Contributor II

Sonos Arc & Samsung TV eARC connection issues - fixed?

23 replies
13052 views

TV: 2020 model Samsung UE50TU8500UXXU

Just spent the morning on support calls to both Sonos and Samsung trying to get the Arc to connect with the telly through eARC. I think we might finally have made some progress.

In short, the problem was that the TV wasn’t seeing the Arc so it didn’t appear in the list of sound output options. Instead, all I could choose from was ‘TV speakers’, ‘Optical’ or ‘Bluetooth speakers’. I should’ve had the option to choose ‘Receiver (HDMI-eARC)’ too.

My first call to Samsung didn’t go well (I had to explain what a Sonos Arc was) and ended up no further on. The person referred the issue to a product expert who basically said ‘There’s a compatibility issue between the Arc and some Samsung TVs’. Like, tell me something I don’t know.

Their advice was to call Sonos and see what they had to say. I did, and we ran various diagnostics that all showed hardware was good and everything should be working fine. In fact, it sort of was at that point because the Arc suddenly started making noise. Problem was, it was only Dolby Digital 5.1 when it should’ve been Dolby Atmos. Checking the TV settings again confirmed the Arc still wasn’t being ‘seen’ through the HDMI eArc port.

So, Sonos batted it back to Samsung. And my second call was more successful. I got to speak to a product expert who remoted to the telly and did various tests/resets etc. Eventually, bingo, we have the TV picking up the Arc through the HDMI eArc port, and sending a Dolby Atmos signal (according to the Sonos app anyway). Great.

Except not. Because there are two issues still outstanding:

The ‘pass-through’ functionality on the TV is still greyed out so I can’t select it (although the Samsung guy couldn’t work out why that wasn’t making a difference to the Atmos signal)
Plugging in anything else to either of the two remaining HDMI ports on the TV means the Arc loses connection. So I can’t plug in my DVD player because if I do the TV doesn’t recognise the Arc anymore. Bonkers, I know. I mention this because if you’re having problems with your Samsung/Arc connection, try disconnecting everything else HDMI and seeing if that makes a difference.

An engineer is calling me in the next couple of days to try to fix these things and I’ll post an update if there is one.

An absurd situation all told, of course, but hopefully we’ll get there.

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Show previous replies

106rallye

What’s the sense of industry standards when you “don’t support 3rd party devices”?

9

97zmego

Lyricist I

I was thinking I was going crazy fighting the issue of theArc cutting out. I hope Samsung or Sonos figure it out. It’s a let down when you think you buy the best of the best and it doesn’t work correctly.

106rallye

@97zmego Have you contacted Sonos?

9

97zmego

Lyricist I

Not yet just haven’t had time.

J

Jykke

Lyricist I

I have an older Samsung UE65F9005XXE which has the hdmi arc function. I just bought Sonos Arc and Sub gen3 and have now spent two nights trying to get the sound working. Nothing happens. Have changed cables, removed all other hdmi’s and still nothing. It works with the optical to hdmi adapter but not with direct hdmi arc and thus it is not the setup that I want. Now I just tried Arc to my another device, LG OLED55GX and it took less than a second from LG to ask if I wanted to route the TV sound to external speaker. I said yes to LG and that was it, works sooo well. I would have preferred Sonos working with Samsung in the living room but am now considering to return it. I still have 47 days to return the Arc and Sub and get my money back.

M

Mturabali

Lyricist I

I got my sonos arc today. I have Samsung Q80t Canada version. I was having same problem with my Sonos Arc not detecting eArc port. I did following steps and it worked:

Enabled HDMI eArc in settings->sound settings
I swapped Sonos hdmi cable with hdmi 2.1 cable I had purchased for gaming from Amazon.

Step 1 with Sonos HMDI cable didn’t worked. But as soon as I switched to HDMI 2.1 cable it immediately worked. I hope this helps others here.

G

GuitarSuperstar

Lead Maestro

I got my sonos arc today. I have Samsung Q80t Canada version. I was having same problem with my Sonos Arc not detecting eArc port. I did following steps and it worked:

Enabled HDMI eArc in settings->sound settings
I swapped Sonos hdmi cable with hdmi 2.1 cable I had purchased for gaming from Amazon.

Step 1 with Sonos HMDI cable didn’t worked. But as soon as I switched to HDMI 2.1 cable it immediately worked. I hope this helps others here.

Just curious… if you switched the cable back to the Sonos-supplied cable, does it still work?

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

A

Alezão

Lyricist III

TV: QLED 8K 75” - Model: QN75Q850TAFXZA

Sound: Sonos Arc + 2 Ones SL + 2 Subs

my dilemma is: My system worked pretty good for several months then suddenly starting have the issues you guys are reporting.

Now, I’ve been fighting the same issue for months. Have tried everything you can imagine and still not have the issue solved.

Changed cables for the best I could buy (8K ready cables) …
Added a very expensive 4K HDMI Hub wondering if using only one of the HDMI from the TV would solve the problem…..
Have tried any settings possible on both TV and Sound Bar
One of the contacts I had, Sansung said that could be an issue on the TV main board managing the HDMI ports. They sent a new board to me and scheduled the Assurant technician to make the replacement. The technician came, called them and they, instead of change the board they decided to reprogram some settings, what momentarily worked …. Next day, when turning the TV on …. Same issue. The Sonos Arc got u recognized and can’t used it. It’s just remove all other devices from the the other HDMI ports that everything works perfectly.

when I run the TV setup from Sonos App, the message I got is: Can’t connect with the TV. other devices are causing interference.

I contacted Sansung again yesterday and they are escalating the issue for s higher technical level: I’m waiting for the call and I will keep you guys posted here. Meanwhile I think I would try to suggestion of adding CEC block connectors on the HDMi. It may solve if this is the issue … one more try!

A

Alezão

Lyricist III

One update …. It seems the CEC blocker connect could really work. It seems to be a issue with Sansung HDMI controlling the requests from CEC from other devices.

I deactivated all my devices CEC option. Suddenly everything is back to normal. Sound runs trough E-arc HDMI and works perfectly no Mather the devices connected in the other HDMI ports.

I know it’s not the desirable solution (lose the ability of control the sound from other devices and also not being able to turn all at once) but considering Sansung has no idea what is going on and not willing to fix the problem in a firmware update, I think it’s something to consider and not have to unplug cables in the back of your TV all the time as I was getting sick of doing.

Still waiting on Sansung high level technician to call me. I will send an update here as soon as it happen