Dealing with HDMI ARC issues on Amp and input choices

Thanks - a lot of useful information in there!

But as to the TV source: We are out beyond cable and normal satellite internet and TV sucked so badly I dropped them. (I found a source for internet through a cellular modem for internet.) For TV, I have a digital antenna that (eventually) connects to a HDHomeRun Flex 4K that can tune to 4 channels at a time. The input for this is coax. Output is through my LAN. For “normal” TV, I have several Apple TVs and use the app Channels DVR on them for viewing (and a server version of it on a Linux based media server for DVR service).

On this particular entertainment center setup, the inputs are only the Apple TV and my Sony BD, so there is no cable box.

More on this.

Somehow it’s marked as the answer, but it DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

I did this and tested - the Amp was still on Line-In, as it was before I did this. But now, every time we watch TV, I have to switch from HDMI to Line-In. Before I only had to switch if there was a power flicker, now, EVERY TIME, I have to change it to Line-In. My wife HATES it because it makes it harder for her to watch TV by herself since she can’t just use the Harmony universal remote and turn everything on at once.

Why Sonos can’t store this kind of setting in non-volatile RAM, like every other freaking device on the planet has done since somewhere around 2010 is beyond me. I spend extra for SONOS and every time the system loses power, I have to regroup everything and change settings like this. That is SO 2005!

Hi @TangoMe 

Once a thread has been quiet for a few days, we are required to mark Best Answer if it has not already been marked, and when we mark it, we always go by what the original question was. I’ve unmarked my response.

It sounds like you disabled Autoplay, not enabled it. Please turn Autoplay back on again.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s not a setting - it’s a state. All the settings are saved - like Autoplay, for example, or your WiFi credentials. I recommend you aim for resolving the power interruptions, but removing noise on the cable should help.

Thank you! I get the reason for that policy, but it can be seriously misleading. This thread is a prime example: There was no clear working answer and to mark an answer as a solution when it may not be is totally inappropriate. (But that goes with what I have said. Sonos seems to want to do things their way, whether it works for others or not.)

I get that point, but if I disabled it, then it would have had to have been enabled in the first place. If it was enabled, then either it doesn’t work or I wouldn’t be having this problem. So, either way, it’s a problem.

A few points:

1. NOTHING else is having an issue. The AppleTV continues fine, the BD player, if left on, continues fine. The ethernet switch on that circuit has no issue. NOTHING else shows a power issue. We have a standby generator that provides power to two buildings and I have the same model UPS on over half a dozen computers, TVs, firewalls, and other devices. All told, there are over two dozen devices on this same model power supply. NOTHING has a problem with it other than the AMP. NOTHING ELSE.
2. Setting or state? I’m an end user. Granted, I’m a retired programmer and do a lot of sys admin work. But for a USER, it’s hard to tell, “Is this a state or a setting?” I had to go in to the app and change this, so, for most people, it’s a setting. Arguing that it’s a state is pedantic and asking any user to know more than they should. In fact, since one goal of Sonos seems to be to imitate the Apple reputation of “It just works,” this goes against that - “Oh, you have to know what’s a state and what’s a setting. You have to learn what is stored and persistent and what isn’t.” Speaking as a retired programmer (one who did well enough with his own software to retire early - so I’m not an idjit), this is making excuses for a product not behaving in what is a predictable way to the customer.
3. Again, most devices keep settings or states in non-volatile RAM. I had problem with a damaged iPad, got a new one, and it backed up and even my games were at the point where I had stopped playing them. Setting or state, it’s absurd that it’s not persistent over a power loss. It just means, “Hey, customer who has paid hundreds of dollars for each Sonos device, if there’s a storm, you have to go around to every device and reinstate these settings.” That’s treating the customer/end user like crap.

Corry, I do appreciate your effort and time on this, and I realize that you have to take the Sonos line, but these are a few points where Sonos is using “developer think.” And, again, I’m speaking as a former developer. This is the kind of thing that has been thought through in terms of, “How does it work for us developers?” It’s far from, “What works for the users? What will make this feature work easily and predictably for the user?”

And the whole, “Check and resolve the power supply issue” is a seriously lame argument. That’s in the, “Oh, our product is perfect, it must be someone else’s fault,” category. As I pointed out, with over two dozen devices on that model UPS and multiple other products on the same one as the AMP, it’s pretty lame that this product, costing over $500 (forgot the exact price) is so freaking sensitive when something like an Apple TV doesn’t even notice there’s been a flicker. It sounds very much like, “It’s easier to blame something else that works for everything but us than it is to say, ‘Hmmmm. Maybe we should look into this.’”

I know there’s a lawsuit with Google over the whole house audio - which is, really, kind of silly, since SlimDevices was doing that earlier, too, and that was no problem. But what that has done is alerted me that Google can do what Sonos does. I feel seriously stonewalled on this so now I’m looking into whether I should just find other options.

TangoMe,

Have you tried forcing a power interruption to the UPS that services ARC?

That’s a good idea. I’ll try that in the next day or so when I have time.

Hi @TangoMe 

I’m sure you won’t like me being pedantic, but Best Answers are not Solutions. Very often, the Best Answer is to call technical support, which is not a Solution.

Regarding the Amp, I refer you back to my initial statement:

And regarding settings and “states”, I completely understand your points. With AutoPlay enabled, the input is determined, not remembered. With AutoPlay disabled, the Amp will start in a state of “no music selected” - no queue, no input selected. I can treat this as a feature request but as AutoPlay should take care of this for you, I wouldn’t expect to see changes any time soon. A ground-loop isolator should sort out AutoPlay functionality for you. 

Thank you for that extra on the settings and states. I get that AutoPlay fixes the issue, but when you’re talking about a feature request, AutoPlay as a fix for this is confusing or, at the least, counter-intuitive. It’s not at all clear to a user what’s going on or that using AutoPlay will keep it in LineIn on restart. Maybe having AutoPlay as the default, so the unit will always, after power loss, go back to exactly the way it was would be more in line with expected behavior?

I don’t know how it is now, but at my old house, I wasn’t using any UPS units, other than for my computers. Every time power went out and came back on, even for a short flicker, I would have to regroup my Sonos devices. In our new place, and now that I’m married, so there are two people in the house and guest house, and we have a guest house where family stays sometime, grouping doesn’t work as well and I don’t use it much. However, I found it seriously frustrating that grouping was not preserved during a power outage. Does AutoPlay fix that issue, too? Or has it been fixed?
 

It may only take 2-3 minutes to do things like change to LineIn and to setup groups again, but for a premium product like Sonos, that kind of thing should be automatic. It’s like buying an upscale car and, every time it starts, having to retune the radio to the last station you were playing and reposition the seat and steering column settings to the way they were when you were last driving the car. It leaves the customer feeling frustrated that something that most cars (or audio devices) should be able to easily do has to be repeatedly done by hand.

I ordered a ground loop from Amazon and tried it - it created a distracting buzz while we were watching TV. I’m sending it back. If there is something specific I should look for in a ground loop or a particular brand that is known to work well, I’m open to suggestions.