Sonos Era 100 fails to work well with Ubiquiti

[Adsibob]

I have a pair of Sonos Era 100s which I bought a year ago. They worked fairly well for a few months or so, then I took them into a different room and they worked ok for a bit until they didn’t. Of the stereo pair, one has been problem free but the other won’t connect to my network, despite going through all the trouble shooting steps, factory resets of the Sonos Era 100 speaker and reboots of the UDR etc. Sonos Era 100s do not create a sonos net network like some older speakers, they connect directly to WiFi, which in my case is Wifi 6 courtesy of a Ubiquiti setup (UDR plus 2 APs). 
 

This is not a signal issue, because I have excellent 5Ghz signal everywhere in the room with the speakers. Moreover, the speaker that works fine is 6m further away from the router, than the speaker that doesn’t.

 

Sonos support has been helpful in the past, their support engineers seem to be quite good. However, although they fixed the issue, the fix only lasted a month or so, and then I never got around to calling back because they aren’t open weekends and I just accepted I’d listen to one speaker rather than the stereo pair until I fixed it.

 

On Friday I finally got fed up and put some time into trying to fix it. I did the usual reboots and resets and then contacted Sonos. They said the issue is with my Ubiquiti and that “sometimes Ubiquiti will block off one speaker but not another”. They then said that I should give them access to my Ubiquiti network settings by giving them my credentials and they would “fix it”. I didn’t feel comfortable doing this. I find it odd. 
Googling around the forums it seems many people have had issues, but I haven’t seen any answers which I understand. 
Starting to feel like Sonos software is just not up to scratch and that I should insist on a refund - though this might be tricky as I’m well outside the returns period. Just feels like a bit of a con. I don’t have any connectivity issues with any of our other devices.

 

 Curious what others think.
 

 

[oliwoodings]

I got an era 100 the other week, it wouldn't stay connected to my ubiquiti network. I sent it back.

[Adsibob]

3 hours ago, oliwoodings said:

I got an era 100 the other week, it wouldn't stay connected to my ubiquiti network. I sent it back.

Did you speak to the support assistants?

Edited May 5 by Adsibob

[Adsibob]

I did a Ubiquiti firmware update, which I was reluctant to do because I’ve had problems with those in the past.

 

 This didn’t fix it.

 

 Then I deleted my Sonos app and reinstalled it (something I’ve tried before unsuccessfully). Miraculously, this time it worked… but only for 10 minutes or so. Then I realised one speaker was connecting to one AP and the other to the UDR. So I locked both to the UDR. 
 

This seem to fix things albeit my internet then crashed, no idea why. Might be the bloody firmware update, as Ubiquiti tend to have problems with those.

 

 Anyway, rebooted the router and everything seems to be working, but who knows how long it will last.

Edited May 5 by Adsibob

[oliwoodings]

8 hours ago, Adsibob said:

Did you speak to the support assistants?

I had other issues - I didn't realise Sonos no longer supports Google assistant with their newer speakers, so it was no longer worth it for me.

[Cooeyswell]

Have you tried splitting the Ubiquiti network into separate 2.4 and 5ghz networks then reset and reconnect the Sonos stuff ? I'm not sure this will help but it would be relatively easy to try.

(I run a couple of Sonos Soundbars on Ubiquiti with no issues and without spitting the network)

[Adsibob]

16 hours ago, Cooeyswell said:

Have you tried splitting the Ubiquiti network into separate 2.4 and 5ghz networks then reset and reconnect the Sonos stuff ?

I already have split networks, and my 2.4Ghz is mainly used for IoT stuff. The only reason I don't like to run Sonos on that, is that I then need to use my phone on the IoT network to be on the same network as the Sonos, as otherwise it won't play nicely with Sonos, but putting my phone on the slower network is a bit annoying given this is the device I use most for browsing the internet.

 

16 hours ago, Cooeyswell said:

I'm not sure this will help but it would be relatively easy to try.

(I run a couple of Sonos Soundbars on Ubiquiti with no issues and without spitting the network)

I have a Sonos Beam that has worked flawlessly with the tv. I guess that's because it's hard wired to the TV, so much less of a connectivity demand on it. It's also in the same room as the router, so has always automatically hooked up to the router's wifi signal, rather than have to figure out on it's own which AP to link up to. 

 

Been listening to Sonos this morning, and so far no issues. Let's hope it stays like that.

[NailBiter]

I've bashed my head against Sonos and Ubiquiti equipment on a number of occasions, feel for you mate.

Are any of your Sonos devices connected via Ethernet? You may be bumping into some issues described here:
 

 

Read the linked Unifi document but also read the top comments on Reddit thread above, some good explanations there.

Like you rightly say the Soundbars are rock solid (as are the subwoofers) so we use those. We've also switched to using OG Homepods in stereo pairs instead of any Sonos speakers for music. A shame we can't take advantage of the subwoofer though. 

