I bought myself a new Panasonic TV (TX-55JZ1500B) and a new home theatre system (Arc, 2 x Play 1 SL and Sub) and thought it would be helpful to add my experience. Arc connected to TV eArc.
The initial set-up want flawlessly, connected it all up and it worked just fine. Then a little while ago I noticed that the sound would cutout for about 10 seconds and then return. Initially I suspected an interruption to the TV signal (sound only, not picture). However, this has happened 5 or 6 times now. I’ve not investigated because it’s not been a significant problem.
Then a few days ago, after switching th TV on, the TV remove wouldn’t control the volume any more (the sound level didn’t change), though the screen said that it was reducing the volume, and the sound was coming out of the Sonos speakers.
Everything seemed fine with the connections so I did the old power off and on again, no difference. After trying various combinations of plugging / un-plugging things and powering on and off, I still had no luck.
I tried the App and searching through I found the ‘Set-up TV’ option. I followed the instructions and the connection was restored to the TV with the familiar chime sound. Yay! So all good and just a blip I thought.
Today I again switched on the TV and the same thing, volume control says it’s reducing the Home Cinema Volume but the sound level doesn’t change and is still coming out of the Sonos speakers.
I went through the Set-up Your TV process again, but this time it asked to ensure that ‘Viera Link’ was switched on. After checking it was (and always has been), I pressed Test Again but it still couldn’t see the TV.
Now this I thought was odd, as how did it know it was a Panasonic TV (it knew to ask about Viera), but yet couldn’t connect? After much connecting, disconnecting and powering up and down etc., still no luck.
As a last resort I removed all but the Arc from the App and re-added them. Naturally during this time the sound returned to the TV speakers as normal. Re-adding the speakers to the App I tired again to ‘Set-up TV’, but it still failed to connect asking me to ensure that Viera Link was ‘On’.
It was at this point that I turned to Dr Google for help, finding several people that had had similar experiences and they found it was down to the HDMI cable they’d used (the one supplied with the Arc!). I had also used the one provided with the Arc but was at a loss as to why it should suddenly stop working.
Fortunately, I had a spare good quality cable so swapped it over with great expectation. But still no joy.
At this point I had to go out for a while, and left everything on. When I got back I thought I’d try swapping back to the old (Sonos provided) cable. As soon as I connected it, I heard the sound change from the TV speakers, back to Sonos.
I tried the Set-up Tv process on the App and after a few seconds it confirmed the connection, with no asking about Viera.
So what have I leaned? Not a lot actually…...
- Swapping the cable won’t neccesarily fix the problem
- The symptoms don’t make a lot of sense (sound from Sonos speakers when App can’t connect to TV
- Just because it worked yesterday, doesn’t mean it’ll work today
- If you experience the same problem, try TV Set-up in the App first
- If all else fails, take a break, make a cup of tea and go away for a while. It worked for me!
A couple of Questions:
- Has anyone else had a similar experience?
- I did see that with some external speaker systems you can switch input on the TV to the HDMI connected to the External Speakers (HDMI 2 in my case) and that you can configure the speakers usinf the supplied remote. Trying this with the Sonos Arc just displays some pretty black and white patterns on the screen. Does anyone know if the Arc can be configured by this method?
I hope that helps someone who thinks that they’re going mad when they have similar problems.
