Roon App and connectivity with WIFI and Mesh

I apologise for asking dumb questions

I have Wifi from my provider and a mesh network

All of my end points are connected to the Wifi and I thought that to access the App on my phone or ipad that that device could only see endponts on the same network

When I go onto my phone and connect to the Mesh network I can see all my endpoints and control the music played from them even though my phone is connected to the mesh

Is that normal?

Yes it’s normal. Some mesh networks have different subnets per node and this is when Roon won’t see them. Or some can block the multicast packets Roon needs for discovery. Also when a user adds a mesh to an existing router and has the server directly connected to the router then this can also create two different networks if it’s not setup correctly for the mesh to get ip addresses from the router. Yours appears to be ok. There are many ways mesh can be set up and not all are the correct way to work with Roon. A trap many users fall into. When setup properly they can be perfectly fine. But the server is best to be hardwired to the main hub that has the internet coming into it and not from a wireless only node.

Your mesh presumably has the same SSID and is merely an extension of your WiFi?

SSID has nothing to with it. It’s the subnet they are on that causes the problem when dns server is on main router and the mesh. Only one DHCP server should be active on a network. I have multiple ssids but they all have the same network routed to them and will work fine.

thank you very much
Merry Xmas

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While you are here and I knoiw nothing

Will it help me if I plug my endpoints into Wifi extenders via Ethernet?

They are all over the house and i only have 1 router that the Core is connected to

I’m trying to improve performance and wondered whether plugging my Sonos Plays into a wifi extender via Ethernet will help?

Do you mean the mesh nodes supplied by the ISP as part of the package? If so not much as it still relies on a wireless link back to the main router. But you can try it and see. Any mesh system is only as good as the signal strength each node gets from the primary router. As they all rely on WiFi in your setup then it can get congested if you’re trying to play to multiple zones. Personally I would never rely on wireless to connect a mesh system but do most it’s the only way feasible.

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Apologies for my lack of understanding

I have a Wifi extender that I plug into the wall and apparently it boosts the signal. It has an Ethernet port on the back and its that I am referring to

Say what? Did you mean DHCP server? Roon is perfectly happy with multiple active dns servers on the network.

Yep my bad I meant dhcp.

They work fine for many people, but if problems do occur the first diagnostic step is usually to eliminate any ‘extenders’ and see if the problem goes away… so effectively ‘try it and see’ - but be aware that you might be substituting one problem for another… :slightly_smiling_face:

Thank you. Ive been doing some very basic testing. I have limited techie knowledge

I have an old 1020’s house with thick walls.
I have 2 Sonos Plays as stereo pair in the kitchen which is far away from the router. I have an extender in there, but nothing plugged into it , i.e ethernet
This afternoon every song was cutting out. When I looked at the signal path it seemed that it was not getting the data from Tidal

In the living room i have a Wiim ultra that is close to the router but not possible to be connected via Ethernet
That works perfectly with no cut offs in the songs

Its very frustrating. At the moment I am putting it down to the thick walls and the fact that maybe the wifi signal is weaker

Will try getting another extender for the pair of Sonos and wire them by ethernet to the extender.

Will also try without the extender and see if that helps

Re-reading the thread… if you are using a mesh network, adding third-party/separate ‘extenders’ might get confusing quickly. Probably better to consider moving some of the mesh nodes, or adding another.

Either way, a couple of very long cat5e patch cables can be a very helpful (and cheap) way of confirming where the problem lies.

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So for clarity are you using a mesh WiFi (multiple identical nodes from same manufacturer - often bought as a set) or a WiFi router with an “extender” unit? These are different things.

I use a Linksys Velop tri band mesh with router and 5 nodes in my Victorian four storey townhouse and have almost zero issues streaming to endpoints (1Gb cable ISP).

I’ve used WiFi extenders from a variety of brands in the past and found them to be almost universally a waste of time.

A genuine mesh setup will likely improve your experience.

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Ive used both, at all times the core has been ethernet to router
Started with the mesh and was using KEF LSX’s but the whole experience with KEF was appalling

Now I am WiFI with ethernet to the router from Core
I have 1 extender which is in the room furthest away

At the moment I get the same issue and message. Basically it cant seem to sync with Tidal very well at all and so I get cut offs in virtually every song as it struggles ( I guess ) to pull data from Tidal

Must also add I only get this issue in the room furthest from the router. So i guess I am narrowing it down to a Wifi issue

The Wiim ultra that is in the living room where the router is is flawless

Not being techie at all I need to find a way to get better coverage in the room furthest from the router. Ethernet is not possible so I will try extenders with Ethernet to the Sonos Play’s, failing that I guess I need to look at a decent mesh as I only had the google mesh before

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I am also with Sky Broadband and they say that I cant use another Router , ie a better one, as it wont work with their feed, which does not help me

Who is you ISP? As you ahve been able to add a mesh wiith router.

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Im with Virgin Media who allow subscribers to place their supplied router into “modem mode” and hang their own router off it. Technically you could add a mesh system to your Sky router, switch it’s built-in WiFi off and just use the Sky router for the connection to your isp but you might encounter some issues with subnets etc

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I’m with NowTV (basically rebadged Sky). You’re right that they don’t make using a third party router easy but it is possible - I used an Apple one for a few years before I decided to go for mesh (BT Whole Home). I have a big 1930s house. Four nodes - one hard wired to the modem/router (which handles DHCP but has Wi-Fi switched off), the others connected wirelessly (I experimented with various positions to optimise coverage). I have seven Roon endpoints around the house; six are wireless and they all work well at max bandwidth. Also - I have some 1st gen LSXs which Kef say should not be used with mesh - they work perfectly.

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You folks are better at this than I am but… Just to mention the obvious, his end points are Sonos. Could this be a Sonos issue? They have their own network and streamer capability to tune Tidal.

Happy New Year,

I deleted the connection from the Sonos app to my Tidal and it still does it