Sonos Arc audio keeps cutting out.


I have a sonos ARC and sound keeps cutting out for 1-2 seconds and then picks back up. My sonos was fine for about 1 week after purchasing but now the sound will cut out periodically. Here is my diagnostics number 103248445. How can I fix this issue?

Ken_Griffiths 1 year ago

Same here. Very aggravating. Diagnostic report 490235596. 

This used to be an issue with some TV’s, particularly with Samsung and connected sound systems using HDMI-ARC/eARC, where other connected peripherals like Apple TV (as an example) tried to steal the CEC focus.

So maybe try disabling CEC on any other connected devices and then power off all for a few minutes to setup the handshake again and see if that perhaps solves the matter.

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Hi @joshamacd, Thank you for reaching out and welcome to the community and on submitting a diagnostic report of your Sonos system. upon checking, It shows that the HDMI Arc is disabled, possibly the CEC on the Samsung TV, you can try to look for the setting of Anynet+ on your Samsung TV and enable it. it also detected Interference on the connections. Kindly check this link to reduce wireless interference on Sonos. 

Enable CEC

Open your Samsung TV System → Turn on Anynet+ (HDMI-CEC). (This option may be also in Expert Settings).

OR

Open your Samsung TV's Sound menu → Switch Speakers to External Speakers (On some Samsung TVs this option may be named Receiver).

Let me know your thoughts with the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

I seem to have having the same issue since yesterday - just starting doing it, sound cutting in and out.  LG OLD65 2019.  TV to arc via HDMI, Ethernet to the Arc, WiFi for the sub and 2 SL’s for surround.  I tried another hdmi cable, same issue.  If i unplug the hdmi and use the TV audio no problems.  Same issue regardless of content.

 

After reading this forum last night I tried turning the arc off and on (unplugged power for a few seconds), seemed to fix it, but this afternoon it is doing it again.  Trying unplugging power off and on, that seems to have fixed it again for the moment.  Before I did this power cycle I did a diagnostic, code 1503595116.

I’ve had the system a few months now, no problems up till now.

 

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Hi @Ivanos, thanks for the update and for submitting a diagnostic report of your Sonos system. I appreciate you taking some necessary troubleshooting steps for this issue. Upon checking on the diagnostic information, it doesn't show the right format between your TV and Sonos Arc, so I’ll be asking further questions to check on this issue.

  • Is it happening on all content like TV or music content that the sound is cutting in and out?
  • Can you check if there are any pending firmware updates on the TV? If there is, Kindly install the update.
  • Can you try some content like Netflix, cable box, and check if it happens on all platforms?
  • Also, If there are are other things that are connected to the TV like Apple TV box or consoles, cable box, try to unplug them and have only the HDMI E Arc hooked and checked if the issue persists.

Keep me in the know with the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

It was happening with TV (normal free to air digital TV), seemed to be all stations.  Also with Netflix.   When the diagnostic was taken it was with Netflix (“the last air bender”) using the app on the TV, though I can’t remember if it was playing or paused when i did the diagnostic.

I’ve checked today and everything seems to be up to date already.  

There are no other sources connected to this TV, so its only the E Arc.  

It’s not doing it at the moment, but if/when it recurs I’ll try all the sources.  Should I do several diagnostics, with a variety of different sources while they are playing?

 Thanks!

 

Unsure if this is related, but I also have a Sonos amp with a pair of speakers and a powered sub (not Sonos), connected to a tv via hdmi, network to Ethernet . Today it strangely suddenly stopped playing sound from the speakers, but the sub was still going. Happened while air playing music to it. Tried playing music via the Sonos app Itself, same thing. I unplugged it’s power and put it back in, fixed and has been fine since. At the time air play or Sonos app playing To the Sonos arc still worked fine. I did a diagnostic while the amp was not working, 1776236025. 

the settings for the amp in the Sonos app looked fine just no sound from the speakers at all, but the bass still coming from the sub. 

it seems like a different thing to my arc problem, but since have not had any issues since I got them and now this together over the last few days, maybe is connected, apologies if not.  The arc has not given problems again.  

