Handling Sonos with Unifi

Update: This isn’t the latest state of thinking about this. See Sonos Unifi Pain Resolved, hopefully.

Today I learned the hard way: don’t connect Sonos devices to “smart” switches like those from UniFi. Devices without RSTP/STP understanding, like Sonos, can disrupt the network if connected improperly.

UniFi devices have struggled with Sonos since forever. There is a ton of content on the internet about this. It’s basically Sonos’ fault.

I also fell into the abyss. My entire network being sent into a loop.

Thankfully, Ubiquiti now has official documentation on making Sonos work.

That still didn’t quite fix it for me: I had to go into my core switch and turn on loop protection and storm protection on the port where the Wi-Fi access point is connected.

Note that if you own a switch by Ubiquiti that doesn’t expose these settings, you are fucked.