I am intermittently losing connecting between Roon and my Sonos Playbar. There is no specific time of day when this happens, and it can occur with or without music playing. It happens with Tidal as well as with local files. When it does occur, the zone containing the Playbar no longer shows in the zone selection menu either on my mobile device, or on my laptop. I can still play music via the Sonos app, and usually, after starting play using the Sonos app, the Playbar will show back up as an available zone.
I’m running ROCK with server version 1.4, build 294 on a Nuc 7i7BNH. The Nuc is connected via ethernet to a Netgear Orbi satellite. My music files are stored on a Western Digital MyBook USB hard drive connected to the Nuc. The Playbar is connected to my network via WiFi.
From our experience unreliable network connection is the most common cause of the playback problems. Including the fact that Sonos playbar is using WiFi 802.11b/g (which is ~15 years old standard of wireless data transmission), sporadic appearances of the issue, which could potentially be caused by temporary interferences of the network or overloaded hardware of the output device, and the fact that device is located far away from WiFi transmitter I would strongly recommend you to consider excluding WiFi from the equation.
Roon makes quite a marketing point about the ability to integrate with Sonos, so calling out their use of older wireless technology seems disingenuous. If that technology is problematic, why would Roon promote Sonos equipment as compatible?
Regarding WiFi transmitter distance, why do you assume the output device is located far away? I have a mesh network in my home. My Roon core is plugged into a mesh satellite, which is approximately 30 feet from my Playbar. The mesh router is also approximately 30 feet from my Playbar. Note that my Playbar never drops off my network, it only disappears as an available zone in Roon.
Disingenuity ? Absolutely not. Goal of any troubleshooting procedure is to find narrow spots in setup and verify that they aren’t the reason of the issue. Basing on all facts I mentioned before I think that WiFi is the weak spot which we need to remove from equation.
“Too far away to connect via ethernet” means I don’t have a long enough ethernet cable. That comment is completely unrelated to WiFi distance, so yes, you made an assumption about distance based on wired vs WiFi. Most consumers don’t have a 30’-50’ ethernet cable lying around, nor can they move their router to another room.
I use the Roon mobile app on my phone, or the Roon desktop remote. Music will stop playing on the Playbar, and when I open the app, the Playbar will no longer show as an available zone. If I open the Sonos app on the same phone, I can select a radio station and it will begin to play. Sometimes, this causes the zone to reappear in Roon, but not consistently every time. Sometimes I have to power down/restart the Playbar in order for it to show again in the Roon app.
Thanks for getting back to me with that information @Robert_Siegel , the insight is appreciated!
Moving forward, I would like to enable diagnostics on your account so we can try to get a sense as to why you are experiencing this behavior with the Sonos playbar. With this in mind may I very kindly ask you to reproduce the issue and note the time of day when the problem was observed, Having an idea of what content was playing at the time of the error would be helpful as well.
All the best to you and your family during the new year!
-Vova