Samsung QE65QN95AATXXC + Sonos Arc = Sound cutting

I almost had a hope that the problem had disappeared, but the problem reappeared unfortunately.

This is what I did:

1. A couple of hours after I tried the Sonos Arc with my computer through optical, I reconnected it to the Samsung TV via Optical and turned eARC to OFF.
2. Watched an episodes with Atmos content through Samsung TV Netflix app. No issues.
3. Connected the Sonos Arc to HDMI3, still eARC OFF. Another episode worked fine.
4. Tried the same show on the Netflix app on Shield TV. It worked without an issue.
5. Turned eARC: AUTO and watched another episode. Still works.
6. Connected surround and sub to the Sonos Arc. It worked for another episode.
7. Swapped to the Plex app. Watched a couple of episodes with Atmos content with no issues. Then I went to bed.

It has never worked longer than 20 minutes without audio drops earlier, so I was getting hopeful.

Input Signal Plus for HDMI3 (Sonos Arc) is disabled. It is enabled for the Nvidia Shield.

Most of my testing has been with both of these enabled, but I have also tried and failed when they have been disabled.

1. Today I watched 25 minutes of a Atmos movie on Plex. No audio drops.
2. Next I tried an episode of Game of Thrones with Atmos sound. The audio then dropped after 16 minutes of the episode. Diagnostics: 597141272. I suppose this is an audio drop like all the previous ones?

Something definitely has changed, it suddenly worked for a long periode of time.
I started another Atmos media file now to see if the audio drop happens within 20 minutes.

How does the Sonos Diagnostics work? I don’t have the time to sit and watch movies all day (I wish). If I play an entire movie while I am not at home, and then do a Diagnostics after 2 hours. Is it possible to see in the logs if there has been an audio drop? Or will it be difficult with such a diagnostic?

Hi @stian89 

Actually, that drop-out looked more like the stream had just stopped - assuming it was immediately before the diagnostic was submitted. I had to go back 1 hour in the logs before I saw messages indicating there was something wrong with the stream. Bear in mind that we can’t tell the difference in you changing the channel/ending a stream and, for example, the cable being faulty (we see “Signal lost” messages all the time that are perfectly normal).

Regardless of what the Netflix app says, if your Arc is connected to the TV via the optical adaptor, you will not get Atmos. The interface isn’t physically capable. When you submitted the latest diagnostics, Atmos was playing so I have to assume that at that point optical was not in use - was it in use when you had no interruptions?

The diagnostics are just packages of OS system and module logs from all speakers. As such, they are snapshots of the exact moment you submit them. Some logs go back for days, some only go back 20 minutes. If you don’t immediately submit diagnostics, we need some idea of the time period involved or we’d be looking for a needle in a haystack that may not be a needle. Or hay.

So yes, if you submit some and give me an indication of when the movie was playing, relative to when the diagnostic was sent, I could take a look. It would need to be free of interruption however - as in, no adverts as that would constitute a change in audio feed. Having said this, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team for some real-time troubleshooting. Mind you, they can’t wait for an entire movie to play either.

If things seem to be considerably better now, perhaps something has resolved itself - that one interruption may have been unrelated to the ones you were suffering from previously. We can certainly hope so.

After some more testing, I believe the issue has mostly been resolved!
I believe the Samsung TV was the main issue here. Resetting the HDMI-ports, the whole TV and NOT using Input Signal Plus for the eARC seems to have been my solution. :)

I have tried both internal apps on the TV and different streaming apps on the Shield TV. DD5.1 now works totally fine.
Dolby Atmos is also working, except when delievered in 4K high bitrate movies with TrueHD 7.1.

I have tried a 4K movie with two different audio tracks: TrueHD 7.1 Atmos and DD5.1. There is audio cutting every 15-20 minutes on the TrueHD 7.1 track, none on the DD5.1. This specific problem I believe is related to the Nvidia Shield.

Thanks @Corry P for all your support! :) 

Will update this post if the problem comes back, or if I am able to resolve the TrueHD7.1 issue. :)

Hi @stian89 

Fantastic! I’m glad you can now finally enjoy your TV and movies without these interruptions!

Thanks for sharing the fix - hopefully, you just helped a few other with the same problem.

You’re very welcome.