Arc microphone constantly turns off and off by itself

From purely a Sonos perspective, the only way that the mic can turn off is if the Alexa integration is broken at some point or someone presses the Mic button.  What model TV do you have?

The first four digits of the serial number indicates the month of manufacture. This can be a good indicator, unfortunately not proof, of units being from the same batch. Another indicator is given in Settings —> System —> About My System. Each unit indicates its version and modification level with the Series ID and Hardware Version fields. This is still not absolute proof of same batch because the units could be built on different days or assembly lines. It’s possible that a single assembly line staffer was not following procedures for a few days and all of the units processed by Jack or Jill, will malfunction at some point.

For this particular failure I suspect that there is a leakage path created by surface contamination resulting in a phantom “touch”. While it’s possible that this is external and potentially could be detected and eliminated at home, it’s more likely that this would be an internal issue. And, relative humidity could trigger the issue. Some years ago there was a very vexing issue with a product manufactured by an excellent European company. Samples intermittently experienced issues, but only when operated in very dry Arizona. Any misbehaving sample brought back to the lab performed normally.

I don’t think toggling it makes it go away. It automatically turns off and on regardless. I think if voice assistant is turned off, the problem goes away. The guy in this thread turned off Alexa voice assistant. I was using Sonos voice assistant but getting the same problem. 

The only thing I can think of is 1) between the two of us we got four broken units, all with the same issue (read: unlikely) 2) there’s something about the device being connected to a Vizio that is causing the issue, and the issue may persist even after being disconnected from the TV once it’s been set up that way. Nothing else makes sense.

The only reason that I can think of that could cause this is if the Alexa  integration is losing connectivity.  It’s a long shot but have a look at my post here: 

was on phone w/ sonos tech support for 1.5 hours.

they ran a lot of diagnostics w/ no success 

they r shipping me a replacement 

hope that works…

‘’THX ALL for replies!

Update from Sonos in which they seem to suggest they have a massive problem with the Arc. He is saying they are halting the replacement of units:

sonos has run all these diagnostics to no avail.

they even sent me a replacement arc and the random off/on issue still persists

they claim that this arc off/on issue is new to their techs.  i found 3 year old reddit discussions (without solutions) for the same arc off/on issue

sonos can’t explain to me why i did not have this off/on problem with my beam (gen 1)

guess i will just go back to the beam because no other sound bar is compatible w my sonos system.

Hi,

So I reached out to Sonos support today (I’m in Denmark) and while I did not get the levels of information that has been shared here, I was told they’re aware of the issue and the engineers are looking into it.

They were at this point in time still investigating the problem and not willing to replace the unit until they have a better idea of what it is. Which I feel is fair enough, the problem is they couldn't give me a time frame for when they would provide an update. So who knows how long we’re going to have this issue.

One other thing. I you have a ticket created, keep spamming that “send diagnostics” button every time it happens. Apparently it should help prioritize the case. 

Just got my ARC 2 days ago. I am having the same issue even with the Sonos Voice. Might open a ticket as well to get this sort it out. I can't even disable the Mic it's just keep turning on and off. 

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.

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.

I can only suggest you perhaps get back in touch with Sonos Support, with a system diagnostic report/reference after reproducing the issue and see if they can resolve the matter.