Hi again,

Using an HDMI audio extractor, same symptom: no signal detected. The extractor also works with another brand of sound bar, and I’ve switched out the HDMI cable with one that’s known good.

Is it possible that the Sonos opticaI adapter is bad?

Thanks in advance,

Tony.

I called support again and was able to get the rep to troubleshoot with me. They are sending me a new Optical HDMI adapter. I’ll update the thread once I receive it and test.

One more question: has anyone successfully hooked a beam up to a Tivo Vox Mini?

HI again,

Just a quick update, the replacement optical adapter arrived and the symptoms are exactly the same. I also was able to access the optical output on another TV (Samsung), also exhibiting the same symptom--no signal detected by the Beam, even though other devices can get audio out of the optical ports on ALL of my TV’s and TiVo devices. I had a lot of time to test during the week I was waiting for the new adapter.

Next step: They’re sending a replacement Beam. I’m cautiously optimistic. I’ll update this thread once it’s resolved.

The replacement Beam arrived and frustratingly, is not able to detect an optical signal either. Unless Sonos can resolve this, both are going back.

I appreciate you changed the Sonos optical adapter and now you have changed the Beam too, but have you changed the HDMI cable?

It’s also been known that some users (occasionally) forget to remove the small white plastic dust cap off the sonos optical adaptor, so I thought that worth mentioning here too, just in case?

Hi, Thanks for the response.

Yeah, testing the HDMI cable was one of the first things I tried. I swapped the original cable out with the one on my TV.  All cables I’ve tested pass video and audio between any source device and my TV directly. I also tested optical cables directly between my TV and my older (optical only) sound bar, that works fine so the optical port is working.

I’ve been working with fiber for years in my  professional life, so I recognized and removed the cap when I installed the adapter. It was also one of the first questions asked by support.

The case was escalated to level two, we spent another hour on it, now I have a further escalation call set up for tomorrow.

Again, thanks for the response, I do appreciate you spending a little time to think about it.

Tony.

Just one quick further thing.. I assume you have the vox box cabled to your the TV using HDMI and connected to the Beam using the optical port, are you certain the vox box supports dual audio output to both ports at the same time?

I have an older TiVo Mini, it has an option for “Dolby Audio” which offers “Dolby Audio” or “PCM Only”. make sure it is set to Dolby Audio. The same screen also says that this is not available if the screen reader is enabled.

Just a quick note to close the loop.

@Ken_Griffiths: It does, thanks. I was using it with an older Bose soundbar that only supports optical and coax. HDMI to the TV, optical to the Bose works fine.

@controlav Thanks, that was one of the first things I checked. It was set to Dolby, and we don’t use the screen reader.

After my call with the escalation engineer, all is well. He believes it was a handshake issue. We disconnected everything and disconnected power from the Beam., then started streaming a movie with DD 5.1 audio and left it running while I reconnected the Beam. Once it finished booting up, we had audio.

We changed no configurations, and I didn’t even have to go through the TV Setup wizard again. Audio just started playing and it showed as DD 5.1 in the “About my Sonos System” in the PC controller.

The engineer said that he’s seen this issue with virtually all set top boxes from time to time. I didn’t have to do anything with the TiVo other than make sure audio was streaming when the Beam was powered on.

Thanks again for the contributions and comments. I truly appreciate your willingness to help.

Cheers, stay safe out there.

Tony.