Lost surround and sub ( after update ?)



Show first post
This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

1604 replies

Userlevel 6
Badge +7

Let me ask everyone that has their sub "drop out", next to this happens, could you try this? Place your head next to the sub. I just had mine drop out. Explosions, large thumps etc had to punch to it. Then a scene came that was just dialogue and everytime a male with a deeper voice spoke, there was a muffled echo. I out my head directly next to the sub and it was if the only thing being pushed through the sub was the base from dialogue. I am wondering if we aren't losing the sub but the something with the audio channel is possibly flipping? I made a few reports and made a call and really got nowhere. When this just happened to me, I went from Amazon's The Boys S01E01 to Netflix's Dark S03E08. At this point it sounded like I lost the sub audio. Then when I went back to The Boys S03E01 21:20, all the male voice was accompanied with a muffled, deep, echo that was hard to pinpoint but ended coming from the sub. Anyone else with a sub drop able to confirm this? I've only just seen this and don't know own if I didn't notice it before with sub drops or if this is just a one time thing. I'm going to recheck this when it drops again....could be in five minutes, could be in two days.

Yes, I have experienced this strange vocal bass issue. But pretty sure it’s a different manifestation of the issue. When I have had drop outs before, I have left the film running and there has been no bass and no rears.

Userlevel 3
Badge

Hi all,

We appreciate the ongoing engagement around your setups, your experiences and the issues you’re having with your systems.

Please bear in mind that updating a system can occasionally surface an issue that hadn't manifested previously, and that this does not mean the issue was caused by the update. Additionally, submitting a diagnostic can also sometimes cause interruptions during the submission, and for a few minutes afterwards. 

For each case submitted, the Sonos team works on isolating the issue and replicating anything out of the ordinary. Many of you have already been in contact with support to get help. Thank you, that is the best route to get your specific issue addressed most quickly. As always, the Sonos team continues to work to optimize the Sonos user experience and resolve the root cause of the problems discussed here. If you have not already contacted Support directly, please do and share a diagnostic report from within 10 minutes of the issue occurring on your system. This helps the Sonos team verify the symptoms and determine the cause of the specific issue you are contacting about. 

At this time, we have been unable to reproduce the reported issue related to the recent update, which seems to affect a very small proportion of the total number of Arc and Beam users. We understand this is frustrating and are committed to working with each of you to resolve any issues you are experiencing. Our shared goal is to ensure a smooth and effortless experience with your Sonos system.

You can contact support via phone from Monday to Friday 10am - 8:30pm ET or by chat 24/7 via the Sonos Digital Assistant on the Sonos Support Site.
 

 

Hahaha, WHAT??!!?  @Corry, I contacted SONOS the week of v14.6’s release as I noticed the drop the very same day my software was auto-updated.  At first I thought it was a fluke since I had never had any issues with my setup for 6+ mos prior.  After it kept happening I started messing with my network and then finally contacted SONOS for support.  It wasn't until a few days after did I come across a SONOS article mentioning the release of 14.6 the night my issues began.  I have since contacted and provided SONOS with 8 + diagnostics and been trying to remain patient for a fix for over 7 weeks now.  

To say you cannot recreate is laughable.  

The only reason I haven't boxed everything up and sold everything online is that Id be pawning this infuriating issue off onto some unsuspecting person.  I will be calling in to provide a few more diagnostics but this response from you/SONOS is just asinine.  “...this does not mean the issue was caused by the update.”  Roll back to 14.5, release it as v14.9 and if my issue doesn't immediately go away I will apologize and sit tight with this bricked unit forever more.  

 

 

Just got off the phone with SONOS (escalation L2) and was asked to connect my Arc via ethernet cable instead of WIFI.  On a previous call with SONOS they asked that I hardwire any component besides the Arc…. Anyway, after being on the call for 58mins and 20mins of trying to “break the system” everything remained in tact without a drop. I will continue to monitor today/over the next couple days but explained that I bought this system as a wifi system, my Arc is mounted…. I had to pull it off the wall and just have it resting on my stand for now to run this test.  Her thought is that there’s an issue with the router and/or ISP - Broadcast vs Multicast.    Never had any issues with the entire system being connected via wifi until April 17th…. v14.6.  

