My Arc dropped last night while I was watching Spiderman No Way Home, (multichannel pcm 7.1) I paused it and went back and no audio, even the lights on the front where not flashing from volume presses, so it had completely dropped.

I was watching via apple tv 4k gen 2 box.

I switched source to live tv and back again and the ARC started responding again, can tell as you see the tree light turn on for a few seconds.

Hi all,

Firstly, thank you all so much for all the testing and debugging you’ve been going through. Hopefully it’s going to give the Sonos engineers a solid foundation to (eventually) rectify this awful problem. 
 

I’ve just got home after 2 weeks vacation to find this issue is still constantly occurring on my system. Please can somebody give me a quick rundown on the Voice Assistant / power-cycle method of improving things? Does it legitimately help the problem do you think?

Thank you!

1. From my current June 2022, hands on experience comparing Sonos 5.1.2 side by side with the HT-A9, seems Sony has fixed this issue. However, Sony also includes an RF Channel feature in the menu that can be used to minimize interference or select the best/stronger channel for transmission if you do encounter interference from other wireless devices in close proximity.

2. I have a very powerful Asus ZenWifi mesh system running in my environment. No Sonos dropouts.  

Since the svc release the only dropouts I have had have been with my pair of 5's and sub gen2 

Left channel dropped followed by the right a remove and readding them fixes it but then I have to redo truplay which is annoying 

My surrounds have been stable for over 3 weeks all of my speakers have svc installed which makes me lean towards a software issue as the 5’s are unable to install svc and they are the only speakers still having dropout issues 

Hopefully when 15.x release drops we can put 14.6 in the rear view mirror 

My two cents...

Well, If voice control is the fix, they need to look at what in the coding would affect the basic ARC vs the SL ARC. I have the SL and voice isn't an option for me.

In terms of the packet drop scenario, here is a screenshot below (of the ARC metrics) after a reboot this morning and leaving a movie running in the background. 

Although I am not sure what device br0 is, its the one with the most TX/RX during playing the movie and constantly incremented - which you would expect and means it the most likely communicator during HT operation. 

Strangely, the TX (transmit) looks to have no drops in the 1.1GB of data that was sent. However, the RX (receive) has 29% packet drop but only 44MB of data sent. 

Again, I don't know if this is normal or what the RX is used for - presumably some heartbeat or sync comms between the units? But this is what I am seeing - whether its is part of this issue or not I do not know. 

 

br0 = bridge interface 0.

Under the hood, a Sonos speaker runs Linux. It has an Ethernet interface (eth0) and two Atheros wireless interfaces (ath0, ath1), corresponding to the 2.4 and 5.8 ghz wifi bands.

However…

The Sonos system has no opinion about it’s Ethernet or Wireless communications setup. The operating system creates a bridge (br0) that combines all three interfaces into a single flat network and all communications are done over that. When data is sent to br0, it is dumped into the corresponding physical interface by the operating system at a lower level than the Sonos system.

The drop count in that bridge don’t look like an issue to me. Frames can be dropped for any number of reasons, especially on a wireless network, especially when in a bridge scenario (duplicate frames, corrupt frames, etc). 

Honestly, I really can’t see how this is a networking issue. Sonos support reflexively saying otherwise is most likely because yes, most of the time, people with drop-out problems -are- in fact having networking issues. 

This issue is almost certainly farther up the chain. My guess is it’s in the actual code that Sonos implements to provide sync between speakers coming off the “master” device (Arc, etc), or possibly in the decoding itself. Specifically, if the Arc is having issues decoding incoming audio to PCM it can’t possibly send valid PCM back out to your surround components. Corrupt incoming data would most likely present itself as silence.

Case in point: when I have drops, I can still see my ethernet switch status lights blinking to indicate that data is being sent to the silent speakers (my setup is 100% ethernet). This strongly implies data is being sent and is arriving at the drop-out, but the speaker itself just isn’t playing it. To me, this sounds like bad data rather than bad transport of good data.

TL;DR: 99:1 we’re stuck waiting on Sonos to figure out what the issue is on their end and waiting for a fix. I really don’t think there are any ‘user serviceable’ components of this issue that we can tweak to improve/diagnose the problem.

it definitely doesn’t fix it and even if it did they would still definitely need to address it because we shouldn’t be forced to use a voice assistant

Is there no one in this thread, with this issue close to Santa Barbara?

I have issues despite enabling SVC, disabled the annoyance for good. Wasn’t a dropout but lagging which usually follows when speakers recover from dropouts. Issue since 19th April and no resolution.

Just had the CEC message saying it disconnect and then reconnect real quickly....and amazingly the sub immediately cut out.

Diagnosis report #1148095984

Can someone point the higher level techs working on this to this case number? Sub cut out at the exact same time as CEC dropping.

I still haven’t had a drop out since installing the sonos svc on my arc. As I’ve mentioned, I am not switching inputs, nor do I have anything connected to my TCL Roku tv other than the arc (and a cheap $20 hd antenna).

When the problems started occurring after the 14.6 update I wasn’t switching inputs either, but did have an ATV 4k connected to the tv - didn’t use it though. Still had daily drop outs and had to power cycle everything to get things back. Since disconnecting the ATV and installing the svc on the arc and cycling everything, it’s been flawless just using the Roku tv apps.

