Speakers dissappearing intermittently

  • 16 July 2021
  • 5 replies
  • 97 views
D

My whole system seems to be failing and its making me feel like giving up on sonos altogether.

I have 5 x 1, beam, play 3, play 5 and a move. Up until about 3 weeks ago its been running prefect for the last couple of years. Although lots of problems before that.

All of a sudden a few speakers disappeared and I couldn't play them. Some just couldn't be found and others were there and said they were playing but no sound. Others were being found but they wouldn't connect.

I tried to reinstall the play 5, 3 and one of the 1's as it was the system in my kitchen dining room that I was having the most problems with. they started to be found before they disappeared again. I turned my wi fi on and off a few times and that seemed to help before they started to drop out again. The kitchen has a wi fi extender but I have previously set up a separate channel for them after problems in the past but I'm not sure how to check if they are still on a sonos net channel or not.

Someone please help. 

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5 replies

Airgetlam

Several things here. First, please stop “reinstalling”, it’s not likely to be very helpful in resolving the issue. And that includes doing factory resets…..generally speaking, that’s a bad idea unless told to do so by Sonos folks. 

It’s hard to tell from your post, but making sure that all Sonos devices are unplugged while rebooting the router is important. If they’re still plugged in, they’d be holding on to potential bad IP addresses. If you know how, I’d certainly recommend setting up reserved IP addresses in your router’s DHCP table, but if that’s too difficult, merely unplugging all Sonos devices while rebooting the router does effectively the same thing, albeit with the potential for eventual recurrence. 

Wifi extenders, depending on how they’re set up, can be problematic for Sonos, as sometimes they split the system into separate subnets. And that could have changed without your express knowledge by an update to your router/extender, and you’re just seeing the result. Most often in these cases, I suggest moving to a “wired” system, by directly wiring an ethernet cable to a single Sonos device, to your base router, and not the extender. Certainly at least as a test, this would help. If you end up not having a device close enough to the router to have wired permanently, well, that’s why Sonos sells the BOOST. Which I use, because none of my speakers are close enough for wiring. 

Since it’s not really clear from your post, WM:0 is what each speaker reflects in the “about your system” report if it’s on SonosNet. WM:1 is if it is on wifi. 

As discussed in the wifi interference FAQ, you should be making sure that your router is not channel hopping (absolutely not on “Auto” for channel selection) and that your SonosNet channel should be at least 5 away from the channel your wifi itself is using, since both of them are radio signals, and can conflict.

Finally, if you continue to have issues, I’d encourage you to submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

Bruce
controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

What router? (Hopefully not  BT Smart Hub or SkyQ).

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
D

Hi there, thanks very much for this. I will have a look in to everything you say and get back to you. I do have a router hard wired to my Beam but I also wonder if my talk talk router is having problems right now as I've needed to switch it on and off a couple of times. It makes sense that it's jumping about. Hopefully some of what you say will help. Thanks

D

So I've discovered that there might be a problem with my router and its dropping in and out which may be causing the speakers problems. I've switched them all of before re starting the router and that seems to gangs helped and I've been in touch with talk talk and I'm trying to get the router fixed. There's still the problem with my move as it's not connected to the sonos net which the rest are. The move says its playing but there's no music coming through. Any ideas about that part of the problem? Thanks for the help so far by the way! 

Ken_Griffiths

Hi there, thanks very much for this. I will have a look in to everything you say and get back to you. I do have a router hard wired to my Beam but I also wonder if my talk talk router is having problems right now as I've needed to switch it on and off a couple of times. It makes sense that it's jumping about. Hopefully some of what you say will help. Thanks

Are there two routers in your setup or is the Beam wired direct to the TalkTalk Router? The post quoted above is just slightly confusing?

Also…

  • What WiFi ‘channels’ and ‘bands’ are in use on the TalkTalk router?
  • What is the SonosNet channel set to in the Sonos App network settings?

  • You mention you are using a separate WiFi access point - is this a ‘wired’ or ‘wireless’ access point back to the TalkTalk router, or a WiFi repeater?

  • You mention the AP uses different SSID’s, so is it operating a completely separate subnet compared to your primary router, or is it just another WiFi adapter on the primary LAN subnet?

  • Does your mobile controller App auto-switch its own wireless network connection between the router WiFi and the Access point WiFi?

  • Are both the Routers WiFi Network and the Access Point WiFi network stored in your Sonos controller App in ‘Settings/System/Network/Networks’?

Sorry for coming back to you with so many questions here, but your posts need to clarify your current network setup, at least in some detail, otherwise I strongly suspect you may just end up running into further network connection issues a little further down the road.

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