Playback stops after a few seconds!

[Paul Herbert]

Hello Forum,

New user, old person here!

I have managed to complete the setup on my B2 and the Sonos speaker. However playback stops after playing for a few seconds! 

I've had a look at the troubleshooting page on the website and whilst I think I know what to do I'm not 100% sure, so would someone explain what needs to be done in simple, layman's terms please? I won't be offended! 

Kind regards

Paul

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the forum.

To help we need a bit more detail about your system and the problem.

We understand so far that you have a B2 and at least 1 Sonos speaker. Your problem you say is that when playing it stops after a short time.

So we need to know - is the Sonos your only means of playing from the B2, if not what happens to music being played from the B2 to attached speakers (or headphones if you have any to try).

How did you set up the Sonos and can you play Sonos music to the Sonos speaker (music from Sonos not the B2).

What version of B2 software is your B2 using?

Are you using the Sonos App to play B2 stuff or are you using the B2 to send stuff to the Sonos.

There are probably more questions but lets start with the above.

Fred

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Oh there are more

Is your B2 connected by WiFi or Ethernet an if WiFi, what signal strength is the B2 seeing.

Fred

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Paul

I have been thinking and as a first stab at helping you  please try running a "Scan Disk" from the Front controls.

Main Menu > Settings > Scan Disk

Then when this finishes (the little red light stops flashing and the Front display stop changing.

Press and HOLD IN the Stop/Play button on the front of the B2 until "Saving" appears on the front display. Then wait for the time to re-appear and power the B2 off.

Next power up the B2 again and see if you music now plays OK.

If it does then you are sorted but if not then  to help you answer some of the questions.

Your Brennan Software version can be got by pressing the "cog" in the Web UI thus

or by pressing "info" on the little remote twice and looking what is says on the Front screen, each "info" press changes the information.

The WiFi signal strength can be got from the front menu system

thus 

Min Menu > Settings > Maintenance > WiFi Strength

Fred

[Les Stanley]

I've been having this issue recently too. Started a few days ago. Plays for a few minutes then starts skipping through tracks and playing 5-10 seconds before moving to the next one.

I updated the software to see if that made a difference although I was on a fairly recent release anyway. WiFi is around 55 which should be fine. Done all the usual things and works fine on wired speakers.

WIll be interested to see if it persists or if anyone else reports the same issue.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi ljstan

Thank you for your input, in your case you have helpfully stated that the "works fine on wired speakers"

This means it is either a problem with the B2's WiFi connection (-55 Db is marginal not fine!, it needs to be less than 50!), or with the Sonos. 

When the B2 sends music to the Sonos it is not sending music to the/a Sonos Speaker directly, it is sending the music to the Sonos SYSYEM the Sonos SYSTEM then sends the music to the Sonos Speaker. Therefore if you open the Sonos

App (that you used to set up your Sonos SYSTEM) you will see the B2's music stream in that interface.

To check that the Sonos SYSTEM is working properly please go into it and play some music (if there is no test music in it please play a radio station).

If the Sonos SYSTEM seems fine then it sort of points to your WiFi.   First try powering your Router OFF for 30 seconds then reboot it. That may cure issues.

If not then I would suggest you try a direct Ethernet connection to your B2.

Fred

[PMB]

Hi ljstan...,

The usual fix for skipping tracks is to run 'Scan Disk' from the Settings menu.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Ian Roberts]

Dear all - I had the same issue - it was solved by connecting the Brennan to the router via an ethernet cable - instructions are on the web site. The wifi strength needed for the Sonos to work with the Brennan it seems is critical.

Regards

[Les Stanley]

Yes I'd say it's definitely the wifi strength. I'd be interested to know a bit more about that.

I have no issue watching Netflix for hours. No problem watching youtube videos on my PC, both of which I assume use a similar technology to the Brennan for that function. 

Yet it always seems to falter when the wifi is less than perfect.

Not a complaint just a poor soul seeking to understand.

[Ray Dion]

WiFi strength works the same way as your car radio if you tune to one station. As you get further from the transmitter the signal will degrade. You start to hear static or parts of the audio just drop out. It gets more complicated if another transmitter you don't want to hear but operating on the same frequency starts to get stronger then your good station. There will be times you will hear the bad station over the good one.  I'll just note that as you get closer (signal is stronger) the radio station sounds exactly the same. You don't get anything better as long as you start 'close enough'. Over the air television works the same way, you see it as 'snow' on your TV screen. You may only understand that if you are nearly as old as me :-)

WiFi works the same and your neighbor's WiFi is the 'bad radio station' that could interfere along with a whole lot of other causes such as thick walls. So if you have a weak signal the data from the router does not reach the B2 correctly. The protocol for the network actually helps both sides understand if the data does not reach the other side. Every time I send a packet of data, the other side will say "I got it without error', "I got it with an error, please repeat' or I say nothing at all. The router then either checks it off as good or will resend in the second and third case.  Every repeat will eat up more bandwidth and have more errors. Eventually the router just keeps resending data instead of sending new data. I very bad circular case. You want all transmissions to be error free and fast.

This is the simple explanation. 

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Thanks Ray,

Spot on, also when you start playing to Sonos, then as these are WiFi too the load on the house WiFi router suddenly grows when they and the B2

Start working, thus it is possible that a marginal connection to the B2 gets slightly worse. The " Plumbing " has to be up to the job - don't automatically blame the Brennan if things don't work, the Brennan is using industry standard WiFi parts and industry standard software to drive it Linux.

Fred

[Les Stanley]

OK I get all that and thanks for the explanation. 

