Sonos setup really unstable when controlled by Roon. No issues when playing internet radio using Sonos-app

Support
1

Roon Core Machine

NUC8i5 (win11 + Roon Server + Plex + couple external harddrive with 115K Flac tracks.

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Full Ubiquiti Unifi. I'm a professional wifi- and smarthome installer.

Connected Audio Devices

2* Sonos Play:1, 3* Sonos One, 1* Sonos Play:3, 2* Sonos ROAM (I'm just testing and talking about one room here), 4* Riopee raspberry Pi's with USB-dacs and amps (these are playing without issues)

Number of Tracks in Library

115K Flac + Qobuz

Description of Issue

Hi, I’m allready in discussion with the Sonos Tech Team for almost a year now. But we don’t seem to find a solution. So as I was very happy with the quick and helpfull responses on my other topics here, I’m gonna throw this one in here to. Because there is a ‘roon-part’ in this issue. And maybe someone solved this one before.

So what’s the problem: I used to combine my new Sonos-system with Spotify and Internet radio for 4 years. No problem. But I got back into music last year, and with the availibility of losless music, I wanted to swap back to more quality sources and equipment.
Also as a professional Smart Home and Wifi installer at high-end-customers, I run into a lot of high end audio equipment. So I preach Roon a lot!!
I’m really happy with my Roonsetup, and riopeee endpoints and the way I use those setups to listen to music on the couch or in my office.
But I’m just unable to use my full sonos setup in Roon. Wasn’t able till now to combine more then 3 speakers on the same time. Even a simple stereopair of sonos Ones, playing on its own is losing signal and dropping one or both of the speakers. So I have a Roon setup for listening to dedicated music on a single spot, but am unable to use the same setup for backgroundmusic in the whole house, and that’s really frustrating.
Does anyone has an idea what the difference is, and what could possibly go wrong between, streaming internetradio or spotify using the sonos app to a sonos speaker (stable), and using the roonapp to play local music to the same speaker (unstable). The only difference in my humble opinion should be bandwith. I can guess streaming lossless files over a network is more demanding then streaming compressed audio like internet radio and Spotify.
But I benchmarked and tweaked this wifinetwork a lot, I have no places in my home with less then 350mbit bandwith left of my 1000mbit connection. So how on earth can’t that be insufficient?
As a wifi-professional, offcourse I don’t want to hardwire speakers, as I bought them as wifispeakers for that specific use. And I want to learn as much as possible about this issue, because I have a lot of Sonos-customers with similar setups and similar issues. These are all big houses, so creating a sonosnet where alle the speakers have to connect to one speaker is never a go, there is to much space and walls in between all the seperate speakers. A lot of Sonos-issues we have and solve are about the client installing a new sonos soundbar, wich the installer hardwires, and thus created a sonosnet and everything stops functioning. So I want to absolutely avoid wiring speakers.
Each speaker has it’s own access point with a clear line of sight, at max 5 metres.

Any ideas what I can try, we are a little bit at the end off possibilities with sonos support after a year. Theire final solution is wiring all the sonosspeakers, but that isn’t possible and not a solution for my issue, just a workaround.

Any Roonhero’s with a black belt in Sonosspeakers around :frowning: ?

Thanks in advance!

Thomas

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I don’t have a black belt in Sonos speakers, but I do remember that there was some discussion recently regarding the maximum number of Sonos devices that Roon can accommodate on a network. If I’m remembering correctly (and I can’t find the original thread, so can’t confirm) you will run into problems if you have seven or more Sonos devices. If that is the case, it might be worth removing some of yours from your network to see if it makes a difference.

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Hello Thomas

I have been where you are now, and was not happy with the support for either product. There are still issues now but I can at least play to 4 or 5 zone’s at the same time in high resolution so it can be done.

There are issues with my Roon/Sonos setup now though which are known, that Roon loses all visibility of Sonos zones after 4 to 8 hours and Roon needs to be restarted. This is supposedly being worked on though.

A couple of questions for you first. So you have a Boost on your setup and are you using SonosNet or pure WiFi connections with your Sonos?
If you are using SonosNet then Sonos will route your traffic through its mesh network and create many of the difficulties of number of zones etc.

I bought an Orbi mesh a few year’s and had mostly wired zones but found that Sinos was stealing AP duties from the Orbi, and it became a total nightmare.

Eventually I factory reset all my Sonos device’s and added them as a pure WiFi network and this worked well for sometime until Roon or Sonos broke it in build 903 again.

But in terms of reliability of music playback it was much better and even uncompressed 24/48 across 2 stereo pairs and a Move and Roam in the garden last summer was working great.

If Roon can fix this discovery issue that they have been tracking down then it will be great again.

Come back with any questions and I will try to answer

1 Like
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You mean ‘sonos speakers connected to the network’? Or ‘Sonos speakers in a group in Roon to play the same music’? The first: 8, never using more then 4 on the same time. The second: having issues with even the easiest combination (two speakers, I’ve had even issues using only one speaker). I’m gonna unplug al the speakers without the 4 I want to use right now. And let you know if it made any difference?