Edited May 6 by NailBiter

[Adsibob]

25 minutes ago, NailBiter said:

I've bashed my head against Sonos and Ubiquiti equipment on a number of occasions, feel for you mate.

Are any of your Sonos devices connected via Ethernet? You may be bumping into some issues described here:
 

 

Read the linked Unifi document but also read the top comments on Reddit thread above, some good explanations there.

Like you rightly say the Soundbars are rock solid (as are the subwoofers) so we use those. We've also switched to using OG Homepods in stereo pairs instead of any Sonos speakers for music. A shame we can't take advantage of the subwoofer though. 

Thanks @NailBiter, I did come across that thread in my desperate search for an answer, but I didn't think  it applies to me because:

1. I don't have any Sonos speakers hard wired to the internet (indeed the Sonos Era 100 does not have an ethernet port) and although the Beam Gen 2 does have one, we don't use it. 
2. I don't have any managed switches, just a basic Netgear unmanaged switch and two Ubiquity in wall APs that also act as switches (to my ludite understanding, unmanaged switches).

I also don't accept the "solution" suggested at the beginning of that thread as a solution, given the whole point of these speakers is that they are to work on wifi. Hence "The solution that has worked the best for the most people in my experience is actually to wire only one speaker" I don't want to wire any speakers, and although I do have an ethernet port relatively near one of my Era 100s and could buy a USB C to RJ45 adaptor for it, I don't see why I should have to compromise in this way, given how expensive these things are.

If I'm wrong about the switch issue not applying to me, then it's possible that by locking my Sonos Era 100 pair to the UDR, I have bypassed the issue altogether as the switches would not be involved in processing the data from the Sonos since that data would not need to go through any switch (whether the Netgear or the Ubiquiti APs) if it is communicating directly with the UDR. But it's really a shame this is even an issue the customer has to deal with. It's also made me realise the Sonos system just isn't as flexible as marketed and it has put me off buying more of their speakers, which is a real shame as I thought I could add a sub-woofer in due course, whereas now I'm skeptical about investing more into this system.

Edited May 6 by Adsibob

[NailBiter]

Quote

I don't have any managed switches

Yes you do, the UDR is a managed switch isn't it?
 

Quote

I don't have any Sonos speakers hard wired to the internet 

No but you are routing data between the Sonos speakers over the LAN ports of the UDR and then STP can (expletive deleted) your day up.

I'm not sure how the traffic would flow if they are both locked to the same AP sorry I can't help there. 
 

Quote

I also don't accept the "solution" suggested at the beginning of that thread as a solution

It isn't a solution it's a work around but it is effective. If you have the energy to find a better solution good on you. Please share if you solve.
 

 

9 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

I thought I could add a sub-woofer in due course

Would this be in a location where it can be hard wired? It doesn't matter which device is hardwired.

[Adsibob]

3 hours ago, NailBiter said:

Yes you do, the UDR is a managed switch isn't it?

Well I certainly don't manage it, but I guess you are right that it's a switch.

 

3 hours ago, NailBiter said:

I'm not sure how the traffic would flow if they are both locked to the same AP sorry I can't help there. 

Seems to be working ok for the moment. Let's see how long it lasts...

 

3 hours ago, NailBiter said:

It isn't a solution it's a work around but it is effective. If you have the energy to find a better solution good on you.

Are you sure this works with the era range? according to Sonos's support page (https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/choose-between-a-wireless-and-wired-sonos-setup) the ERA 100 & 300 won't support sonosnet, so I'm not sure how linking one speaker to ethernet (which I understood creates a sonosnet broadcasted by that speaker) will help given the speaker that was droping out prior to me spending considerable time tinkering is an Era 100.

There is a new app upgrade coming out tomorrow which I'm worried will f**k everything up further...

 

3 hours ago, NailBiter said:

Yes you do, the UDR is a managed switch isn't it?
 

No but you are routing data between the Sonos speakers over the LAN ports of the UDR and then STP can (expletive deleted) your day up.

I'm not sure how the traffic would flow if they are both locked to the same AP sorry I can't help there. 
 

It isn't a solution it's a work around but it is effective. If you have the energy to find a better solution good on you. Please share if you solve.
 

 

Would this be in a location where it can be hard wired? It doesn't matter which device is hardwired.

I could hardwire my Beam Gen 2 if I bought a switch to split the only ethernet port I have in that area (currently being used by the TV). For a new Sub, I'm not sure of the ideal placement, but I thought Subs could pretty much go anywhere, so i didn't want to be limited by where I have an ethernet port. I really don't have that many spare ports in convenient locations... we planned on having one for each of our two desktop PCs and one for each of the three possible locations in the house where we might want to watch TV. In addition we have one for each location where the APs go, and as those have built in switches, that creates a couple more ports there.