I dunno either? - I guess you might have to keep pushing things forward with your own issue/reports for now. Hope you get it sorted.

But they must look at collective data to fix issues. It would be too hard to diagnose problems looking only at individual devices. If everyone is having the same issue, doing the same thing, then it creates a precise means of fixing an issue.  

all

my sonos level 2 tech support person has given up. he gave me this link to the next level of tech support. 

i have an telephone appointment next monday

try this

https://support.sonos.com/s/schedulecxappointment?language=en_US&ServiceTerritoryId=0Hh8V000000oz14SAA&CaseId=5008V00001eQz41&AppointmentTemplateId=0VS8V000000gTZGWA2

oh yeah, i have 1 2023 LG OLED tv not visio,

@Jonnydrama32 Just to try and narrow this down another level, are you able to remove SVC and briefly install Amazon Alexa on the Arc to rule out an SVC issue?

I could. SVC works fine on the eras connected to the same surround. The issue is the on/off is impossible to recreate with regularity. When I first turn on the Sonos to play something, it can take an hour or two before the issue occurs. And then it may happen incessantly for ten minutes. Makes it almost impossible to figure out if you've fixed it.

Yep, understood.  I have the Arc and two Era 300’s as sounds and normally the Era 300’s answer a voice request, I must admit I haven’t checked that the mic on my Arc isn’t behaving the same but I’m not aware of it doing so.  I’ll monitor closely over the weekend.

If I just turn off voice assistant on the Arc, will this issue go away? It's not the biggest deal since my eras have it, though I think the product should work as described.

It should ...and the Arc/mic does work fine in my own setup. However it seems no one here can rule out it being a hardware problem or conflict, in your case, at this moment in time. Only a couple of reports here in the main community and Sonos have likely sold many tens of thousands of them since the Arc was first released in June 2020… I would expect many more complaints here if they all had a similar fault.

I have both Alexa and SVC installed on the Arc here, but mostly use Alexa. It’s connected to an LG C9 OLED TV, but I can’t see the type of connected TV as being relevant here, all things considered. 

I would persist with supplying diagnostic data to Sonos Support, including any videos of the issue too.

I switched SVC to Google Assistant and the issue persists. In fact it's even more annoying because there is a verbal cue with GA VS SVC.
 

How do you have both Alexa and SVC active simultaneously? I have an arc and two era 300s in a surround setup, when I try to select different voice assistants for the individual speakers, the Sonos app wants to delete the current voice assistant off ALL speakers that are interconnected.
 

I discussed diagnostics with the first line CS and they looked and saw that sometimes the mic was on and sometimes off. I asked them the “why,” and they said that all they can see is whether a mic was on or off, which is obviously useless. So I don't know how an upper level tech person could help.

And since I can't reproduce the issue on the fly, I'll end up calling them and getting some basic solution, then I'll hang up only to find that the issue persists about 45 minutes later. It's really odd that the issue isn't predictible at all. Sometimes it happens two hours after I start using the system. Sometimes it's a few minutes. How would tech support be helpful unless I'm going to sit on the phone with them for hours?

Now that I have two arcs (the original and replacement), I might try to hard reset the original and not connect it to the tv. Let's see if that changes anything. Though I don't know why an HDMI cord attached to a tv would impact the mic turning on/off. That seems silly.

The other reality is that I bought my original Arc from Sonos and the replacement also came from there. I could just have two “bad batch” arcs. I could go to Best Buy and get another one, but that's such a pain in the ass.
 

Did both of your Arcs come directly from Sonos? Mine did and I'm wondering if we both just got our Arcs from a bad batch.

I tried to give Sonos your diagnostic codes for analysis alongside mine. They refused and said it was a privacy violation unless they had your approval.

Alexa and SVC work together and both can be installed side-by-side. The Google Assistant service only works by itself. It seems Google didn’t want to share its services with others.

Scanning this thread it’s starting to look like there might have been a dodgy batch of capacitive touch boards, hopefully a small batch...

I am wondering if it might actually be a power issue. I notice that oftentimes the on/off doesn't happen until the unit has been doing something for a period of time. As far as I can tell, it isn't turning on/off when nothing is playing through the Arc. But somewhere between 45 min and 2 hours of constant play results in regular on/off cues. I was just listening to music for about 90 minutes. For the first 90 minutes everything worked fine. Then all of a sudden the on/off cues began and repeated within a minute of each other if not sooner. I did not have an HDMI cord attached and the arc hadn't moved position while I was listening. If I'm a betting man, the extensive use heats up the device and is causing a short. I'm no engineer but it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

No short necessarily, but if there’s a false touch periodically registering then it could potentially be exacerbated by increased temperature. 

johhnydrama32

i don’t know if this will work, but pls authorize (via this thread) sonos techs at my monday meeting to access your following diagnostic codes and compare them to my diagnostics

johhnydrama32 diagnostics

723779744

642824365

1529549030

2072542269

1114071393

my hogan1 diagnostics

1520451136

1507668416

1288322289

any sonos real time diagnostics

I went to Best Buy and got a third Arc to see if we're just dealing with a bad batch directly from Sonos. I'm also running the replacement arc without any HDMI, far away from the tv, to see if it still messes with the mic.

I'm curious if those who haven't had issues were using era 300 surrounds and a sub first gen? It could be that the pairings are causing the issues. There are just so many variables.

