@MJW75 @Fendera Now showing as dolby atmos in the app. And working fine when set to Dolby Atoms! No dropouts detected, so far. The problem was that I was playing PSVR 2 and that was doing something funky to the audio. I can confirm it’s the same issue as this thread, now. It’s cutting out every minute when I switch to linear PCM

I might keep it on Dolby atmos, but if I do switch to the other cable, I’ll try linear PCM again and report the results.

Thank you to both for your help.

478 replies and Sonos hasn’t even acknowledged an issue. 

Given how they’re currently going through a courageously disastrous new app rollout, that’s no surprise. They don’t care even if they screw over most of their users.

TLDR of the thread for prospective buyers who find their way here: If you own an LG TV, do not buy this product! The same issue does not exist for the Sonos Arc so it is likely a Sonos issue. However, it’s been 2 years since this thread and Sonos has done nothing (except wash their hands off of the issue).

I hade the same problem as everyone in this thread, for some reason I have had no problems with the sound cutting out on my ps5 with LG C1 and Beam 2 for like a month. Didn’t switch out any cables or changed any settings. The ps5 is on HDMI 3. Anyone else with similar results? I hope I didn’t jinxed it.

Hi Howl,

It seems to be a problem with the LG TVs. Not sure if it is only the new ones or not. I had the beam 1 and then bought the arc and both are doing the same thing. HDMI 1 seems ok. I have ordered an HDMI switch that i am going to plug into HDMI 1 and then all my boxes and stuff will plug into that. The switch is coming today so i will report back and let you know if it works. Its not ideal but hopefully it will work until some kind of fix comes out for this.

It’s been a while and it’s still working so I think it’s really been fixed. Not sure if it was one of Sonos’ numerous updates or the latest LG update from months ago that fixed it. Just update your stuff to the latest and it’ll probably work.

Hi @throwawaybeam2 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

As you have experimented and found this to be repeatable, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team directly so they can take some diagnostics and gather information regarding this occurrence. Thank you. 

Hi @throwawaybeam2 

Please recreate the issue and submit a support diagnostic, replying here with the number given. Thanks.

Hi @throwawaybeam2 

Thanks for the diagnostic. The Beam is reporting underflow errors, meaning that the audio is being interrupted before it reaches the Beam. As this happens with two source devices, the source of the interruption is likely the TV itself, or the physical connection between the TV and the Beam.

If you haven’t done so already, please unplug the TV from power for at least 2 minutes. In the majority of cases, this simple step usually fixes such issues. I didn’t mention it before as you mentioned installing a TV software update - this would include the TV rebooting it’s software. Perhaps it’s the hardware that needs to restart instead.

If this doesn’t help, please swap the ends of the HDMI cable linking your Beam to the TV - put the end that’s currently in the TV into the Beam, and vice versa. Also, are you using the cable that was supplied with the Beam? If not, please do so. If so, please try another (HDMI 1.4 or better).

I hope this helps.

I don’t have an Xbox, but 5.1 multichannel LPCM audio is working okay for me albeit from an Apple TV 4HD connected to a slightly older LG C9 TV with Arc, surrounds & sub. No audio interruptions/dropouts. TV digital audio-out is set to ‘pass-through’, rather than ‘auto’ in the LG sound settings.

Maybe try toggling the TV audio-out settings and perhaps consider removing anything else connected to the other TV HDMI inputs (leaving just the Xbox & Arc connected) to see if that might make any difference. 

Hi @throwawaybeam2 

A good test would be to play 5.1 PCM from the PC, but without the PS5 connected to the TV, and after a TV power cycle - if the issue doesn’t occur, then disabling the PS5’s CEC  options would be a good place to start, then try a CEC-less adaptor if that doesn’t help. Having said that, I’d still recommend trying the free option of a TV reset before spending any money.

If, however, the PC gets interruptions without the PS5 connected, then I recommend the reset of the TV.

If neither resetting the TV nor disconnecting the PS5 fixes the problem, it really would be best to get a case created by getting in touch with our technical support team via chat or email.

Hi @throwawaybeam2 

I don’t disagree - the timing with the update is worthy of note and we did alter some Home Theatre functionality in said update (though I don’t know if any of it pertained to 5.1 PCM specifically and only - it seems unlikely). I’m certain, however, that a reset of the TV is the best way to get the troubleshooting process to move forward, at the very least, given what the engineer I spoke to told me about what was found in the diagnostics.

There is no way to roll-back the software (I don’t like to speak in absolutes because many things are technically possible, but to all intents and purposes it can’t be done).

Hi @throwawaybeam2 

As I mentioned, the best way for troubleshooting to move forward is to reset the TV - if this does not resolve the problem, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who will create a case for you and be in a better position to assist you, moving forward. 