Userlevel 3
Badge +1

@Frank Smith Just to warn you; There are lots of us with Arc’s on Ethernet that are suffering from the issue still

Userlevel 1

@Frank Smith - willhowe is correct, my Arc is connected directly to Ethernet and I have been experiencing the problem since 14.6.  Arc, Play 1 surrounds and Gen 2 Sub.  I have also filed support tickets and submitted diagnostics.  Turning off Earc has helped some with stability.  I do ok keeping the surrounds and subs for quite a while swapping between our cable box and our Apple TV but if I try using the X-box One I always lose them both.  I had a Playbar for six years with no problems.  I only upgraded to the Arc as a Christmas present to myself.  Have been regretting that choice a lot the past month and have actively started encouraging people not to buy Sonos.  This has really been a huge blow to my trust with the company.  Just filled out their recent survey and it’s the first time I’ve ever given a company a zero across the board.  And that’s saying something considering I have AT&T for Internet and deal with a cable company as well.

 

Userlevel 3
Badge

@Frank Smith Just to warn you; There are lots of us with Arc’s on Ethernet that are suffering from the issue still

 

Hey, yes, I know this is only temporary - sadly.  I let her know that many have it wired and experience the same drop.  Just doing this to provide one more diagnostic report to them.  9th time the charm?  

Userlevel 6
Badge +7

Just got off the phone with SONOS (escalation L2) and was asked to connect my Arc via ethernet cable instead of WIFI.  On a previous call with SONOS they asked that I hardwire any component besides the Arc…. Anyway, after being on the call for 58mins and 20mins of trying to “break the system” everything remained in tact without a drop. I will continue to monitor today/over the next couple days but explained that I bought this system as a wifi system, my Arc is mounted…. I had to pull it off the wall and just have it resting on my stand for now to run this test.  Her thought is that there’s an issue with the router and/or ISP - Broadcast vs Multicast.    Never had any issues with the entire system being connected via wifi until April 17th…. v14.6.  

@Corry P - this is what concerns me.

The L2 feels there is an issue with the ISP - Multicast or Broadcast. (Did the L2 mean Unicast rather than broadcast?). I am not sure what this really means, and with my experience of networking I am struggling to understand how an internet connection is involved in the sound drop-outs - after all, the video and other devices seems to work just fine when the drop outs occur. 

Logic would suggest that the same router that @Frank Smith is using, is the same router that was working in April. Also, there are affected users on this forum that are based in the US, Europe and United Kingdom. Again, logic would suggest that the different ISPs are not going to change how they deal with network transport all in the same month. And surely not everyone's routers are going to change behaviour in the same month without mass firmware updates across varying brands. 

This is not the first time I have heard its a local network issue, or its an ISP issue. However, there never seems to be any follow-on analysis of how and why this is the router or ISP. 

 

Userlevel 4
Badge +3

@Corry P  Really shocked that Sonos havn’t been able to reproduce the issue, just feels like a deflection to not be held accountable. I would recommend they take a few of the TV’s on this spreadsheet of users suffering from the issue and test Arc & Surrounds with that - and follow the user notes of how to trigger the issue. (AppleTV start netflix/amazon trailers, start netflix/amazon shows, Youtube then repeat on internal apps)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q6Iq2xXXZ--RmnsGnbZhujxJj1BcwJlvqSzj5iZXz2U/edit?usp=sharing

Not a single user has said ‘Sonos support fixed my issue by doing X with my system/network’. This is clearly a software issue. It’s also very likely that only a portion of Arc users are suffering as some don’t have surrounds/subs, some don’t change sources often, some power cycle every day, or some don’t even notice.

