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Speakers dropping off/inconsistent


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I have six Sonos Play 1 speakers, with an Orbi router and one Orbi satellite. All speakers are wireless.

Lately, I've had issues with some speakers (rooms) not being available depending on whether I'm looking at my PC, my iPhone, or my Ipad. It's not consistent from device to device. All are using the same wireless SSID. Sometimes the iPhone app indicates I'm on the wireless network, but it can't find the Sonos speakers on it. Sometimes 1 speaker shows up.

Also, when I go into the web-based admin setup for the Orbi, the device lists indicates that all Sonos speakers are "wired" devices; they are not.

Because I can't set IP addresses for each speaker, I'm relying to Sonos to do some magic with a combination of the speakers themselves and the app (on my phone or iPad which are inconsistent) and have become frustrated trying to troubleshoot where the problem is.

I've not yet connected my Playbar for fear of becoming all the more frustrated with the process. I love the speakers, but I don't love the setup process. Can someone point me in the right direction to get this tested and set up properly?

Any help is really appreciated.
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Best answer by ratty 28 May 2019, 14:52

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Sonos units is so-called "wireless mode", i.e. connecting to the existing WiFi, don't always work well with a meshed WiFi setup. It can sometimes help if all the mesh WiFi nodes are set to the same channel.

To be honest you're likely to get much more reliable performance by wiring a Sonos unit to the main Orbi node, which will put the system onto its own SonosNet wireless mesh. If it's not convenient to wire a player then wire a Boost.
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ratty, this worked perfectly! One wired and six (now) wireless.

Thanks for the tip. I don't understand how Sonos works behind the scenes, and don't understand why all of my speakers show as "wired" on my orbi router's web interface, but I also don't care. My Sonos system is working! Thanks so much!
They show as "wired" due to the fact that you connected one device to the router hub. So the rest are now on SonosNet, rather than your own network, and consequently are considered "wired" by the software. It's the recommended setup for any mesh network LAN.

And frankly, while I'm not a member of the mesh network LAN folks, I use a BOOST to keep my 16 or 17 speakers connected, as i prefer to reserve my wifi bandwidth for other devices.
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Actually, they all showed as wired before I connected the one with a LAN cable. That’s part of why I was so confused...
Huh. That confuses me, too. That's not supposed to be, unless you've got something (speaker, BRIDGE, BOOST) wired to your system with an ethernet cable. Makes me wonder if they were in a weird state. There's never a bad time to do a simple reboot of your system, by unplugging them from power for a minute, and plugging them back in 🙂
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It gets even weirder when you realize I reset each speaker to out of the box condition when I set up the entire system again...
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Bad idea to reset all units. Should only hard reset one and only if you have other working ones.
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I have a Orbi mesh network too. One primary router and one sub.  It has worked great until yesterday.   I have two sonos play:5, four sonos ones gen 2, Sonos Amp (drives outdoor speakers) and Onkyo Amp.  Yesterday I was playing music on all speakers, the sonos speakers are all wireless IP, and all the music stopped on everything.   I go to the Sonos App on my PC and Sonos App on IPHONE.   Every IP speaker disappeared (total of 6) and I have not been able to add them back.

My first questions is what happened?  My network is solid and it is strange I lost all my speakers at once.

My second question is how do I get them all back on line, I have not had any luck in looking for a missing equipment or reinstalling

I have rebooted my network.  Everything else is working great on my mesh network on both frequency.   And yes, I have noticed that all my wireless speakers listed on the Orbi are listed as wired.

 

Help.   I am about to pack everything and return it.

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@Sykes18 Hi there, thanks for reaching out. With mesh network wireless systems like Orbi, it can help to do a couple things to increase stability for Sonos speakers. First, it’s a good idea to make sure each of your Orbi access points are running on the same wireless channel. If your Orbi system uses different wireless channels for its access points, your Sonos speakers may have a hard time staying in communication and in sync.

 

Another option is to wire in one of your Sonos speakers to the Orbi hub using an ethernet cable. This allows the Sonos system to build its own mesh network that is separate from your Orbi network, allowing Sonos to stay better connected. If it’s not convenient to wire in a speaker to the Orbi hub, a Boost is a great option to wire in instead;

Hi i am having problems open app and sometimes says cant find system, then close app open and some speakers pop up turn hub off and on and sometimes more appear? just carried out diagnostic report number is 1053073225 runs on Virgin hub 3 

 

thanks