At this point nobody’s sure where the problem lies. There have been report with other TV model as well: Sony, LG, etc.

Other threads have been describing similar issue:

Oh for sure, most TV makers failed miserably in their HDMI 2.1 support out-of-the-box, and eARC support (as well as Xbox Series / PS5 devices with their HDMI 2.1 features) showed many flaws in multiple TV firmware versions. Slowly the TV makers are fixing their stuff, but I am unaware of any fixes required on the Sonos side to date. It is unfortunate that Sonos did not get the TV makers more involved before the release of the Arc though, as they surely knew of the most common issues. However Sonos support has been severely downgraded this year, and perhaps this is another side-effect of that.

I ordered an HDFury Arcana and it arrived today.  It worked right out of the box, plug and play with my 2020 Frame TV and Sonos Arc, without any special configuration needed.   For me, it was an easy decision to spend $200 to fix this issue instead of spending countless hours reading forums and stressing about possible updates, etc.  I would have gladly spent even more than that to buy a Sonos Arc or Frame TV that just works.  I totally understand the frustration about it being expensive though.

The Arcana seems to have resolved the sound cutting in and out, at least for now, and I will keep an eye on it over the coming days.  Best of all, it also resolved the lip sync issues I was having, where the video was before the sound.  I only need one HDMI input, for my cable box, so I’m not concerned about being limited to only the single HDMI input.

Also, the Samsung built-in TV apps like Disney+, etc., still work perfectly fine.  Somehow the Arcana knows when you’re using these and automatically switches the input to the TV through HDMI ARC.  Pretty impressive.

Now I’m just hoping this works as a long term solution.

Here’s an update after I sent my email to the CEO:

Thanks for contacting Sonos, my name is Brian and I'm a supervisor here. Our CEO Patrick Spence forwarded this email to me in order to provide you further assistance here. We appreciate your comments and comprehension on the matter, we have brought this problem to Samsung's attention and we are still working together to find the best solution to it.

Even though we don't have any other information to share at the moment, we'd like you to try the following steps:

1- Ensure the TV is running the latest firmware version available, you can visit Samsung's website here and make sure to enter your TV model.

2- In case your TV isn't running the latest version on the website, please make sure to update the firmware on the TV and let me know if the problem persists.

3- In case you are running multiple HDMI  connected devices to your TV and inbuilt apps, try unplugging them and see if that resolves the problem.

Please reply to this email once the steps above have been tried and make sure to include your TV model and firmware too in order to continue investigating. We appreciate your help and preference.

Regards,

The highlight is that they are acknowledging that they are still working together with Samsung for a solution.

Moreover, I’m now able to fix the sound skipping issue by playing with the advanced sound configuration on the TV by toggling back and forth the eARC mode and the Dolby Atmos toggles. Before that I had to unplug and replug the HDMI cable.

Just burned 40 minutes on the phone with support on this, they seem completely unaware. Tried to let the guy know about this thread but he really just wanted to follow the script - telling me to reconfigure my TV, change the HDMI cable, use optical instead. So frustrating - I used the Beam before this and never had a single issue, this is breaking every few days even with a nightly reset via a smart plug. 
 

what a terrible, terrible experience. Sonos’ inability to support their products when things go wrong is infuriating. 

A quick update on using the the Arcana with my Samsung Frame and Sonos Arc.  After a day, it’s still working well.  There are a few quirks though:

It takes several seconds or so after turning on the TV for the sound to work.  The will skip once or twice, then start working.  Also, some technical words and settings from the Arcana show at the bottom of the TV screen after turning on, for a second or so.  Presumably there are a lot of commands going back and forth between the devices when first turned on.  Then it works fine after that. 

When turning the TV off (into Art Mode), the sound continues playing for a few seconds after the TV turns off, then, the sound turns off on its own.  It’s a little strange but not really a problem.

I’m also pretty sure I’m not able to receive Dolby Atmos sound through the built-in TV apps, when using the Arcana, although I’m not entirely sure and will try a better HDMI cable.

Overall it’s working fine and it’s great to avoid the lip sync issues and intermittent sound cutoff issues.  Hopefully Samsung and Sonos work out a real fix soon though.  It’s just incredibly frustrating and unbelievable that there isn’t a fix for this.

My experience with the Samsung Firmware update (on a Samsung Frame 2020 65”) to 1460.9 is that it at least fixed part of my problem. 

Previously when putting eARC to auto would totally block any sound coming out of the Sonos ARC. (eARC had to be switched off). After the update today it is possible to have it set on auto.