If this doesn't work, I may just be relegated to turning off voice assistant on the arc and only using it on the surrounds. That should be fine, but I'm worried about resale value down the line with this problem.

The setup here @Jonnydrama32, which is not experiencing this mic issue is…

• Sonos Arc linked over HDMI eARC to an LG C9 TV
• Era 300 Surrounds
• Sub (gen3)
• Both Alexa & SVC installed on Arc and the two Surrounds aswell.

All are running on WiFi - no Sonos devices are wired.

Mic switches are on and obviously that includes the two rear mic switches on the rear of the Eras aswell.

By the way, you could always go onto un-bond the surrounds and/or Sub, just to see if that makes any difference in your own case.

How were you able to get two different voice assistant in one bonded pair? When I try to add Google assistant to just my Arc that already has SVC, I'm prompted to remove SVC from all devices in the stereo bond to add Google assistant to the Arc 

That’s correct, Google will only work ‘standalone’, whereas Alexa & SVC will install and work side-by-side on voice compatible Sonos products.

Makes sense.

I've now put the Sonos replacement Arc on its own just playing music, away from the tv. It's been playing for 3 hours without the mic turning on/off.

The other replacement Arc that I got from Best Buy has simultaneously been hooked up to the same TV the aforementioned Arc was yesterday. It has also been running for 3 hours without the mic turning on/off.

So now I'm very confused. Yesterday, the Sonos replacement couldn't play music without the mic on/off issue after about 90 minutes. Now it's playing fine (so far). And then I replaced it with a Best Buy Arc that also isn't glitching? This makes zero sense. The Sonos replacement should still be glitching, otherwise this entire process is inconclusive.

I tried calling T2 tech support, but they're closed on weekends. I think Sonos’ customer service is horrible.

ken - try this.

after i switch the arc with voice from amazon music to tv input, the arc mic turns immediately off.  (only svc loaded)

When i switch the arc with voice  from tv input to amazon music , the arc mic immediately turns off.  (only svc loaded)

i don’t  have to wait for the mic to turn off.

the other day, microphone off/on’s (with associated clicks) every couple of seconds.  .  had to remove sonos assistant because the clicks were way too annoying.  diagnostic  47424320

my system

arc

sub (gen 1)

surround -  2 play:1 speakers

I think you mean me, not Ken. But Ken should try this to if he can, because I can (half) recreate what you’re saying and I have GA on my arc. Here’s what I’m able to do:

Attempt #1: TV is playing audio. I ask GA to play music through Spotify on my surround system. Mic mutes (but it also starts going back and forth between off and on intermittently). It does the same with Amazon Music.

Attempt #2: Arc is playing music through Spotify. I ask it to switch to tv input. It does, but it is NOT switching the mic off. So not quite the same as you, but close.

I got a new arc at Best Buy today and I watched TV for hours with no mic on/off issues. With this latest info in mind, I’m going to switch back to using that arc and see if it also mutes the mic when switching between VA and TV input. If it doesn’t do that, then we know Sonos has sent us bad Arcs.

Out of curiosity, when did you get your Arc from Sonos? And when did you get the replacement? I got mine about two weeks ago, and then the replacement about a week later.

Okay, good news (and also bad news).

The two Arcs from Sonos both do exactly what you said above - mic turns off about 4 seconds after switching from TV to music using the voice assistant (You used Sonos VA; I used GA - same result). However, the Arc I purchased from Best Buy today does NOT have this problem. When I switch from TV to music, the mic stays on. I also used the Best Buy one to watch TV all day without the mic switching on/off once.

The fact that we both got recent Arcs directly from Sonos, and we both got them replaced, leads me to believe there is a bad batch as someone surmised above.

Hopefully someone else in this thread can try switching from TV to music using a VA - my guess is their mic won’t turn off doing this either.

And Hogan - you may want to see if you can replicate my experience by picking up an Arc from Best Buy. You can always return it within 15 days, which was my plan. But now that I have one that works, I’m tempted to send both Sonos-direct Arcs back. What sucks is that I got a 15% off upgrade from Sonos - Best Buy was full price.

Please update this thread when you can. I’m sure this will be helping anyone getting an Arc from Sonos in the next few weeks.

I’ve just tried the switching process with Alexa…

"Alexa, play some music” - music plays and the mic stays on.

“Alexa, switch to TV mode on Living Room” - Arc switches to TV audio and mic stays on.

I repeated the above steps and the mic never goes off, stays on all the time.

Next I repeated the above with SVC

“Hey Sonos, play some music” - SVC responded “As you like…” (or ding earcon tone) and music plays and the mic stays on.

“Hey Sonos, switch to TV mode on Living Room” - Arc switches to TV audio and mic stays on.

The mic never goes off in my case.

So I was unable to reproduce the issue described.

Just to add as far as these Support articles (below) are concerned there is no voice instruction to switch off a microphone on any Sonos product…

Here are the available SVC instructions…

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/list-of-voice-requests-for-sonos-voice-control

Here is some further information about Alexa and the basic instructions you can use with that assistant…

https://www.amazon.com/Sonos-Inc/dp/B072ML3N6K

And just for completion, here are the Google assistant basic instructions… 

https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7539710

No signs of anything that switches off a Sonos microphone and I’ve never seen it happen here. Maybe best to video the issue and pass that onto Sonos Support Staff next week and perhaps accompany things with a diagnostic report too. 

Hope you can get the issues resolved.