For the first time since this saga started, yesterday I started googling alternative home theatre setups, and stopped myself because I still have faith in Sonos as a brand and really do love their products. Hearing you’ve been unable to reproduce the issue, and thus, are clearly not working on a fix makes me feel like I really do have to start looking at alternatives.

I second you , unsure why Sonos isn’t owning the problem. @Corry P there may be a few proportion of people reporting this on the forum, they might have contacted your support while still waiting on the fix. My issue started on 21st April, never before that and I am using the complete immersion set. Sonos can’t wash hands by running away from the problem. Please issue a recall as so many people on this forum aren’t crazy to try alternatives when your engineering team isn’t able to recreate a problem. Please ask your engineering team how long they run the systems? After a power cycle, my system works fine for 1-2 hours and once the issue occurs, it just becomes super frequent. I as a user was one of the first ones to experience and report the problem and while your team was focused on pointing it to the network, I tweaked but the issue regardless occurred. I have provided your Level 3 engineering team with good and bad diagnostics. Why do they need to recreate an issue at their end? What’s the purpose of submitting diagnostics when you want to recreate the issue at your end. I don’t want your updates, please provide a solution where I can rollback to 14.5 and permanently disable Auto updates. This isn’t acceptable by any standards

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

This may be a completely ridiculous thought, but is there anyone with this issue and is deep in this like us, that is from Santa Barbara or somewhere relatively close that they could send a top engineer over and diagnose that system and finally be done with this?

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

Let me ask everyone that has their sub "drop out", next to this happens, could you try this? Place your head next to the sub. I just had mine drop out. Explosions, large thumps etc had to punch to it. Then a scene came that was just dialogue and everytime a male with a deeper voice spoke, there was a muffled echo. I out my head directly next to the sub and it was if the only thing being pushed through the sub was the base from dialogue. I am wondering if we aren't losing the sub but the something with the audio channel is possibly flipping? I made a few reports and made a call and really got nowhere. When this just happened to me, I went from Amazon's The Boys S01E01 to Netflix's Dark S03E08. At this point it sounded like I lost the sub audio. Then when I went back to The Boys S03E01 21:20, all the male voice was accompanied with a muffled, deep, echo that was hard to pinpoint but ended coming from the sub. Anyone else with a sub drop able to confirm this? I've only just seen this and don't know own if I didn't notice it before with sub drops or if this is just a one time thing. I'm going to recheck this when it drops again....could be in five minutes, could be in two days.

Yes, I have experienced this strange vocal bass issue. But pretty sure it’s a different manifestation of the issue. When I have had drop outs before, I have left the film running and there has been no bass and no rears.

Yes, when this happened, there was no bass other than what sounded like the Arc trying to send the center/dialogue channel through the sub.

Userlevel 1
Badge

So is Sonos telling us we’re holding it wrong?

omg they are really the Apple of audio companies.  

Userlevel 3
Badge

@Frank Smith Just to warn you; There are lots of us with Arc’s on Ethernet that are suffering from the issue still

 

Hey, yes, I know this is only temporary - sadly.  I let her know that many have it wired and experience the same drop.  Just doing this to provide one more diagnostic report to them.  9th time the charm?  

No real surprise.  Was using the built in YouTube TV app and switched over to PS5.  The game I was playing didn't really require a lot of sound so had the volume on low.  After a while I turned it up to see and sure enough, nothing coming out of the rears.  Switched to Netflix, put on a movie I always test this against and yup, rears/subs dropped.

Disconnected the ethernet from the Arc, mounted it back on my wall and shut everything off.  Cant be bothered with this anymore today.  11 days short of 3 months since I first experienced this issue.  v14.6 is the cause, not our network, wifi signal vs ethernet cable, TV….. its the SONOS software we foisted with.  

Diagnostic sent - back to waiting for a fix.  

Userlevel 6
Badge +7

@Corry P - for reference, this is the email I was sent nearly two weeks ago after hours of testing on the call and many, many diagnostic reports sent. At one point, there was a CEC error that was noted but that was I last I heard after this on May 26th.