So, I would like to hook up my ATV again, and get a PS5, etc. But I guess Sonos has to figure this out first.

I can live with using the tv apps, but if no other devices can be connected without problems, then what is the point?
 

Update from my side. I have been stable for approx 5 days and have watched plenty of random content and different formats. Not saying the issue is gone, that's too early.  But it has gone through the longest time and many format switches without any issues.

For clarity, my system is: Boost, ARC, 1 x Sub Gen2, 1 x Sub Gen3, 2 x One SL’s and 2 x Fives. Orbi RBR20 Mesh. AppleTV 4K 1st Gen. Sonos has been Try-Play setup and run the ‘Connect TV’ setup. (NOTE: Voice Control has NOT been setup). 

Since before getting (more) stable, this is what I have done - which is a lot but going to list them out. 

1. Full factory reset of EVERY Sonos device to 14.8.1. (I have never done this with 14.8.1, only 14.6 so thought this would be worth a try). 
2. Removal of one of my ORBI Satellites. (I had 1 x Router and 2x Satellites, went to 1 x Router and 1 x Satellite).
3. Fixed IP address on every Sonos Component, and also the NetGear ORBI devices.
4. Replacement of a NETGEAR switch to a TP-LINK switch in my office. 
5. Moved my Sub which was very close to the ARC (around 1 foot to the left) to further away.

I am not saying the issue is gone, but its the most stable its ever been.

One observation that I will make is that my Boost has become the root bridge. It has NEVER been root bridge nor has any of the other Sonos devices for as long as I can remember. It must have created a root bridge at the router, RBR20 access point or one of the switches. However, the Boost is root-bridge. 

I have not noticed as much switching of frequencies for the ad-hoc network the ARC sets up for HT communications. So I don't yet know whether this is going to eventually ‘bump’ into my NetGear backhaul channel and thus create the problem. But it has not done that yet, and I'll keep monitoring. 

I have been watching programs across Netflix, AppleTV, Disney+, Prime and a mix of Atmos, DD and Stereo. I have also been listening to Apple Music and also Sonos Radio. I have also tried my trusty break script as well. All has been very stable and operating like it was before April.

I will continue to monitor over the coming days. If it makes a full week+, then something has changed to introduce some stability. Why it broke during April is another question we can tackle at a later date…….

Surely this can’t be a network related issue because my setup is plugged in and using Sonosnet but I’m experiencing this as well… 

Quite unfortunate considering I’ve never had any connection issues with any of my Sonos products throughout the nearly 10 years since I’ve been using/upgrading/trading them.

Setup: Arc

Audio Sources: Samsung Q80T :eARC] + PS5

I’m guaranteed to face dropouts and audio delays every time I switch between playing content through native apps. 

However it seems to be hit and miss whenever I use my PS5. 

I know, its very frustrating. I am not sure whether what I have done has fixed it, or I have had a lucky 5 days. intermittent by nature and VERY hard to nail down. 

I was thinking a while back that at least one source had to be connected for this problem to manifest, even if you never use it. For me I’m almost completely stable with one external source but as soon as I connect a second, dropouts quickly follow. One of the reasons that lead me to believe just having a source connect is enough to bring this about is after a period of 5 days of stability, I plugged in a second source and within 5 minutes and without even switching to the new source, I got a dropout. It appeared that just having my system recognize the new source was enough. I’m still interested if anyone with literally no external devices and just using internal tv apps is experiencing this issue. 

I am not so sure. I have only ever had one device (Apple TV) plugged into my Panosonic. And I have had huge issues up until the last 5 days. I do think that CEC is related tough, especially after Sonos Support said they could see a CEC error. 

Can you clarify your Apple TV use? Have you disconnected it and power cycled everything and still experience the issue with just TV Apps? I know many folks are having this issue with only one source device connected but I don’t recall anyone definitively saying they were getting it with none. Happy to be proven wrong though. 

I have found that I only now lose surrounds and sub if I use the AppleTV remote to initially turn on my tv and the AppleTV.  If I use the tv remote to turn the tv on, I have no issues.

Yeah, that's a good point.  Apart from when I was in ‘full test mode’ I don't usually use the native apps on my Panosonic. i.e. I have only used the AppleTV (on AppleTV box) for the last 5 days. I did forgot to mention in my email post above that I also factory reset my AppleTV. 

You are joking?!  That's insane.

OK, can you expand and explain more on how you discovered this and your testing results @Bloodforge ?

My only testing is using the appletv remote to turn everything on(ie. pressing a button on appletv remote would turn the appletv on and my tv on as well).  When I do this my surrounds and subs do not work. I noticed it last week and stopped doing it and have had zero issues when using the tv remote to turn on the tv and then the appletv remote to turn the appletv on.

TV is an LG C1.

@Brad Porter for further information I use my system the same way with the apple remote 

I have never had this problem my tv is LG B8

Main difference is no earc just arc, so in your previous posts you mentioned it seems like a cec problem I agree but in conjunction with earc it would seem 

What settings do you have for this in Apple TV?

Mine is