As I rebooted everything after the firmware update I am not able to tell whether the intermittent sound is also gone. However, what worked for me to fix that without having to unplug cables was to go to Settings>Audio>Advanced Settings and then toggle Dolby Atmos compatibility off and back on again. After that I am able to watch without any sound problems (including Dolby Atmos content) as long as the system does not go into stand-by mode.

Don't know if it matters: my TV is connected to LAN, Sonos ARC is connected to wifi.
I am using the HDMI cable that was delivered by Sonos with my ARC.

Following this thread as we have similar issues. 
we have 50” Frame connected to an arc, sub and pair of 1’s. 
When it works it is awesome. 
we do get intermittent switching between hdmi and e-arc in the sound output. I had a little suspicion that it was connected to the Alexa system we have which turns off all the devices in the room each night - I’ve removed the Sonos from the Alexa (don’t use Alexa for the Sonos anyhow). Will keep track to see if it improves. 
 

Just emailed him. Will update if I get a reply. More people should raise the issue via email. 

Bumping comments in solidarity with everyone having these sound issues. Former Geek Squad installer and I’ve tried everything to fix the sound issues to no avail. 

Do better Sonos. Do better Samsung. 

Hey everyone..thought I’d chime in on this topic after reading several posts. First of all, I do not have a Samsung tv, but a new Sony 65” with Arc Sub and One SL’s. After setting my system up a few months ago ( June to be exact) I started to have the audio drop issues like so many others. I’d reset the tv and it fixed it...till it happened again. It was getting old. I was blaming Sonos , then Sony.  After emailing the Sonos CEO, Sonos actually sent a replacement Arc and day two the audio issue was back. I boxed up the replacement Arc and sent it back. Pretty upsetting to say the least. And you really don’t communicate with the CEO,  but customer service that sets up a date and time to call you on the phone to discuss the issues.
 

Then boom!!! Sony came out with a firmware update and no more issues. It’s been 4 weeks now and couldn’t be happier. So my point is that it’s not a Sonos issue, but the tv manufacturers. The updates do not go out to everyone at the same time. I’ve  read that some have done the latest Samsung firmware 1460.9 and still not resolved the issue which means that Samsung has to tweak it. 

An update from me - We have a 2020 50” Frame and a Sonos Arc, Sub and 2x 1’s in a surround setup.  

We had the intermittent switching between HDMI and eARC which was only resolved by unplugging and re-plugging the cables which was a royal PITA.

I downloaded the firmware update onto USB despite the telly saying it had the latest version.  Plugged in the USB, manually forced the update which it said it was already in place and sat back to see what happened.

After a unplug, count to 10 and re-plug all the systems back in it’s worked perfectly since then.  I also have an xbox plugged into HDMI and we’ve had no issues whichever system we’ve used since.  

We’re using all the standard cables, nothing special.

Yet another +1 on this topic.  I was running an older Samsung TV and an older Sonos setup.  I decided to treat myself over the holidays and upgraded both - Samsung Frame TV and Sonos Arc + 2 surrounds.  I installed the Arc and the surrounds a few weeks ago and everything worked perfect with the older Samsung TV (using eArc as well, oddly).  Then yesterday finally got around to upgrading the TV and everything went to hell.  The sound cuts out every few seconds and I’ve tried changing all the settings to no avail.  Now that I see what a widespread problem this is, it’s nuts.  I’m going to try what Nzd31155 just suggested and see if that works.

if the ‘check for updates’ is greyed out - quite the apps so you’re just on normal tv - that took me 20 mins to work out!

I too have bought the HD Fury Arcana but I cannot get it to work.  How have you set this up with your Frame TV?

Welp, I tried this but unfortunately it didn’t work for me.  Interestingly, the TV says there are ‘no updates available’.  But, if you go on the website, you can clearly get a newer version of firmware.  So, I downloaded it and installed it into the box (pretty easy to do).  Then I plugged everything in and it worked great!  Then I cycled the TV and it went right back to the way it was - sound cutting out every other second :(

@bmoody34 - I plugged in the HDFury Arcana and didn’t change any of the settings and it worked fine.  There are not very many settings to change, so if it’s not working, the cords may be plugged into the wrong places.  In my setup, the HDMI Out goes to the Frame TV (HDMI 3 jack on the Frame), HDMI In comes from the Cable Box and eARC out goes to the Sonos Arc.  It works fine as a temporary solution, but it has some quirks as I mentioned in my earlier post, so I’m holding out for a real solution from Samsung and Sonos.

I probably should have just bought a Beam instead of the Arc.  I don’t really care about Atmos sound and just want something that works.  The eARC connection is just too glitchy.

hi everyone, i just thought i would share my experience as I have tried two different soundbars.