At this point based on the information provided so far and all the diagnostics and troubleshooting that has been done, I will have to escalate the case to our Level 3 engineers so they can look further into it. Once the case is escalated, they will be in touch with you for further instructions.


Without trying to inflame the situation, I am unsure why Sonos direct us to a process that does not seem to be producing solid communication or any results. 

Same problem here. Wired Sonos ARC + 2 PLAY 1. The surrounds drop out every time.
I have to plug out the play 1 one by one and then it all works again. (not for long)

Samsung QN93A + Ziggo next tv box. Thats all. (Holland).
 

And sonos diagnostic hangs :-(

Userlevel 2
Badge

Since before and after the issue started, I have used all the same hardware. The only change has been Sonos firmware updates and all the issues started after 14.6 rolled out. I find it hard to believe they can’t replicate the issues.

Badge

What type of HDMI cables do you use to connect your ARC to TV and - most of all - to connect source (eg. ATV) to TV?

I found a thread on the Apple support forum about a sound problem similar. A guy had a problem with fading and dropping sound on his Denon home theater system. The solution was simple: change the hdmi cable between the Apple TV 4K and the TV to one that supports 48 gbps.

I have now 18 gbps cable and I’m considering buying hdmi ver. 2.1 with 48 gbps. But I'm a little scared to test again. My system, connected wired and playing only from tv (ATV is disconnected) works perfectly. I don’t want to loose it. I’d rather sell ATV...

Userlevel 3
Badge

@Frank Smith Just to warn you; There are lots of us with Arc’s on Ethernet that are suffering from the issue still

 

Hey, yes, I know this is only temporary - sadly.  I let her know that many have it wired and experience the same drop.  Just doing this to provide one more diagnostic report to them.  9th time the charm?  

No real surprise.  Was using the built in YouTube TV app and switched over to PS5.  The game I was playing didn't really require a lot of sound so had the volume on low.  After a while I turned it up to see and sure enough, nothing coming out of the rears.  Switched to Netflix, put on a movie I always test this against and yup, rears/subs dropped.

Disconnected the ethernet from the Arc, mounted it back on my wall and shut everything off.  Cant be bothered with this anymore today.  11 days short of 3 months since I first experienced this issue.  v14.6 is the cause, not our network, wifi signal vs ethernet cable, TV….. its the SONOS software we foisted with.  

Diagnostic sent - back to waiting for a fix.  

11 days short of 2 months*

Userlevel 2
Badge +1

What type of HDMI cables do you use to connect your ARC to TV and - most of all - to connect source (eg. ATV) to TV?

I found a thread on the Apple support forum about a sound problem similar. A guy had a problem with fading and dropping sound on his Denon home theater system. The solution was simple: change the hdmi cable between the Apple TV 4K and the TV to one that supports 48 gbps.

I have now 18 gbps cable and I’m considering buying hdmi ver. 2.1 with 48 gbps. But I'm a little scared to test again. My system, connected wired and playing only from tv (ATV is disconnected) works perfectly. I don’t want to loose it. I’d rather sell ATV...

I use 48Gbps HDMI cables and I’m experiencing the issue. Save your money. 

Badge

Last Friday I worked with specialist from Sonos on my system. I spent few hours to tweak my home theatre system and my wifi network and also back my system to fully wireless.

Everything went perfectly. And than I turned on my Apple TV 4K. After 30 sec with music app and playing dolby atmos rears disconnected. 30 sec !!!!! Problem is definitely connected with switching between dolby atmos and other formats on Apple TV.

Now I’m back to wire connection but without ATV and everythig work perfectly.

Its probably not the Apple TV (as some people have reported having this issue and don't have Apple TV) but there is definitely something that occurs when playing or switching between formats. For me, I can get the issue to occur by flicking between Dolby Atmos, 5.1 and Stereo and eventually the speakers will drop. 

That being said, I have no idea what Sonos could have placed into the 14.6 code which directly or indirectly causes an issue.

