Using Roon with Sonos does not work consistently. Speakers regularly drop off. Speakers will drop off and come back randomly. I have tried wired and wireless Sonos configurations. I have used Sonos for at least 15 years and it has been reliable until around 6 months ago when used with Roon. I am aware they are having major software issues. In short, Roon and Sonos is very unreliable. Roon with my Blusound Node 2i is solid. Some additional, less serious issues. If I watch TV which is connected to a Sonos Beam, the volume remains on TV setting vice using Roon setting after turning off the TV and going back to Roon music. This can be fixed by clicking on the volume in Roon, but this would be nice to fix. The Roon speaker volume setting shows correctly, but it is actually the last TV level that actually plays. Sonos alarm speaker grouping is affected if you use Roon. The speakers show up and look fine, but typically only one of three speakers will work and which one appears to be random.
Describe your network setup
I have an Orbi mesh network. It has been solid and I have a high speed connection. The Sonos - Roon combination is the problem. I have Roon server on an iMac Intel I9 with lots of RAM. For Sonos I have a Beam with two Play 3 speakers as surrounds and a Sonos subwoofer. I have a three Play 1's and a Move. (I typically don't use the Move because it makes connections even worse.)
I started having a similar issue when I bought an Orbi system about 5 years ago.
The problem for me was that Sonos created its own Mesh network and would try and route traffic through it and not the Orbi causing constant music playback failure. This was made worse by the fact that most of my Sonos devices were wireless B and N so had limited bandwidth.
The solution for me (that I have documented on this forum a number of times) was as follows.
Only plug one device into Ethernet as close to the Roon server switch as s possible. In my case I had a Sonos Boost in storage so that was the perfect choice, but could easily be any more modern device that supports more modern WiFi.
Reduce playback of Audio to 16/44.1 in the advanced settings of the devices. It’s not like it makes them sound any worse at all.
Give away some of my older devices with poor network performance and buy some Roon Ready solutions.
In short, I find the newer devices like the Move and Roam seem to work well, but the older devices have very old network technology and do not play nicely with a Mesh network.
Thank you for the report. Please describe the following in as much detail as possible to expedite our investigation:
Are the Orbi mesh nodes in AP (access point) mode?
Do you have any additional networking hardware in this setup, like second routers or switches?
Where is your RoonServer machine connecting to the internet? Is it hardwired to the main router, or a mesh node/access point/switch? What about the Sonos device? Please provide an overview of the network topology involved.
In the meantime, please try the test suggested above my @Michael_Harris.
Verify that “Disable IGMP Proxying” is unchecked in the Orbi router settings. Verify that Multicast forwarding and IGMP snooping are enabled.
Concerning Airplay, verify in Device Setup for the Airplay zones that Compatibility Mode is toggled on.
If none of this helps, please provide an approximate timestamp of the next Sonos device network dropoff, and we’ll re-investigate logs.
Connor,
The Orbi router is set to AP mode. The satellites do not show that option
I have a switch that connects to my router and has an Apple Airport and Node 2i connected. No problems with this.
My Roon server is on my iMac connected direct to router
I have no problems with Node 2i. I have problems with Roon dropping out on Sonos.
I unchecked “Disable IGMP Proxying” but turned it back on because dropouts increased
Device setup for airplay zones is in Compatibility mode (greyed out- the check is for “no.”
I went through all menus and did not see Multicast forwarding or IGMP snooping as options
I’m pretty sure these issues are connected to Sonos software updates that are defective.
It’s been months.
On Roon’s end, I think the volume control and Sonos Alarm grouping problems are due to some software glitches. These are not as significant as the dropouts.
This evening we have mostly been experiencing the music just stopping and we have to click play to get it going again. There have been a few times where various speakers come and go.
I tried plugging Sonos Beam into ethernet and added a Sonos Port adjacent to Roon Server. I tried various configurations of wired and unwired. Unwired is best. I reduced bit rate to 16. I disabled airplay so as to ensure Sonos networking. This configuration drops less often. There is always a delay of minutes when starting music. My network has been the same and stable for years. I believe there may be two issues. Sonos has had many problems with its recent software updates. Recently, after months of issues, just using Sonos is solid and reliable. When I use Roon, it is latent and drops randomly. I suspect Roon needs to work on compatibility with new Sonos software. Above actions have made Roon usable if not entirely satisfying. I would invest in a Nucleus if that would fix issues, but my current server is Intel I9 imac, always on, with lots of RAM. This same configuration had worked well previously,
If you are plugging just one device in , the network needs time to reconfigure itself for the Sonos Mesh, and on my end (and for some others), only having one device plugged in via Ethernet and running for a while allowed the Sonos time to reset how it was working and what was a gateway mesh device.
For the biggest improvement to my network (could be different for you) I factory reset all of my devices and added them back starting with the Boost. I then slowly moved through the house from nearest to futher out slowly adding them back in.
That was about 3 years ago and I have not really had any real issues since then , beyond the odd pause with my oldest devices that have seriously out of date WiFi chips.
This may be more work than you want, but I have never seen a magic bullet for these issues and spent many hours on with Sonos technical support after a couple of disastrous updates back in the day.
Michael,
Thanks very much for the assistance. I found having all Sonos components wireless to work best. That hasn’t always been my experience but it’s working best now. I’ve had Roon playing without interruption today. I’m just going to leave it at that and hope for the best. Thanks.
Well let’s hope it continues to work that well.
From memory when Sonos is all wireless, it no longer uses the Mesh capabilities.
Older devices struggle with that, but newer devices seem to work well