

@Airgetlam / @John B - Thank you for your reply and suggestion!  Originally I had the Sonos a room and a hallway away from the AP - roughly 30/40 feet.  After moving the Roam to under the AP - roughly 5 feet- I am still getting the array of errors.

@Ken_Griffiths - Thank you for your suggestions as well!  My apologies for the delayed response, your array of tests took some time - but are much appreciated!  My nominal operating conditions (before starting this thread) was 5Ghz, at 20 MHz width, CH6, using 802.11ac/WiFi 5. I went through and toggled the channel width and moved it over to 2.4 - along with selecting the different channels you suggested - and I’m still getting the array of errors.

To be completed honest, I’m not sure this is a network issue.  I’m confused why I’m consistently able to play the same files while also consistently getting errors on other files - only on the roam

Not sure if this’ll help, here’s the mediainfo both a playable and unplayable file.  When I can get the unplayable file to play on the Roam - under the conditions noted in the original post - it’s served as a Direct Play from plex with an AAC Format.

Any either suggestions are much appreciated!!

Airgetlam

The “software” running on both speakers is the same, so I can’t think of any reason why one would be able to play a track, and the other not, other than some network issue. But you’re also showing two different files, so I’m not 100% sure I know that both speakers work for the “playable” version, and both don’t work for the “unplayable” version, or if there’s a difference between the Sonos One and the Sonos Roam. 

What I’d actually suggest at this point is trying to play the track from each device, and within 10 minutes of doing so, submit a diagnostic to Sonos, so that they can look at the data in the diagnostic to figure out what’s going on. 

Of course, once you submit that diagnostic, you’d need to call Sonos Support directly to discuss it.

On looking at your attachment, I do see considerable differences between the length of the two files, and bit rates, the latter which could be a problem, but the former shouldn’t. However, the fact that the bitrate seems lower on the unplayable one doesn’t make sense to me. But I’m not an expert on this, and I think the data in that diagnostic would be much more telling….it’s a shame it’s not available to non-Sonos employees. 

Bruce
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