Ok. But I don’t have this problem when I cut off ATV and use only aps on my TV or sat decoder. I switch between formats, between sources (music from iPhone or iPad and than atmos from Netflix from TV...) and everything works properly. But when I connect my Apple TV 4K it take less than 1 min to kill the rear speakers and sometimes also sub. So in my case it is definitely problem with ATV → TV (Sony Bravia XR) → ARC connection.

Badge

What type of HDMI cables do you use to connect your ARC to TV and - most of all - to connect source (eg. ATV) to TV?

I found a thread on the Apple support forum about a sound problem similar. A guy had a problem with fading and dropping sound on his Denon home theater system. The solution was simple: change the hdmi cable between the Apple TV 4K and the TV to one that supports 48 gbps.

I have now 18 gbps cable and I’m considering buying hdmi ver. 2.1 with 48 gbps. But I'm a little scared to test again. My system, connected wired and playing only from tv (ATV is disconnected) works perfectly. I don’t want to loose it. I’d rather sell ATV...

I use 48Gbps HDMI cables and I’m experiencing the issue. Save your money. 

Thank a lot. You save my money and time :)

Userlevel 2
Badge +1

It’s interesting that most are having issues with TV audio.

Has anyone had dropouts with music through the Sonos app (with connected TV off)? Or is that just me? 

Badge

I've the same issues by listening Sonos Radio (free) without any TV connected. (no surround, no sub an sometimes the echo-effect) 

Userlevel 1
Badge

Adding my voice to this - exactly the same issues after the initial update. Surrounds started lagging, now the Sub shows it’s there but nothing comes out. Wired the Arc instead, disconnected/added everything again (2xSL,1xSub), no resolution. Absolutely no changes to my network, setup or device updates - the only common theme was the last Sonos update.

What seemed to trip mine up was switching sources - more notably on the Sky box - seemingly where one channel was in one audio format, one another, then the echo appeared. The Arc also seems more sluggish at detecting the input type too - it could be 20 seconds before it would identify the audio type after changing channel or switching to Netflix/Disney/Kodi etc.

I know Sonos has a “Roll forward” attitude, but sometimes rolling back really is useful. Like now.

Adding my voice to this - exactly the same issues after the initial update. Surrounds started lagging, now the Sub shows it’s there but nothing comes out. Wired the Arc instead, disconnected/added everything again (2xSL,1xSub), no resolution. Absolutely no changes to my network, setup or device updates - the only common theme was the last Sonos update.

What seemed to trip mine up was switching sources - more notably on the Sky box - seemingly where one channel was in one audio format, one another, then the echo appeared. The Arc also seems more sluggish at detecting the input type too - it could be 20 seconds before it would identify the audio type after changing channel or switching to Netflix/Disney/Kodi etc.

I know Sonos has a “Roll forward” attitude, but sometimes rolling back really is useful. Like now.

You say no changes to the local network setup, but you’re actually using SonosNet when you wired the Arc, we’re you using your local WiFi before that, as that would be quite a change in connectivity, if you were? 

Also what did you wire your Arc to?

Did you reboot/power-cycle your devices and remove the WiFi credentials when on SonosNet or set the wireless channels, so that they did not overlap? 

I guess more importantly did you submit diagnostic reports as requested and speak to Sonos Support about the issues you were seeing and (presumably) able to reproduce? 

Userlevel 1
Badge

I bought my arc and one SL pair from Costco. 18 months ago. It looks like I can still return them for refund. I’m doing that.  I’ll only have to sell my sub since I bought it elsewhere.  It’s a pity because every thing worked beautifully until it didn’t.  

Hoi, have the same issues with firmware 14.6 and 14.8. Disconnect with Music and Movies. Sometimes hickups with Movies. Also found the sound quality les. Its a mess. Setup Arc, 2 One SL, Sub Gen 3, Sony A80J. My netwerk is WM: 0. Nothing has changed in my setup even firmware other devices, its stil the same as before firmware 14.6 and 14.8. I’m from Holland.