Playbar--Switching from Music to TV

Hi Ken,
i called sonos and they said almost the same thing... they believed the TV was occasionally sending a signal out when it was off. I have a Samsung series 6 and it’s connected via the digital optical audio cable rather than an HDMI. I do not have any other pieces of equipment connected to the TV aside from the Playbar, we just watch streaming programs like Netflix, no actually cable connection.
Do you think disabling HDMI auto detec help?

In fact I was thinking of you having a Sonos Beam connected over HDMI, rather than a PlayBar over optical but it is quite possible the TV is sending out a signal of some sort over the optical port.

Have you checked to see if there is a firmware/software update for your TV? It might be a case Samsung are aware and may have fixed the issue.

I see no harm in disabling the HDMI auto detect feature. That's worth trying.

I would check/re-seat or replace the optical cable too, if the problem persists.

When re-seating the cable I would power off both devices completely (not just in standby mode).

A factory reset of the TV is also another consideration, perhaps?

i hope you find the cause, as it must really be quite frustrating.

I found this link too. It's a slightly different Samsung TV model, but with a similar issue perhaps. It's worth a read at least...

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/4k-8k-and-Other-TVs/2017-Samsung-MU8000-Turns-itself-on/td-p/216750

I also wonder if the TV is checking for updates when in standby, or perhaps updating the TV guide etc?

Hi Ken,

So I have tried a couple of things so far, one by one to see if any particular one isolates the cause of the issue. Unfortunately my problem persists. I’ve tried the following:

1) ensured my Samsung series 6 (Costco) is up to date
2) lifted my speaker up off my carpet, I had it sitting on carpet with the cords facing down against the carpet.
3) disables auto updating on Samsung TV
4) factor reset of TV
5) called Samsung to report the issue to them. They simply said they didn’t know why sonos would claim the tv is putting out a signal because according to them when the tv is off it doesn’t send or receive any signals. I don’t believe that but it’s what they claim.

so far none of these have worked... I might try to go into the tv settings and see if I can figure out how to disable to hdmi auto detect. Aside from that I’m at a lose for what to do...
any other ideas out there? My other option is to return it all to Costco since I bought it all from there. Hoping to avoid this though.

Just a couple of other possibilities I can think of:

Any pets walking on stuff?

Low battery power in the in the remote control?

Hi Nik9669a,

no no pets and the tv and Playbar are both less than 1 week old. Just put in the remotes batteries the other day when we set up the tv.
by the way as I’m typing this the Playbar somehow switched from my music to the tv signal... and the tv isn’t even on! Darn it. The problem persists.

Try unplugging the tv completely, and batteries out of the remote. That might isolate the problem towards being the Playbar.

I’m pretty sure it will not be the PlayBar, as the Toslink connection is not a bi-directional connection and information flows just from the TV output to the Playbar. I think it’s easier to try another TV, to simply prove where the problem lies.

My advice would be to try that, and once the finger of blame points at the TV, then maybe speak to Samsung Support to see if they are aware, or perhaps have a fix, for the issue. It maybe the TV regularly polls it’s connected devices to ensure they are still there.

I’m just wondering that if it is the TV and there is no way to disable the feature, if an optical switch between the playbar and TV might be the answer here, to prevent the signal getting through when the playbar is playing music.

Unfortunately I don’t have another tv to experiment the connection issue with.
last night I attempted disabling Apple TV in the Samsung settings and Anynet+ on the Samsung TV, unfortunately neither did anything and the problem still persists.

ken,
what is an optical switch?

what TV do you guys have connected to your play bars? I’m thinking of returning the tv to Costco already since I’m still within the 90days. I’m curious if there are better brands out there that you guys have that are less problematic. My wife and I only stream tv from Netflix, Hulu, hbo, etc... we aren’t very tech savvy and this tv and sonos speaker system is the first real quality entertainment system we’ve ever owned.

By by the way I appreciate all the input your guys have given us.

Thanks
sean

I've been using Vizio TVs for around the last 10 or so years, used to be Sony (was for a time a Sony employee, so I got an employee discount, which made it attractive) While I'm mildly concerned about the data from the TV being used, I've followed all the suggestions on how to turn off data tracking....and frankly, pretty much use either Apple TV or DirecTV to feed the set, and none of the internal apps. I've had absolutely no issues with Vizio and Sonos....other than one time, about 5 years ago, when the TV firmware update that Vizio sent changed my audio preferences. There's been dozens of updates since then that I've had no issues with.

I think the one I have in front of me is a Vizio p75 f1, I've got a second Vizio in my bedroom.