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Answered

Unable to connect to music library over Wi-Fi

  • 25 November 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 558 views
H
Recently I'm having trouble playing my iTunes music library over my Sonos Connect. Spotify (and I assume other streaming services) are working perfectly fine, but whenever I try to play a track from the library stored on the hard drive of my Mac I'm getting an 'unable to play [...] unable to connect [...] error'. I have tried re-adding my music library to Sonos, but this resulted in a 'computer is not responding' error and I was unable to re-add my music folder to the system.

The weird thing is that none of this happens when I use a wired ethernet connection on my router. This allowed me to re-add the library and play it, but whenever I switch over to Wi-Fi I'm getting errors again. I have the impression that all of this started happening after I had connected my Mac through ethernet for a Skype conversation (while I normally only use wireless). Could that have messed up the system somehow?

I'm using the Sonos Controller app on a Macbook Pro running macOS Sierra.
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Best answer by ratty 25 November 2016, 18:49

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4 replies

ratty
The weird thing is that none of this happens when I use a wired ethernet connection on my router.
Not weird at all really. Your wireless must surely be flaky, if you felt the need to use Ethernet for Skype. It sounds like that's why Sonos is having trouble accessing the library when the Mac's on WiFi.

Is the Sonos in 'BOOST Setup' (i.e. SonosNet mode) or is the CONNECT simply in 'Standard Setup', attached to your router's WiFi?
H
Thanks for your reply. I don't own any other Sonos products, so the CONNECT is directly connected to my router's WiFi using a 'Standard Setup'. It could be a problem with my wireless network, but I doubt it. Spotify is always streaming flawlessly and for a few weeks I didn't have any problems with playing my music library either.

The reason I was using a wired connection for Skype is that I was having a video call for a work meeting and wanted to be absolutely sure that I wouldn't have any hiccups.
ratty
Spotify is only 320kbps. Depending on whether you ripped CDs to iTunes in lossless format, the local bandwidth requirement could be 2-2.5Mbps since the stream would have to traverse the WiFi twice: from Mac to router, and from router to CONNECT. Also the Mac's location could be a factor.

Do you have a WiFi scanner app of any flavour? If you live in an urban setting there'll be competition from other WiFis and a scanner could guide you to a clearer channel.
H
Spotify is only 320kbps. Depending on whether you ripped CDs to iTunes in lossless format, the local bandwidth requirement could be 2-2.5Mbps since the stream would have to traverse the WiFi twice

Fair point, didn't think of that. The Wi-Fi environment is indeed very crowded here, so I switched the radio frequency to the channel that was suggested by the built-in scanner app of macOS. Didn't think that would work (as, according to the router firmware I already was on the least crowded channel), but when re-adding my music library Sonos was able to find it again.

So happy to be able to listen to my live bootleg recordings again. Many thanks for your help!

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