But I still don't really see why I only have problems with the Brennan and not my TV or PC. Surely the packets there are bigger too as they contain more data?

I have the same problem with the radio option so I'm not denying it's related to my less-than-perfect wifi.

Unfortunately, a direct ethernet connection is not really practicable. I have added an extension to the dongle so that it's effectively closer to the router and that helps for sure.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi ljstan

WiFi signal strength is weird -  and affected by many things.  Seriously your life will be much happier with a Wired Ethernet connection. I too have been though this!

My solution was to get a pair of these Mains Ethernet units

 

I am sure they are available for your plug type/country

The "passthrough" bit means that you can plug your Router & B2 into the same socket (the socket is not blocked by the device).

This enables you to have an Ethernet connection anywhere in your house (but not across electrical consumer units)- so different ring mains are OK provided they go back to the same consumer unit Fuse box.

Fred

[Les Stanley]

Thanks Fred,

I'm sure you're right.

I'll investigate the options.

Cheers

Les

[Ray Dion]

As I said I provided a simple explanation of WiFi. Yes your other WiFi devices share the same WiFi connection to your router. The packet size is the same across all of them, only the quantity of packets will change. You need more packets per second to send video than audio. Perhaps consider that the dongle may have an issue with it either on the receive, transmit or both. For many reasons those other devices probably have better receivers and transmitters in them than the stand alone dongle. 

Still think the WiFi is an issue at the signal level you indicate. 

The issue at the beginning is also related to the SONOS system access to your music. I don't have these speakers. My understanding is that this is done through NAS (Network Attached Storage). What you might try is to use a computer you have to access the NAS disk the same way the SONOS system does. Try to copy some of the music files from the B2 to the computer. Hopefully your computer will provide some sort of measurement of the speed of transfer. If it is poor, then you have two devices with weak connection to the B2. That would imply a poor or bad B2 connection to WiFi. If the speed is good, then the issue might be with SONOS.

The solution from Fred is perfectly good. Just providing some thoughts.

[Les Stanley]

Just an update in case anyone else is still experiencing this problem. I bought a wifi range extender, this one. It was more an experiment than anything so I went for pretty much the cheapest one I could find. Especially as everything else I have that uses the wifi works perfectly well.

Anyway, set it up as close as possible to the Brennan and it seems to have done the trick. I've been playing music through the SONOS speaker on and off for a few days and no problem. 

The WiFi signal is now around 45 -50 which isn't a massive difference from what I had before but it seems to be enough.

Thanks for all the advice.

[PMB]

Hi ljsta...,

Thank you for the update.

Signal strength is only one indicator of WiFi health, signal quality (number of errors, drop-outs, etc) is also important. I think what you have done in this situation, is improve the signal quality.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi,

I am glad this worked for you.

The problem with the solution you have used and why we (at least I) don't recommend it is that frequently range extenders create a new branch of your House LAN - one with a different IP number range to that used by your House Router.

In this instance while all devices will be able to get to the internet, it is possible that devices set up on your House Router may not be able to see the devices set up on the Range Extender.

Fred

[Paul Herbert]

Hi all,

My problem still remains, what would you advise? (Have also tried playing a CD to the sonos which also stops after a couple of minutes.)

Kind regards

Paul

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Paul,

I realise that another user - (ljsta) jumped on to this thread that you started (an we have sorted him/her out), but you do not seem to have answered any of the questions or provided any of the information we asked for above.

Without you input on these it is almost impossible for us to help you with your issue.

HOWEVER, based on out experience with our own B2s and with helping people here, I would bet that your problem stems from you house's Router/WiFi setup/quality. 

You HAVE to provide the B2 (and indeed the Sonos) with a good quality, reliable home WiFi system for things to work. By analogy you can not expect a house central heating radiator to work by simply installing it in your house, you need to connect it to your central heating pluming! WiFi is plumbing!!

I would suggest as a first step you make a wired Ethernet connections from the inside back of your B2 direct to your House Router. If this works then the problem is your WiFi.

Fred

[Paul Herbert]

Hi Fred,

Thank you for your time (and patience!).  I did in fact reply to your request for specific answers, but I'm blessed if I can find it!

 The answers to your questions are as follows;

The Sonos is my only means of playing music from the B2.

The Sonos works perfectly playing a radio station. Alexa works perfectly also. I can use the Sonos to play music from my iPhone via air play, w/o any issues.

I set up the Sonos using the app. I've tried playing music from the UI as well as the Brennan app, but the problem remains whatever the source.

The B2 is connected via the WiFi.

WiFi strength is -39 / -45 dBm.

I have an Ethernet cable (from when I worked from home) is it a simple job to connect the B2 as there isn't an Ethernet port on the B2?

Kind regards

Paul

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Paul,

OK, I do think we should try the Ethernet.

There is a socket on the Pi for it, you undo the back plate, just the top 2 philips screws and ease the back out about 1.5 inches- no more than this as there is a cable underneath and this is the limit of its stretch. You will then see the Ethernet socket. There are cut outs in the back plate to accommodate the cable and instructions on the brennan web site.

Or

If you are running up to date B2 software you can use a USB ethernet adapter ( there is a B2 function to load the driver for this).

Fred

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

HO!

And I forgot to say, when connected using an Ethernet cable, you must remove the WiFi dongle. AND when connected via Ethernet the B2 will get a different IP number.

Fred

[Paul Herbert]

Hi Fred.

We have playback! B2 happily knocking out tune after tune since 10;30 this morning!

Many thanks for the advice, greatly appreciated. Incidentally I bought a USB / ethernet adapter, which works fine.

Paul

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Paul, 

Glad you are sorted now, thanks for telling us.

Fred