Sonos connection recommendations and guidelines

Summary

Sonos speakers connect wired but are not connecting/staying connected wirelessly. We have seen issues with setup and not following setup instructions.

Question

Why aren't Sonos speakers staying connected or connecting at all?

Customer Environment

Ruckus Environment Sonos speakers and app on the same network

Root Cause

Configuration issue is common with setting up Sonos. Another issue stems from connecting all of the speakers wireless; it is not recommended to connect all speakers wireless as install practice.

Resolution

It is recommended by the installer and Ruckus to connect one of the speakers through the wire and connect the remaining ones wireless if desired. There are two types of configurations for initial setup of Sonos speakers, Standard Setup or Boost Setup. Standard Setup uses the WiFi system for speaker connections and the Boost Setup uses the speakers themselves as wireless repeaters. Again, we recommend leaving one speaker as a wired speaker.

Here's the support site for setting up Sonos = http://www.sonos.com/en-us/support/setting-up-sonos
Please find more details on:
https://www.sonos.com

It is recommended to leave one configuration and not mix wireless with the Sonos, otherwise the connection might be flaky for some speakers. In other words, if setup with Boost speakers will prefer to connect to other speakers. If you have Boost setup and have defined the Wireless in the Advanced section, then a speaker will try to connect to a WiFi AP but speakers prefer other speakers if it can hear another speaker. So if Boost is configured, it is not recommended to use the WiFi. If Standard Setup is configured, speakers will always use AP to connect to each other.

If Standard Setup is selected for setup, then WiFi APs will be used to connect speakers to each other. In this case, it recommended to disabled Directed Multicast/Broadcast:
ruckus(config-wlan)# no qos directed-multicast
ruckus(config-wlan)# qos directed-threshold 0

These are the protocols and ports that Sonos needs to communicate in your network.

Protocols:
-UPnP needs to be on
-Multicast Packets need to be allowed
-BPDU packets need to be allowed
-STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) needs to be allowed
-Sonos units need to be on the same subnet as the controlling device(iPod, computer , etc)
-Wireless client isolation must be turned off if any wireless devices will be controlling Sonos

Below are the ports that Sonos uses:
TCP/IP:
80 (Internet Radio, updates and registration)
443 (Rhapsody, Napster, and SiriusXM)
445 (CIFS)
3400 (incoming UPnP events - Sonos Controller App for Mac or PC)
3401 (Sonos Controller App for iOS)
3500 (Sonos Controller App for Android)
4070 (Spotify incoming events)
4444 (Sonos update process)
UDP:
136-139 (NetBIOS)
1900 (UPnP events and device detection)
1901 (UPnP responses)
2869, 10243, 10280-10284 (Windows Media Player NSS)
6969 (Initial configuration)

Article Number:
000006140

Updated:
August 11, 2020 08:57 AM (about 4 years ago)

Tags:
Performance, Configuration, Troubleshooting, Known Issues and Workarounds, Unleashed, ZoneDirector, ZoneFlex Indoor, ZoneFlex Outdoor, SmartCell Gateway, virtual SmartCell Gateway

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