These are my LG C9 TV Audio Settings…

• Sound -> HDMI ARC (Digital Sound Out = Pass-Through / eARC = ‘ON’)
• Sound -> Additional Settings (DTV Audio = Auto) / HDMI input format = Bitstream for all HDMI ports.
• Connection -> HDMI Device Settings (Auto Device Detection = ‘ON’ / Simplink = ‘ON’ / Auto Power Sync = ‘ON’)

PCM Multichannel began cutting out again, now on Sonos v14.16 still LG v03.33.11. I tried toggling all the settings I tried previously (I didn’t see “Dolby Multichannel PCM 5.1” this time, only stereo) and disabling CEC on the sources but the drop outs persisted.

I then factory reset the C1, but that did not clear the issue either, so I then generated diagnostic #997513791. 

Support have raised a case. I also decided to time the audio drops, I thought they were random but today I measured them as a regular 39.8 seconds apart.

Same problem here since Sonos v14 update with LG C1. Really frustrating :(

In my case, I have 1 second cutoff every exactly 59 seconds.

Earlier in this post I mentioned unplugging and restarting all devices fixed it but it comes back after a while. It seems some actions, either changing settings, unplugging cables, resetting devices fix it for a while but it comes back, even if no changes in setup are done. This is not such a weird scenario either... My PS5 can output Dolby 5.1 instead  (no dropouts) but prefering uncompressed audio from the source is completely normal if your device supports it?

@RANDUSR23296 , could you keep us updated here if you receive a reply to your support case? Many thanks.

@Airgetlam I will contact the support this week. We will see ! 

On the main page I go to param of (input/ouput)

And I got settings screen: 

 

Thank you for taking the time to show, it’s greatly appreciated. All done and I’ll test it tomorrow! :)

@Fskies Really awesome! Followed the steps you indicated and the problem is solved for the moment (fingers crossed!). Thank you very much for sharing!

Hi @ste_ms 

If you’ve already been in touch, you will have an existing case. Certainly if you received an email afterwards.

I can tell you nothing about someone else’s case.

Not really. My colleague spotted something in the logs and recommended a TV reset. That customer refused to reset their TV and stopped replying - nothing came of it. I don’t think we’ve reproduced anything.

Sorry I can’t be of more help.

So after an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to solve this I think I might have fixed it with…a new HDMI cable

after trying every variation of settings, resets, earc on/off, and cable testing through the Apple TV (which reported no issue) I tested my PS5 with 5.1 (as reported it defaults to 7.1 in soundbar mode and this worked fine) and did not have the same issue. I then swapped the cables between PS5 and ATV and seemingly no more dropouts on the ATV.

I’m absolutely baffled how the cable can carry Atmos, 7.1 fine but couldn’t do 5.1 - I wonder if a certain pin in the cable is in use that otherwise isn’t with other sound formats?

I need to keep testing as it may come back but for now I wanted to let people know in case I can save them the same frustration I’ve had the last few weeks.

I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen the issue with just a single HDMI device connected (PS5 or Bluray) but that doesn’t mean the action of you changing the ATV cable hasn’t triggered a refresh of some cached HDMI handshake value in the TV - possibly @Fskies saw a similar thing when removing/re-adding the beam from the LG menu.

@ste_ms - Out of interest which HDMI ports do you have assigned to the PS5 and which to the ATV? To date I’ve been assuming they behave the same, but maybe some LG C1s have some buggy ports, I don’t recall if I’ve seen the behaviour on both HDMI1 and HDMI3 (I don’t use HDMI4 yet as it’s wall facing and I now have TV on a slim bracket).

It’s never impossible to be a Sonos bug, by any stretch. Just unlikely. But if it were a Sonos bug, there’d likely be thousands upon thousands (relatively speaking) posts about it. 

Sonos is essentially a “dumb” device, at the end of a long chain of things. All it does is play what it’s handed, in whatever form it can, and reports back to the CEC computer on the TV a small amount of data (what type of device it is, what formats it can play, and volume info, as near as I can tell). Sure, it has those things you mention, but if they work elsewhere (for instance, on my TVs, and most other folks installations), then they should work essentially the same everywhere. 

More often than not, the issue tends to be upstream. More so before CEC became a standard, since optical, used on the PLAYBAR and PLAYBASE, was a one way transmission, but still. There’s just not that much going on in the Sonos products. 

Which is why, in the preponderance of posts I make (check me on that, look at many of my posts), I do suggest a diagnostic and a call to Sonos. Just to be sure if it is a Sonos issue, and if it is indeed a Sonos issue, providing the engineering team hard data to look at. All of the engineers I’ve worked with in the last 40 years have wanted hard data, not anecdotal data, otherwise they return quickly with a “it works on my machine” response.