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hI @Ivanos, thanks for the update and on doing some troubleshooting steps and submitting a diagnostic report of your Sonos system. The Kitchen Sonos Amp shows offline in the report.but since you’ve tried to do a power cycle on the product. but if the issue still persists, I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting steps.  So that they can give options about what's happening with the Sonos Amp. About your Sonos Arc, everything looks good with the Arc, no issue has been detected on it. 

Let me know your thoughts with the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

Same problem here. Immensely frustrating. Issue probably arises twice weekly. 

 

Diagnostic number: 223811885

 

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Hi @Goodmike, Thank you for reaching out and welcome to the community.thanks for submitting a diagnostic report of your Sonos system. Sorry to hear that you have the same issue on the Sonos Arc. Upon checking on the diagnostic information, I see an error on the Sonos Arc “Same Subnet restriction that has been Enabled on the Sonos system”. You may have a player or controller that cannot access the rest of the Sonos system, This could have been a previously working setup that now fails to connect. In some scenarios, it was previously possible to spread Sonos to multiple subnets and still operate but now all parts of a Sonos system must exist on the same network subnet as each other. for further assistance on this issue, I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting steps for a resolution on this issue. 

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

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I just installed a new Arc a week ago and this has already happened to me twice. I went ahead and unplugged/re-plugged the HDMI cable to the Arc and that restored sound. However, like those above, with this being a common and recurring issue, having to unplug/re-plug every few days is not an acceptable solution. What is the source of this problem? Has there been a fix since the last post in this issue two months ago?

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Hi @SHL, thanks for reaching out. Sorry to hear about what’s happening with your Sonos system. since you’ve tried some troubleshooting steps, and the issue persists. We’ll take this further. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting steps. They may ask for some other troubleshooting steps or other options for this issue. 

Please, feel free to let me know if you require any further information.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

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@Simon B .  I have done as you suggest.  Today, contact Sonos support by Phone appears to be disabled, apparently due to call volume/staffing.  I have therefore initiated a chat with a Support representative and, putting it mildly, it’s been a waste of my time.  This is NOT acceptable for any product, let alone an $800 one.  If this issue was unique to me, OK.  But it’s apparent from the postings in this topic that it’s a widespread issue, and I need to know if it’s being seriously looked at and when we can expect a resolution.  In the past two weeks of having my Sonos Arc installed, I’ve had to unplug/replug the HDMI/ARC cable at least 8 times, including today.  The Support Rep on Chat seems either unaware of this being a commonly reported issue, or is just doing that Support “thing” of having me perform basic troubleshooting that I’ve already done.

I’ve been a Sonos customer since you started - over 10 years.  While there have periodically been little quirks/bugs, your products have otherwise always worked flawlessly.  I am really disappointed with this. 

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Update...I just spent about 30 minutes on the phone with Sonos support.  Not surprisingly, they point to the issue being with my Samsung TV intermittently disabling the HDMI/ARC port.  Based on issues I’ve had with my other Samsung TV, I have no reason not to take Sonos’ word on this.  The frustrating part, however, is that the Sonos tech support analyst kept trying to get me to find a setting on my Samsung TV that doesn’t exist - an “HDMI Input Audio” setting in the Sound...Expert Settings menu - it’s not there.  And given that, they said I need to call Samsung.  So, I then spent another 30 minutes on the phone with Samsung support and, not surprisingly, they tried to initially blame the issue on the Sonos Arc.  After re-explaining several times what was happening, they’re now saying there’s a problem with my HDMI/ARC port (duh!) and they want to send out a technician.  None of this makes sense - my gut tells me this is a software problem.  The HDMI/ARC port works just fine, until it doesn’t, and unplugging/re-plugging wakes it back up.  So, I’m skeptical a technician will be able to do anything.  But, given my TV is still under warranty, and this won’t cost me anything (other than time), I’ll go with it for now.

If anyone else has figured this issue out, please let me know, so I can skip the trouble of a technician appointment.  If not, then I’ll report back here on whatever happens.

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Final Update...After booking a service appointment with Samsung for this Thursday, I did some more web searching, and found that this problem is very common/widespread - both on the Samsung and Sonos communities.   

