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Ungrouping issue

B
Every day another problem with Sonos. My Sonos one pair have to to be re-paired with the Playbar every morning in order to hear TV sound from them. I want them to be slave speakers to the TV and Playbar. Why is that so difficult to accomplish? This morning it again shows one Sonos one speaker ungrouped...again. Why? Nothing changed since last evening, except for turning off the TV.
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Best answer by Airgetlam 27 May 2019, 00:35

When you say "slave", do you mean "playing exactly the same sound as the TV (two rooms grouped)" as opposed to "being surround speakers in a 5.1 style setup"?

If it's the former, you may want to turn off the autogrouping function on autoplay in the room settings for your PLAYBAR, which would un-group the speakers every time you turned on the TV.

If it's the latter, there's something odd going on, and I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this issue, and either post the number here, or contact Sonos Support to discuss it. I tend to suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available, but are only available during business hours. Both the Twitter and Facebook support folks are available 24/7.

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

In the grand scheme of things, adding a BOOST would only deal with issues with the speakers connecting to your wifi. If your speakers are set up as surround speakers, they actually connect to the PLAYBAR and not your wifi, across a 5Ghz network, and only the PLAYBAR would be using either SonosNet or your own wifi.
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5 replies

Stwilliams
Badge +3
Bruce,
Yes, I first had my Beam connected to my router but after switching the router out I had issues which I thought would be resolved by adding a Boost. If you look at the Network matrix from the /support/review page it's easy to follow the connections: Boost (root), Beam (secondary node) and other bonded devices (tertiary node). I'm starting to learn about finer details of the Sonos architecture.
+Boost +Beam +Play:1(surrounds) +Sub +Port
Airgetlam
It's a slightly odd situation. in the case of a sound bar (PLAYBAR, PLAYBASE, and Beam), the bonded devices (SUB and surrounds) all talk to it on a 5Ghz channel. This is the same with the SUB when it's bonded to any speaker, I think....

It's the "master" device that connects to the 2.4ghz channel. Any "slave" devices connect directly to that "master" device on an unseen 5Ghz channel.

This fact tends to confuse some people into thinking that they can connect to the 5Ghz channel on their router, which is not the case. The main streaming of music is always on a 2.4Ghz channel, either your own wifi, or a SonosNet signal if you're in a "wired" setup.

I'd have to take the assumption that you were having some sort of wifi issue that adding the BOOST resolved (which would, for instance, put you on SonosNet, which might have been a different channel than your normal connection to the Beam) fixed, that allowed the software on the Beam communicate properly to the internet in order to allow the SUB to connect. In general, a BOOST has nothing to do whatsover to do with a connection between a SUB and any Sonos speaker. So I'm thinking it cleared up some interference between your Beam and the outside world, and allowed the process to be fixed.

And no, generally speaking, Sonos doesn't make this knowledge available. They don't hide it, but they don't advertise it either. 🙂 It's completely understandable that you might think that a SUB connects on a 2.4Ghz signal.

It's also one of the reasons that when you're having an issue with a SUB in a connection with a Sonos soundbar, one of the things they recommend is looking around the soundbar for anything that might be generating a 5Ghz signal as a disruption.

There. More reading than you wanted to do on a Sunday!
Bruce
Stwilliams
Badge +3
Bruce,
Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't aware that only the Playbar (Beam) spoke directly to the network. It seemed adding the Boost did finally allow me to connect my Sub back to my system.
+Boost +Beam +Play:1(surrounds) +Sub +Port
Airgetlam
When you say "slave", do you mean "playing exactly the same sound as the TV (two rooms grouped)" as opposed to "being surround speakers in a 5.1 style setup"?

If it's the former, you may want to turn off the autogrouping function on autoplay in the room settings for your PLAYBAR, which would un-group the speakers every time you turned on the TV.

If it's the latter, there's something odd going on, and I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this issue, and either post the number here, or contact Sonos Support to discuss it. I tend to suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available, but are only available during business hours. Both the Twitter and Facebook support folks are available 24/7.

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

In the grand scheme of things, adding a BOOST would only deal with issues with the speakers connecting to your wifi. If your speakers are set up as surround speakers, they actually connect to the PLAYBAR and not your wifi, across a 5Ghz network, and only the PLAYBAR would be using either SonosNet or your own wifi.
Bruce
Stwilliams
Badge +3
Try adding a boost to the system. It made my system stable.
+Boost +Beam +Play:1(surrounds) +Sub +Port

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