Why does Roon Nucleus see my newly-added Sonos Five via AirPlay 2 only, and not also via Sonos streaming, as it sees my S1 Connect and Play:3? Playback via AirPlay 2 is fine, but I just want to know why Roon doesn’t see my Five via Sonos streaming.
Describe your network setup
ARRIS T25 modem (Xfinity) to Araknis modem, to Araknis managed core switch, to Araknis unmanaged local switch. Both Roon Nucleus and Sonos Five are wired onto the local switch.
According to diagnostics, there’s a Sonos Five active in your Roon environment. Do you mind sharing a screenshot of the Settings → Audio page in Roon from the Remote you most commonly use?
Is the Five visible in the Sonos network matrix in the Sonos app?
The managed switch might handle Airplay2 and Sonos device announcements differently, depending on multicast settings. Verify multicast forwarding and IGMP snooping are enabled as best practice in a Roon setup.
As a test, try connecting the Sonos Five directly to the Xfinity router’s ethernet ports, restart it, and then see if it’s visible in Roon.
Hi, Connor. Thank you for your contact. The problem is not that Roon doesn’t see the Sonos Five. It does, and it plays beautifully. Playing right now, as I type. My question is, why doesn’t Roon see the Five via Sonos streaming, which I believe is better fidelity, than AirPlay 2, as the Roon is now seeing the Five?
Hi, Benjamin. Thank you for staying on top of this. My apology. Yes, the Five is visible from Sonos app on my Mac. And yes, it’s on the latest firmware. I’d added the Five, and was playing it via Roon (via AirPlay2) for a couple days, then realized I should check the firmware, and found it needed an update. I installed the update, and Roon continues to see the Five only via AirPlay2 and not via Sonos streaming, as it sees my Play:3 and Connect. In fact, I just confirmed the older Connect and Play:3 are also on the latest firmware.
Re: your last question, not sure what you mean. All 3 of my Sonos players are on my network via Ethernet, and all 3 players’ wifi is disabled. Does this answer your question?
Hi, Benjamin. OK, I just spoke with tech support for my Araknis router and core switch. Firstly, I don’t have a router that supports multicast forwarding. Nor do I have VLANs setup. Re: IGMP snooping, it is currently disabled in my core switch. If I enable it, there are MANY settings that I need to know how to setup. Knowing my router doesn’t support multicast forwarding, do you still want me to enable IGMP snooping? If so, I’ll tell you all the settings I need to know.
But besides this, is it expected that Roon sees my Five with a Sonos streaming connection? We’re going through a lot of back-and-forths here, and I want to confirm that something is wrong with the fact that Roon is only seeing my Five with AirPlay2. Like I said, it sounds great, but if Roon should be seeing my Five via Sonos streaming, and assuming this is superior to AirPlay2, then I do want to continue and find a solution. Let me know. Thank you.
Again, to be clear, my root underlying question is, why doesn’t Roon see my new Five via Sonos streaming, which I presume to be potentially superior fidelity to AirPlay2 (please correct me if I’m wrong). Right now Roon is only seeing my Five via AirPlay2.
Do you have the option to simply enable the status without adding a VLAN? If so, should enable multicast in general. If not, and a VLAN is required, keep things disabled and we can move on.
Yes, the Play 5 can be used through Sonos Protocol or Airplay in Roon. Let’s see if refreshing your RAATserver database on the Nucleus may help.
You can generate a new RAATServer instance on your device by following these instructions, but please be aware that this will reset your Roon Settings → Audio Tab to factory settings and I would advise making a backup of any custom DSP settings you have:
Benjamin, just spoke to Araknis Networks tech support, and learned that none of the Araknis hardware - router, switches, WAPs - block multicast packets, thus nothing needs to be enabled. Let me continue with the rest of your message now.
Benjamin, you wrote, "Yes, the Play 5 can be used through Sonos Protocol or Airplay in Roon”.
I have a Five, not a Play:5. Do you still recommend refreshing the RAATserver database?
Is the Audio Tab the only page that I’ll need to reconfigure? Should I go through all the settings and take screenshots so I know how to reconfigure other pages, or only the Audio tab?
Yes, that was just a typo. Apologies about that. Please follow the steps listed last week.
Saving a backup (the first bullet point listed) will save all your settings, so no need to take any screenshots unless you’d like to. Let me know if refreshing your RAATServer database was helpful.
Not sure what caused it, but somehow I now see a 2nd Five in my Audio list, and it is via Sonos Streaming. So all good. Feel free to close this ticket. Thank you.