Then, about 30 mins ago, Samsung Service got back to me and pushed what was supposed to be an appointment this Thursday out to to the end of November!  So, I just cancelled it.  This is clearly not a hardware issue, and having a service technician come out made no sense.

At this point, my only options are (a) live with having to unplug/replug my HDMI cable every few days when this happens, or (b) switch to Optical, lose Dolby Atmos sound and also lose the ability to switch my TV on with an Alexa voice command.

This is really disappointing...a high-end home theatre component not working with a market-leading television brand.

Samsung/Sonos - would you please get together and resolve this?  I realize this seems to be mostly a Samsung issue, but Samsung TVs allegedly do not have this issue with other soundbars, according to what I’ve read, and I would hope you might be able to exert some influence over this situation, given your position in the market, and theirs.  You also need to get your Support folks inline - as is obvious by this thread (and many others), this is a common problem, and it seems every analyst I’ve spoken to knows nothing about it.

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Final Update...After booking a service appointment with Samsung for this Thursday, I did some more web searching, and found that this problem is very common/widespread - both on the Samsung and Sonos communities.   

Then, about 30 mins ago, Samsung Service got back to me and pushed what was supposed to be an appointment this Thursday out to to the end of November!  So, I just cancelled it.  This is clearly not a hardware issue, and having a service technician come out made no sense.

At this point, my only options are (a) live with having to unplug/replug my HDMI cable every few days when this happens, or (b) switch to Optical, lose Dolby Atmos sound and also lose the ability to switch my TV on with an Alexa voice command.

This is really disappointing...a high-end home theatre component not working with a market-leading television brand.

Samsung/Sonos - would you please get together and resolve this?  I realize this seems to be mostly a Samsung issue, but Samsung TVs allegedly do not have this issue with other soundbars, according to what I’ve read, and I would hope you might be able to exert some influence over this situation, given your position in the market, and theirs.  You also need to get your Support folks inline - as is obvious by this thread (and many others), this is a common problem, and it seems every analyst I’ve spoken to knows nothing about it.

It’s not just Samsung, my LG has audio cutouts as well and I’ve seen plenty of others on here with new LG’s with issues, I think eARC is just rubbish on all TVs and needs some work via firmware both from the TV company’s and Sonos.

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I Lied - Another Update...so, in all my back and forth with Sonos, they ended up keeping one of my cases open and a very responsive and seemingly-knowledgeable support rep has been corresponding with me.  One of the first things he said - and this was the first time I got anything like this from Sonos - is that there is a KNOWN ISSUE with eARC TVs, and with those TVs, the symptom is a periodic complete loss of audio.  And they are apparently working with Samsung to resolve.  My Samsung Frame TV is a 2019 version with regular HDMI/ARC (i.e. not eARC).  And my symptom of the audio cutting in/out, like someone is pressing the mute/un-mute button every 1-2 seconds, is, according to him, not a common issue.  This strikes me as odd, given there are so many posts in this topic, and others, that seem to raise the identical issue.  And the diagnostic shows the HDMI/ARC port to be inactive when the symptom is occurring.  None of this is novel - we all suspect it’s a software/firmware issue on the TV side (and apparently not just Samsung TVs), but just wanted to confirm with the community...for those of you with regular HDMI/ARC connections (not eARC), does your TV periodically [allegedly] shut down the HDMI/ARC port and you’re left with audio cutting in/out until you either hard-reboot your TV or unplug/re-plug the HDMI cable to the Arc?  I told the rep to just go read a few of these topics in the community and he’d see I’m not alone in this, but they’re treating my issue like something unique, albeit with no real optimism for a solution. :face_palm_tone1:

Same issue here.  The sonos arc cuts out every time we try to use the tv.  We have to power cycle the speaker than everything works.  This is something that I wouldn’t expect for a $1,800 sound system.   And if it does, I would expect a fast fix.   
 

Diagnostic report is 1763819074.

Userlevel 6
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Hi @Tblaney3, Thank you for reaching out and welcome to the community. Sorry to know about what happened, thanks for sending a diagnostic report. Upon checking, It detects Wireless interference on it, but we are currently checking on this situation. You may check this article about reducing wireless interference. Or for further assistance. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting on this issue. 

