Hi @telosman33,
Sorry we forgot to tag you in the message above. Please reach out if you’ve encountered any dropouts recently. We have additional verbose logging enabled for your server to help us capture what’s happening. Thank you!
I’ve had a few dropouts, but the largest annoyance I currently have is when I start a new stream after the system has been idle - firstly, Roon takes a while to start playing my selection, and secondly, if it is in a group, I will hear different speakers starting to play, stop, then start playing again. By no means is it seamless. Also, I think I have noted this already, if I have my Living Room stereo pair of Play 5’s grouped with any of my other Sonos speakers, the stereo pair will occasionally drop a channel and then pick up in stereo a moment later. It is of enough annoyance that I have not been grouping my system as I would desire. Another noticed issue is when initially grouping speakers together - I may need to make more than one attempt.
Hi @telosman33,
A fresh Roon Server diagnostic report is showing a consistent pattern: when the Move 2 is grouped with the Kitchen Play:5 (or other speakers), Roon repeatedly detects a coordinator mismatch and fires unlink checks. This is the root cause of:
- Grouped speakers starting, stopping, then restarting when you initiate playback
- "Roon lost control" events
- Needing multiple attempts to form a group
With that, the logs show repeated FTMSI-B-OE: poor connection kbps:XXX (min:XXX) warnings, instances where the actual bandwidth to TIDAL is well below the minimum required. For example:
kbps:810 (min:2353)— connection at 34% of required speedkbps:949 (min:1073)— just below thresholdkbps:791 (min:2213)— severe
And lastly, [Living Room (S)] [zoneplayer/sonos] endstream, zp state: Disconnected is firing in pairs, consistently two rapid disconnects on the Living Room zone. This is the channel-drop behaviour you described. A stereo-bonded pair of Play:5/Five speakers works by having one act as coordinator and one as a satellite; when the satellite (the second Five at 192.168.18.3) momentarily drops off the SonosNet, Roon sees it as a disconnected zone, audio falls to mono, then the pair re-bonds. This is almost certainly a SonosNet coverage/interference issue near that speaker.
My apologies if this has already been suggested:
- In the Sonos app, go to System → (Move 2) → and disable "SonosNet" contribution if available, or ensure it always connects via WiFi rather than acting as a mesh node.
- Make sure the Move 2 is docked or on charge when you want to use it grouped, battery-mode behaviour changes its network role.
- In Roon Settings → Audio, try removing and re-adding the Move 2 endpoint, then test grouping again fresh. This resets Roon's stored coordinator state for that device.
For the slow start from idle / staggered group starts:
- Check if your router or ISP is doing any traffic shaping that throttles streams after idle periods. The poor-connection warnings cluster after quiet spells.
- In Roon Settings → Audio → (each Sonos zone) → Device Setup, look for a buffer size setting and increase it if available. More buffer = more tolerance for transient bandwidth dips.
- Consider switching TIDAL quality to High (AAC 320) rather than HiFi/Max for grouped zones — the required bandwidth is much lower, which eliminates most of the poor-connection warnings entirely. You can keep Max for single-zone critical listening.
- Check physical placement of both Living Room Fives; if one is near a microwave, baby monitor, or heavily used 2.4GHz WiFi channel, it'll drop intermittently.
- In the Sonos app, run a SonosNet diagnostic (System → System Diagnostics). This will show which speaker has the weakest mesh signal.
- If one Five is reaching the Boost or its mesh parent over a weak link, consider placing a Sonos device (Era 100, Port, etc.) closer to act as a relay.
- As a workaround, you can try using the Sonos Boost, make sure it's centrally placed to strengthen the mesh for the Living Room pair.
Hi @telosman33,
Just checking in on this, have you had a chance to try the Move 2 changes we mentioned, like keeping it on charge, making sure it is not contributing to SonosNet, and removing then re-adding that endpoint in Roon Settings to reset the grouping state? I also wanted to see whether the slow starts and the Living Room channel drops changed at all after checking buffer size, TIDAL quality, and the SonosNet coverage around the paired Fives. Let us know what you are seeing now, thanks.
MThank you for all the input on the root cause of my error and connection issues.
As for the suggestion of disabling “Sonosnet” on the Move 2 within its native app, the option does not exist. From a quick Google search:
“You cannot disable SonosNet on a Move 2 because the speaker does not support SonosNet. It is a purely Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-based portable speaker, meaning it connects only to your home Wi-Fi network rather than a proprietary Sonos mesh network.”
Any time the Move 2 is in the house, it is docked in the charging system at the far end of the kitchen/dining area to help fill in the sound. However, it is used (as intended) as a portable speaker off its base in a group mode when I’m wanting my music to expand outdoors (either for entertainment or working purposes), as I want the same source playing as we go from outdoors to inside.
When you mention “removing” the Move 2 in the Roon app, do you mean using the “disable” function under the “Audio” tab in the Roon Settings, then enabling it again? I have done that, but not noticing any perceived differences as of yet.
Within the Roon Settings / Audio / (each Sonos zone) / Device Setup, there is no option to change buffer size.
I have switched the Tidal quality from “Max” to “High” as of last evening, so do not have enough listening time to discern if there is an improvement. I do not see how the keep “Max” for a single zone setup as it seems like a universal setting. Please advise how I can separate it as you suggest.
The Living Room 5’s do not reside close to a microwave, but possible a 2.4GHz system used by our living room inverter on our heat pump system - that however is at the thermostat which is a good 15’ away.
The Living Room 5’s are within 20’ of our router to which the Sonos Boost is directly connected, so I can’t see the there would be a “weak link” in the mesh as you have mentioned.
Hope some of this helps in Roon continuing to improve how it controls Sonos, as I know there are a lot of Roon user in the community who are trying to do as I - use a superior music service to enjoy on a Sonos system instead of the anchor of an app Sonos supplies.
Thanks, Tom
Hi @telosman33,
Sorry to hear the above didn’t help. While we don’t have any additional troubleshooting steps to offer at this time, we’d be happy to take another look at a Roon Server diagnostic report if you’d like to share another example of when the issue occurs.
Hi @telosman33,
Have you tried limiting the devices or the entire WiFi network to the 5GHz band temporarily? It might offer improved stability during the handshake.
We’re going to keep this case open so we can continue to monitor how these speakers perform over time. We’d love to get this working with more stability in this space.