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Hi Michael,

Thanks for your reply.

Troubleshooting this weekend, it is the first time my entire Sonos-setup suddenly is unavailable in Roon as playback zone, at every controller. After 5 minutes for example, they return, without me doing anything. Sonos speakers stay available in the Sonos S2 app. Is this the new problem or behavior you are referring to as ‘this discovery issue since build 903’?
That’s new to me and my issues where happening before this issue happened a couple of times this weekend. I thought it was me stressing my NUC to much by adding music, but as you state it, it is an actual problem now.

A couple of questions for you first. So you have a Boost on your setup and are you using SonosNet or pure WiFi connections with your Sonos?

No Boosts no Sonosnet, pure Wifi with 4 wired access points. 40 connected devices (just pointing this out as it is unusual and typical for my job). Roon remotes (android devices: WiFi), The NUC (Core) is the only wired device in mijn Music setup. Riopeee raspberry Pi Roon Endpoints playing fine using WiFi in way more challeging envirements then the Sonos speakers…

If you are using SonosNet then Sonos will route your traffic through its mesh network and create many of the difficulties of number of zones etc.

Yes, that’s why it is my experience after >100 Sonosclients (with each always having at least 4 spaekers) to completely avoid Sonosnet. That, offcourse in the context of the fact we are there to install a professional WiFi-network.

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After some testing:

  • I can confirm that I have the same issues when using the same source. So If I use the same internetradiochanel in Roon, as I’m using in the Sonos-app, I have issues in Roon, and none with Sonos.
    So now I think we can conclude it is a Roon-thing, and not a Sonos-thing.

But offcourse, I’m open to every opinion, and want to test every possible idea to get this finally working.

1 Like
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I don’t know. If I’d been able to find the thread I mentioned I’d be able to be more specific.

:+1:

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I can say I’m experiencing more issues then ever before, because now there are sonos speakers that suddenly disappear and return in the GUI of ROON. I didn’t experienced that before. So Grouping Sonos speakers works till one of them loses connection after a couple of minutes.

After half an hour of trying to play music on sonos speakers, I now have a playing group of 2 sonos speakers in Roon, playing simple internet radio. I’ve unplugged 5 sonosspeakers to exclude the issue of to many speakers.

It’s the first time also they keep playing music. I’m gonna leave it this way now so we can see if it is solid.

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Thomas no problem at all.

For me Sonos integration with Roon has broken a few times, and rebuilding my network in different ways has been the answer. The good news for you is that pure WiFi seems to be the best option (excluding the current broken discovery and loss of discovery issues).

Like you I have 40 plus devices on the wireless network and then have a lot of iot stuff like cameras, Phillips Hue, Smart Things etc that runs away from WiFi.

Remember that most Sonos devices or running off WiFi B/G/N on 2.4GZ and not the 5GZ that much of our things run on, so that might mean some additional debugging might be required from your end (I had to move my 2.4 to a different channel to get this reliable so might be another thing to try)

Most of us that have this issue find that our Sonos app and Tidal etc to Sonos is fine and it is only through Roon we have the issue.

I sometimes found that if I grouped the devices in Sonos and then played from Roon it was much more reliable, not sure I’d you have tried that either.

But something is broken and Roon have confirmed that they are working on a solution that many of us want desperately, so hopefully it comes soon

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I currently have three of mine turned off as I have found that it lasts much longer when they are off, before things fall off a cliff. I am now often getting double the time from about 4 hours to 8 hours, so for now I am leaving them off

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The two speakers played fine for 1.5 hour. I added a third speaker to the group and the whole thing stopped playing and now doesn’t want to start anymore. I’ll wait till someone from Roon can give me more info about the Sonosbug, and can confirm if my issues are related to that bug. I don’t want to create to much noise about something allready known then.

About the networkrequirements for Sonos: as a professional I have access to the tech departement of Sonos, and have run through a lot with them. I also have a complete list of their best practices with the specific brand of network equipment I use at my home and at my clients.
I can be very short about that: If Sonos wants to apply their best practices to my network, I’m back in 1993 and burned 2000€’s on up-to-date network equipment. So I just silently walked away on that moment :wink:

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I certainly here that, and it’s crazy in this day when good Mesh WiFi is a thing.

Just to confirm are your devices disappearing completely from Roon?

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Hi Michael,

Yes, today they disappeared completely on two different moments. Suddenly I only saw the Roon bridges and other endpoints, but not a single Sonos speaker. After a while, they all returned.
It was each time all sonosspeakers gone, and all sonosspeakers back. Not some of them.

It was the first time I noticed that. So if there is a bug that’s about sonosspeakers completely dissapearing in Roon, I can confirm this is also the case in a wifi-only setup.

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Thomas thanks that’s exactly what a number of us see.

Good to confirm that, though for most of us they never come back until we restart the Roon service, so you have one upped us all there :grin:

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