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

We're here to answer any further questions you have.

Hi @Tblaney3, Thank you for reaching out and welcome to the community. Sorry to know about what happened, thanks for sending a diagnostic report. Upon checking, It detects Wireless interference on it, but we are currently checking on this situation. You may check this article about reducing wireless interference. Or for further assistance. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting on this issue. 

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

We're here to answer any further questions you have.

Is there a link to the article?

Hi @Tblaney3, Thank you for reaching out and welcome to the community. Sorry to know about what happened, thanks for sending a diagnostic report. Upon checking, It detects Wireless interference on it, but we are currently checking on this situation. You may check this article about reducing wireless interference. Or for further assistance. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting on this issue. 

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

We're here to answer any further questions you have.

Is there a link to the article?

I am questioning why Wi-Fi interference would cause this issue since sound comes from the hdmi cable to arc, not Wi-Fi.  To test I unplugged the surrounds and bass, so it’s just the arc.  Turned on the tv, same problem with just the arc.  When powercycling the arc, it works perfectly.  For some reason if Wi-Fi interference were the problem, the problem would still be there after the power cycle or shortly after.  This seems like an interface problem with sonos.   Here is the diagnostic with just the arc.  1979548412

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Hi @Tblaney3, thanks for the update and the diagnostic information that you’ve sent. I checked the diagnostic information, the same issue was detected about wireless interference, yes, there is a link on the previous reply I sent, for further assistance on this issue. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting steps.  They need to check further on this issue. 

Keep me in the know with the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

Userlevel 5
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Hi @Tblaney3, Thank you for reaching out and welcome to the community. Sorry to know about what happened, thanks for sending a diagnostic report. Upon checking, It detects Wireless interference on it, but we are currently checking on this situation. You may check this article about reducing wireless interference. Or for further assistance. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting on this issue. 

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

We're here to answer any further questions you have.

Is there a link to the article?

I am questioning why Wi-Fi interference would cause this issue since sound comes from the hdmi cable to arc, not Wi-Fi.  To test I unplugged the surrounds and bass, so it’s just the arc.  Turned on the tv, same problem with just the arc.  When powercycling the arc, it works perfectly.  For some reason if Wi-Fi interference were the problem, the problem would still be there after the power cycle or shortly after.  This seems like an interface problem with sonos.   Here is the diagnostic with just the arc.  1979548412

Agree here, wireless interference or not, I don’t see why that would effect dropouts over HDMI, WiFi should have absolutely no effect on the HDMI connection. Also since when did any device using WiFi not have WiFi interference, that’s a common issue, and if the Sonos ARC can’t cope without crapping out there is a serious issue with this device.

I am having the same issue, but not with the TV sound. It’s when I stream music from Sirius XM. Unplugging the device every few days to temporarily fix it is not a solution. Please advise when you will correct this problem. 

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Hi @hmf4, thanks for reaching out. Sorry to hear that you have the same issue with your Sonos Arc. Thanks for alerting us about this issue and we are closely monitoring this concern, as many users are having the same issue. I’ll have this consulted with our specialists for further checking. 

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

We're here to answer any further questions you have.

Same thing happening for me - samsung Frame TV (2020 model).

I usually just unplug the power from the Arc then plug it back in and it works again for a day or two, but just like everyone else, I don’t think this is an acceptable solution for such an expensive soundbar.

I’m happy to submit a diagnostic report, but after reading the thread, it seems there’s really no point. I just have to wait until there’s an actual resolution.

Have the same problem with cutting in and out and believe that is a Sonos issue.

  1.  It’s fixed when Unplugging and replugging the ARC.

this method is not acceptable and hence tried a couple of other methods after reading both of these work without the need to to do option A above.

 

have found a couple of options to remedy the issue every day.  But still not acceptable.

  1.   Going into advance sound settings on the TV and 1) switch sound to PCMI 2) Click the auto select sound for Dolby off and on.   Then need to switch back from PCMI to auto once working correctly
  1. Just recently discovered that playing music from Spotify via my phone before turning on the TV avoids the issues.   Currently my best solution.  Still a pain but tells me it’s the ARC.  

hope this works for others

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