Does the issue happen with local library music, streaming service music, or both?
· *Both streaming and local* *library* music are affected.
Do you encounter any playback errors with the "System Output" Zone?
· The System Output has *no problem*, it's only my other Zone.
How is the affected Zone connected to your RoonServer machine?
· Network - Ethernet
Which network audio protocol is the Zone using with Roon?
· Sonos
Does the device show up at all in Roon Settings -> Audio?
· The Zone is listed under the wrong protocol
Does the device play audio from another source when using the same connection?
· The device has no problems with another audio source
Have you checked that Roon is whitelisted in any firewalls?
· I've checked the firewall and the issue remains
Is the device using the latest firmware as per the manufacturer?
· Firmware is up-to-date but the issue remains
Do you have an approximate timestamp of when the issue last occurred?
· between 930-11am eastern. songs "The New Stuff" "My Heart Your Heart"
What are the make and model of the affected audio device(s) and the connection type?
· Sonos Port connected via ethernet (not using airplay)
Describe the issue
Sonos Port. I am using the sonos (not airplay) mode to send audio. Very frequently whole tracks will just skip and not play. Additionally sometimes a track will start partway through the song instead of at the beginning. Also pausing and unpausing has unpredictable results often.
Describe your network setup
everything is connected via gigabit ethernet. Ubiquiti Dream Machine is the router
Welcome to the forum and thanks for reaching out! We activated diagnostics mode for your account and it looks like there are a few interesting errors in the logging. It looks like when the issue happens, there is a network instability event and the connection briefly drops and then reconnects to the Sonos. Are you having issues on any other zones, or is it just the Sonos? Does Airplay output to the Sonos device also reproduce the behavior?
Interesting. I will need to test the airplay and report back as I don’t use airplay. Some days I have no issues, and others it happens with everything I try to listen to. I only experience issues like this with Sonos devices on my network. Playing Roon through my computer or phone does not have this issue. The computer i was also playing from (not my roon server) is in the same room, and same switch as the Sonos device I was having the issue with today.
Airplay does indeed seem to be more stable. Unfortunately I don’t intend to use airplay because of the lower quality output and I have some Sonos devices that don’t support airplay. What else can be done to make the native Sonos streaming more reliable from roon?
Today I was noticing some issues pausing and unpausing music while using the airplay to the sonos. There would be a delay of 1 to many seconds before the action would take place after clicking the button.
Glad to hear airplay is a bit more stable - good to have as a backup just in case!
Does this issue occur based on specific file formats? If possible, try switching the stream quality (for example, from Hi-Res to standard lossless) to see if that avoids the buffer mismatch.
Can you simplify your network chain, and get your Sono devices a more direct connection to your primary router, as well as your Roon Server machine?
I typically don’t mess with what formatsare playing but I do believe primarily things are playing as flac both from my local library and Tidal. I can test using different formats to see if it makes a difference.
There’s only 1-2 hops between the sonos in my office and the router, and the server is already plugged directly into an open port on the router. It won’t be easy currently to change the wired connection to the sonos but I do not experience any other network issues at the same location, and I work from home and heavily use my network and multiple computers all day.
Thank you for your. Diagnostics are particularly illuminating here, and there’s good and bad news after scouring Roon logs:
First, we don’t see any unnatural stoppage events with the Sonos Port. There are no firmware issues or format-related failures and the endpoint plays all the content it receives, buffering everything as expected.
However, RoonServer is logging interference during track downloads from Tidal, and also when distributing content to the Sonos Port Zone across the WiFi. The former is largely irrelevant because RoonServer recovers in time, but when the Port has to request missing samples from RoonServer, it adds additional buffering time. This causes a delay between tracks as the next track in the queue isn’t ready to play after the first track has concluded; it’s not fully buffered yet.
This leads us to the third issue, which is exacerbating issue 2):
When there’s no audio stream playing on the Sonos POrt in the aforementioned situation, the device sometimes expires from the network due to inactivity. RoonServer has to re-identify the device and pair with it again to resume playback, requiring you to manually hit play again, and possibly losing the position in the queue.
We recommend navigating to your router settings and checking if there is an setting related to UPnP Timers. Increase the time allotted slightly above the default - also increase the advertisement time to live, if available.
1-2 hops across a mesh network can be a significant distance for multicast traffic in a congested network, particularly if there are managed network components that restrict this type of traffic. The physical layer won’t always allow you to easily reconstruct the network with a wired connection all the way to the endpoint - however, the more ethernet you can add in place of WiFi, the better. We recommend also restricting the network to the 2.4 instead of both the 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands.
Hello, Thank you for the information. I’m not sure I was clear enough previously but my entire home is hardwired gigabit ethernet. While I have wifi, all of the hardware in discussion here is connected via ethernet. The roon server directly into the router, and the Sonos Port directly connected via ethernet, going through 2 switches before hitting the router. Wifi is disabled on the Port.
Now knowing that I am connected via ethernet (which is stable as I use the same ethernet connection with multiple computers all day) are there any alternative suggestions?
I just had this happen where a song just completely skipped playing in the queue. The song is in my local library and in MP3 format. So I have seen this with both flac and mp3 formats. And both with tidal and local sources.
The system is trying to process more audio data than the buffer can hold.
count > audiobuf.ByteBuffer.Length suggests an incorrect calculation of how much data should be processed. These functions handle FLAC encoding for Sonos playback. The error occurs while encoding frames, likely due to an incorrect assumption about available buffer size.
Bypass the switches if this hasn’t been tested yet (and my apologies if you have, and I’ve glazed over this!)
See if you reproduce the same issue with a simplified network setup, and a direct ethernet connection with the Sonos port to your primary router.
