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The 5GHZ channel quandary: Anyone have experience where one device just won't connect but others do?

  • 16 November 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 244 views
happyrobot
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi all. Hope everyone is swell.

I have a few SONOS 1s, a Beam, and one of those IKEA speakers all happily working together.

Over the summer I updated my wireless router from an old single band one to one of these new fangled (for me) routers with the multiple bands. I bought the seemingly popular TP-Link AC4000 Smart WiFi Router (Archer A20). 

Here’s the situation.

My iPad and laptop both have never had issues with connecting to the SONOS system. They work great.

My iphone, on the other hand, constantly loses it.

All apps and OS are up to date. It’s not a distance from the router issue as they’ve all been tested mere feet from the router. I was just browsing SONOS on my iPad and had phone next to it and the phone can’t find the SONOS devices.

This may be more of a question for the TP-LINK folks, but I wanted to try here first just in case. You’ll see in the screenshots that my phone is on it’s own 5Ghz channel. I suspect that is the issue but not sure why or how the router’s ‘smart connect’ single SSID/band direction would throw the phone to it’s own separate band. Very odd.

 

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Best answer by ratty 16 November 2020, 11:56

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5 replies

buzz

Why do you have two different 5GHz networks? What happens if you delete 5GHz-2 from the problem phone?

ratty

Maybe there’s an issue with forwarding multicasts/broadcasts between the 5GHz-2 band and the 2.4GHz. It’s been known to happen with some dual-band routers. This would interfere with the Sonos controller’s ability to discover the players.

If “‘smart connect’ single SSID/band direction” implies band steering, I’d suggest turning it off and naming the bands uniquely.

happyrobot
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

If “‘smart connect’ single SSID/band direction” implies band steering, I’d suggest turning it off and naming the bands uniquely.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll investigate turning off the band steering. 
of course this morning when I open the phone, it’s still connected to the 5GHz and now SONOS is connected on the phone. 

happyrobot
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Why do you have two different 5GHz networks?

This is apparently a tri-brand router. 

“Tri-band 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz-1, 5 GHz-2”

🤷🏻‍♂️

ratty

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll investigate turning off the band steering. 
of course this morning when I open the phone, it’s still connected to the 5GHz and now SONOS is connected on the phone. 
 

Still connected to the 5GHz-2? If the controller remained active in the background it could have discovered the players earlier via a different band.

To isolate whether it’s really the 5GHz-2 that’s causing the problem, when connected to 5GHz-2 completely exit the controller app (sweep it away from the background apps), wait 30+ seconds then try reopening it.

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