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?

Hi @hogan1 et al

We now recommend that anyone affected by this issue get in touch with our technical support team directly for a resolution. Thank you.

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: 

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 suggest obscuring the full serial number from public posts. For this discussion only the prefixes are relevant.

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.

If you’re still encountering issues with the mic on the Arc, then it maybe best to submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and then contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK  and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to resolve the matter.

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:

I got a Replacement unit from Sonos, 2 days to get it since I opened the ticket so, they did it pretty fast and the most important thing, I am not longer having the issue. 

placed the arc and power source 12 feet from the tv (no hdmi arc connection ) and still experienced the off on (muting) problem.  So, the distance from arc to tv is not the cause.

hooked arc up to a different tv, different brand, in a different room.  same issue

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!

Hi

What @UKMedia has said is a possibility. First verify that the Sonos skill is active in the Alexa app and up-to-date. If all is good in the Alexa app try deleting the Alexa voice assistant from the affected speaker and re-adding it. If that doesn’t correct the issue here are two more options:

Option 1

• Make sure your device software is up-to-date
• Remove the Alexa voice assistant from the affected speaker (if other speakers are having the same issue do the same for them)
• Sign out of the Alexa app and delete it
• Re-add the Alexa app to your device and sign-in
• Make sure your preferred skills in the Alexa app are active (especially Sonos) 
• Re-add the Alexa voce assistant to the affected speaker(s)
• See if the issue persists 

Option 2

• If the above did not resolve the issue 
• Submit a diagnostics within 10 minutes of the occurrence (if possible) or upon discovery
• Post the reference ID number in this thread
• Call Sonos Tech Support

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. 

Thanks for doing this. Since I have two Sonos-direct Arcs as does Hogan, and all four have this issue, it's pretty clear they have a QC issue. It's pretty damning that the Best Buy one I bought today cannot recreate the mic issue, nor can the one you own. I'm not even sure what to ask Sonos to do about it. If I ask for another replacement, I'll likely get another one from the same batch.

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.

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.

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 have my broken ones boxed up, but I spoke to someone at Sonos yesterday who's based in the US. He felt it was likely a hardware defect in our units. I'm sure that fix works but then you can't use touch controls. I don't want a device that I can't resell down the road because it's defective.

Nice! That works and can still use Alexa. 

i have been in touch with sonos on numerous days with a level 2 tech person. 

he has run diagnostics in real time when the off/on problem kept on occurring.  no solution.

again, 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

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.

Leaving the speaker connected to the TV’s HDMI-ARC/eARC port, what happens if you simply move the Sonos Arc further away from the TV and create a bit more distance between the two? Does that solve the mic on/off issue?

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.

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.