Sonos Ace - Mic issues with Slack

I am facing the same issue on my work laptop while using Chime on a Macbook Pro, the mic works fine for a couple of minutes and then stops working. I have to disconnect and connect again to get it working. I am connected using bluetooth and have multipoint connection enabled.

Hi @melvimbe 

Thanks Danny - I’ll pass that on too!

Hi @Andre17 et al

In our testing, we have not been able to reproduce this issue.

A thought, however - multiple applications were mentioned with macOS. Combine that with @melvimbe’s report indicating the issue showing in Windows’ system settings, and it implies that it is not an issue with these apps, rather an issue with remaining connected to your computers.

As we could not recreate this issue, and as it takes two devices to do the “Bluetooth tango”, I recommend that you try restarting your computers. I am not overly-familiar with Macs, but I know that a Shutdown of Windows doesn’t restart the kernel of the operating system in the way that a restart does - instead, it closes programs and saves the current state to disk, reloading it when turned on again. This is no good - we want a full restart of the operating system so that all the drivers are reloaded. A quick Google search suggests to me that macOS is the same.

I am aware that @melvimbe reported that he has tried restarting already, however, so if that does not help, please try unpairing Ace from your computer, then pair them together once more.

@melvimbe - The error you see when using USB is a concern - I do not see the same when connecting my Ace to my PC with USB. Please ensure Bluetooth is not connected to the same computer when you use USB, and perhaps try a restart (hold power for 10 secs) or a reset of Ace. 

I hope this helps.

@Corry P I was able to get my Ace working correctly via bluetooth with my windows laptop again.  

1 - Go into settings tell windows to forget the bluetooth connection.

2 - Restart your windows machine.

3 - Re-establish the bluetooth connection between Ace and windows.

It seems that windows doesn’t really forget the bluetooth connection, it’s stored in cache or something similar, until the machine is restarted.  This work around may work for Mac machines as well, I have no idea.

I call it a work around because the issue could very well happen again.  I’m not sure that Sonos could do anything to permanently fix the issue.

Hi @melvimbe 

Fantastic - thanks for updating the thread!

I think I found the issue on Mac. I just received my headphones today and attempted to use them during a few meetings and noticed the same issue. I’m running a mac, using Chime, and saw that after a few minutes the input volume on the headphones went to “zero”. You can see this in the sound setting of the mac under the output & input section. Select Input and then the headphones and you’ll see the slider incrementally move left to where there is no input volume. When this happens people can’t hear you speaking but if you increase the input volume people start to hear you again. However, this continues to happen again and again which you have to constantly adjust the input volume for people to hear you. 

I tested this by my old bose headphones and this issue did not happen. Also tested it with airpods and the issue didn’t happen. So, it’s clearly something between the Sonos headphones and the OS. 

Hope this helps and that a fix is made quickly. Without a fix these headphones are useless to me and I’ll just go buy another pair from bose or sony. 

This is a good catch! I just looked at my Mac OS volume settings too, confirmed, this is the exact issue at hand. I started a Chime call with the Sonos Ace, the OS level “Input volume” is randomly decreasing a little at a time whenever I talk through the microphone. Slowly decreasing till it hits 0 volume.

+1 to this needing to be fixed, else these headphones are useless. This has not been an issue with my previous Bose headphones either. I’ve been switching to my AirPods because of how unreliable the Ace is in meetings.

Hi @dfarm3r 

That’s interesting! Could I ask you to please record a video demonstrating this behaviour, submit a support diagnostic from the Sonos app running on the Mac afterwards and get in touch with our technical support team? Thanks.

Hi @Andre17 et al

Thanks to your reporting we have identified an issue affecting the system volume setting of Ace’s microphone when connected to macOS and are investigating.

Please be aware of the following workarounds:

• Use a USB-C cable for line-in (not the 3.5mm cable, which doesn't carry microphone audio)
• Configure the macOS sound settings input to use the built-in Mac microphone while using Sonos Ace for output

I hope this helps.

Tried the USB and had an experience where after joining a call I removed the usb connection and then reconnected which caused the same behavior to occur. If I left it connected then the workaround worked. 
 

At any rate, this isn’t sustainable and I am looking for an update on when this will be fixed.