My tv is samsung 55 inch 2020 frame model. I initially fixed it with samsung 60T soundbar. It worked well . There were no problems of sync issues. it was connected to eArc port. Crucially, i could easily toggle between the TV using soundbar as output sound or the TV itself.

I really wanted dolby atmos with nice bass though so I bought sonos arc, admittedly knowing i could face this issue as i had read this thread before. With sonos, i am facing exactly the same problem as everyone, such as everytime the TV is left for a bit or art mode is enabled it goes back to default setting and it skips audio. My software version is 1460.9 btw. Toggling the HDMI eARC and dolby atmos appears to fix it, but by god, it is frustrating.

But here’s my observation: when this issue happens I can NOT set the sound to TV’s native sound output. everytime i set it to native sound output, it first reverts back to HDMI eARC and then quickly shows HDMI ARC.

I see a few people have come to the conclusion that it is TV’s problem. I am not so sure. I think it is sonos problem as my previous soundbar (admittedly a samsung soundbar) worked fine. it also struggles with HDMI eARC/native tv speaker toggle, which means sonos is constantly sending signal to make itself default and changing the format in that way.

There are plenty of examples in history where companies with great products have failed due to their reluctance of appreciating user experience. I would hate to see sonos moving in that direction - the sound of ARC when playing music is so nice! However, i may have no other option but to return it if it is not fixed in the next 2 weeks of return period.

Note to Samsung users: firmware updates are pushed to their web site BEFORE they are signalled for automatic update. This lets them roll out firmware updates slowly (by users doing a manual update), just in case something is broken (cf. Sony in November), and when they are confident they turn on automatic updates.

This is not uncommon for firmware updates generally, and is sometimes known as a “scream test” - if no-one screams, its good.

Absolutely shocking that Samsung/Sonos have left their customers with this issue for 6 months plus without resolution, which leads me to think it is not something that can easily be fixed in firmware perhaps (or they would surely have done so by now?)

I keep reading people saying the settings don’t help - I thought that switching off e-arc would help, I have now also switched off Dolby Atmos compatibility.  This brought back sound, is that likely to be  temporary?  I read somewhere about asking Samsung staff for a “Netherlands update” or something, has anyone seen that?  Surely we can’t let this rest after spending thousands on technology, come on Sonos this is not what we expect - if it is a Samsung issue then tell us! 

As a follow up on the HDFury Arcana, last night the TV and sound turned on spontaneously in the middle of the night, following a brief internet outage.  Due to that, plus the other quirks I’ve noticed, I’m going to return the HDFury Arcana.  It’s a workable temporary solution, but still not perfect and has its own frustrations.  I think I’m also going to return the Sonos Arc and use a Beam instead.  The Beam’s sound isn’t as good as the Arc, but it works much better with the Frame.

I purchased the Arcana as well. I’ve only had it plugged in for about 5 min but it seems to be working perfectly. 
 

The frame tv turning on in the middle of the night has happened to me since I first bought it. I think it has something to do with the batteries being low in the remote. I don’t think that was because of the arcana. I’ll keep everyone posted on how it continues to work. 
 

Before I bought the arcana, I had a timer on the outlet plug for arc. It turned the power off from 3am to 5am every morning. The arc was working perfectly ever since I did that. If the arcana quits working I’ll just go back to doing that. If I hadn’t already purchased the arcana, I would have just kept doing that. 
 

All that being said, I can’t believe I have to deal with this issue. Super disappointed in whoever’s fault this is. Paid a pretty penny for both of the devices. Wouldn’t think you’d have jury rig it to get it to work. 

A quick update: I had a phone call with a Sonos support agent.

They confirmed that:

• It is a known issue and they are very well aware of it. Right now it has a quite high priority (but not sure to what extend).
• They are in contact with Samsung. Sonos engineers is saying that the issue is on Samsung side: they haven’t implemented the eARC specification in compliance
• Sonos engineering team is working on a workaround/hotfix. No timeline yet, but the agent told me that he would have some updates soon. I’ll reach back to him in 1-2 weeks and see the progress.

Please take some time to create a support ticket on Samsung side so that our issue is raised and prioritized properly.

Thanks!

How did you “manually force(d) the update” on the samsung TV, it looks like i have 1460 and I have 1460.9 firmware on the USB stick but the TV is stating it already has the latest firmware.

Thanks!

Instead of waiting for it to auto initiate the update - you can go into the telly settings (make sure you are on a terrestrial tv channel and not Netflix for example and you can click on the check for updates and it pulls it from the usb - there’s YouTube vids on exactly how to do it. 
 

Update from me - it all worked lovely for a week and the yesterday started mucking about again. I’ve attached a smart plug and set it to run daily power cycle through the night. Let’s see if that helps...