System will not switch to wired mode

  • 19 October 2021
  • 21 replies
  • 1235 views
M
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I have four fixed speakers and a Roam. The wi-fi in the house is a mesh network (BT WholeHome). In wireless mode I suffer frequent audio cut-outs with the message “your wi-fi network is unstable”.

To fix this, I switched to wired mode by plugging ethernet from my router into one speaker. For a while this worked much better, but today I noticed that all my speakers except the one directly connected to the router are back in wireless mode (appear as WM: 1 in ‘about my system’). I have tried rebooting all the speakers, the router, and removing and then plugging back in the ethernet connection but the speakers will not switch to wired mode. The speaker connected via ethernet shows as WM: 0. 

(I realise that the Roam will have to stay in wireless mode)

21 replies

ratty

You didn’t by any chance ‘disable WiFi’ on the wired speaker did you? That disables SonosNet.

M
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Nope - WiFi is enabled on all the speakers.

ratty

Are you able to move the Roam onto the BT 5GHz signal? That’s assuming you can split the bands of course.  

James L.
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Hi @mgriffiths,

 

Feel free to submit a system diagnostic and reply with the confirmation number here so I can take a look at how your system is connecting.

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M
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Diagnostic submitted: 483862979

M
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Are you able to move the Roam onto the BT 5GHz signal? That’s assuming you can split the bands of course.  

Not sure how to do that. 

 

Everything was previously working fine with the fixed speakers on Sonosnet and the Roam on wireless mode.

ratty

It happens that players can get stuck on WiFi (WM:1), despite there being a wired device, especially if the SSID is a 2.4GHz one. They’re meant to fall back to WiFi if the SonosNet signal is weak. See what @James L. says anyhow.

M
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It happens that players can get stuck on WiFi (WM:1), despite there being a wired device, especially if the SSID is a 2.4GHz one. See what @James L. says.

Have checked and the WholeHome discs are all on 5 GHz (channel 36)

James L.
Badge +17

  

Diagnostic submitted: 483862979

Thanks!

 

So, it seems like there’s a mismatch in wireless channels between the wired and wireless players, which may be preventing the wireless units from jumping onto SonosNet. You can try to resolve this by changing the Sonosnet channel in the app to 11 (Settings → System → Networks → SonosNet Channel: 11), then rebooting the wired player to get it going again. If there’s still no change, reboot the wireless players and leave them for 5 minutes or so.

 

I must say, the players that are connecting to WiFi have excellent signals, possibly better than they’d receive via SonosNet. Your One SL is actually connecting to 5GHz, something that wouldn’t be possible if it was receiving a weak signal.

 

I should also note, I didn’t see a Roam in this diagnostic (perhaps it was powered off at the time of submission) but Roam cannot connect to SonosNet anyway, so it’s not super important in this case.

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M
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Thanks James.

 

The Sonosnet channel already was on 11 in settings. I can try rebooting the wired speaker again and see what happens…

 

That’s good to know about the connections, but unfortunately i am experiencing frequent frustrating interruptions to audio (stops playing, skips tracks) with the “Your WiFi network is unstable” message appearing. I’m also often finding speakers dropping off the app all together.

 

The Roam was indeed powered off.

 

M
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Rebooting the wired speaker and one wireless one doesn’t seem to have had any effect.

James L.
Badge +17

Rebooting the wired speaker and one wireless one doesn’t seem to have had any effect.

Try switching the SonosNet channel to 1, wait 30 seconds then switch it back to 11.

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M
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Rebooting the wired speaker and one wireless one doesn’t seem to have had any effect.

Try switching the SonosNet channel to 1, wait 30 seconds then switch it back to 11.

Shortly after switching to channel 1, I had one of the regular audio cut-outs. Then switched back to 11 and two of the speakers had gone into wired mode, but the third one (the One SL) dropped off the app entirely and I had to find it again. Now it appears they are all in wired mode! Hopefully this will fix my instability issues… thanks for your help.

 

James L.
Badge +17

Rebooting the wired speaker and one wireless one doesn’t seem to have had any effect.

Try switching the SonosNet channel to 1, wait 30 seconds then switch it back to 11.

Shortly after switching to channel 1, I had one of the regular audio cut-outs. Then switched back to 11 and two of the speakers had gone into wired mode, but the third one (the One SL) dropped off the app entirely and I had to find it again. Now it appears they are all in wired mode! Hopefully this will fix my instability issues… thanks for your help.

 

Good to know! 

I would expect a small audio dropout if music was playing at the time of the channel change since the players may briefly lose connection to make that switch.

Do let us know how you get on, and it you continue to experience dropouts frequently, another diagnostic would help :slight_smile:

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M
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Now it has stopped playing entirely, and all the information on all the speakers except the Ethernet-connected one has disappeared from ‘About my system’. 

Diagnostic: 1471362889

James L.
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Now it has stopped playing entirely, and all the information on all the speakers except the Ethernet-connected one has disappeared from ‘About my system’. 

Diagnostic: 1471362889

Yeah, I can see.

 

There’s a massive amount of dropped packets between the players before the complete disconnection (>90%) which means over 90% of the information being sent between the players is being lost. I suggest getting in touch with our customer care team via phone, as they can work with you live to get your players reconnected and hopefully operating smoothly again. You can mention this Community thread, as well as that I’ve sent you there so they can get all the information needed.

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ratty

Make sure the wired Sonos unit is a decent distance -- at least 50cm -- from any other wireless device.

M
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Make sure the wired Sonos unit is a decent distance -- at least 50cm -- from any other wireless device.

Thanks - no problems in that respect.

M
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I spoke to customer support and was asked to turn off the mesh network and then reboot all the speakers. This put everything back into wired mode and working. But when I switched the mesh network back on, I lost all the speakers from the app again. They eventually came back but my audio has just been interrupted again.

Diagnostic: 1187430569

C

Have you tried removing the wifi credentials? https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3488?language=en_US

I must admit that I’m not familiar with the Roam so maybe it is not possible to remove the wifi credentials from the system and keep only the Roam on wifi…

ratty

You can't remove the WiFi credentials if there's Roam or Move in the system. 

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