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Arc stops working with TV , was working fine

  • 9 November 2020
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My Sonos Arc has been working fine the last weeks but a few days ago the audio from TV stopped working? Seems like the Audio Return Channel function just stopped?

I still see the wallpaper from Sonos when I choose the HDMI - ARC source on the TV, but no audio.

 I have tried all the regular stuff like unplugging the HDMI, cutting power and fiddled around in the TV settings.

TV: LG 65UH7700

Sonos Arc+sub

nothing else attached to the TV

This seems to be a similar issue that many people have, but I have found no definitive fix. Any ideas?

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Best answer by Xander P 3 May 2021, 10:09

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56 replies

T
Userlevel 1

I’ve had a sonos Arc and a LG GX 77 inch tv for about a year now. Everything was working great until suddenly I had the same issue as most people: TV audio just stopped working for some reason (although music playback worked just fine).
 

I went into my LG tv settings as follows: All settings —> Sound —> additional settings —> I then noticed “eARC” was turned off. I turned it back on and everything works perfectly again.
 

I’m not entirely sure if the eARC setting just turned off on its own or there was some automatic update on the TV that unchecked it.  Anyway maybe this will help someone out there.

Ken_Griffiths

@smitty1970,

If not done already, rather than posting to the user-community here, you are probably best to reproduce the issues you mention, where things are not working for you and then immediately submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note all the references and then contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to resolve the matter. I’m not sure the Sonos users here can provide you with any other suggestions to try, you are best to gather the diagnostic evidence and then go check with that Staff if that reveals anything,

I hope you get it sorted.

B

This happened to me tonight after years of my system working flawlessly. After many attempts to fix, I finally unplugged the Sonos ARC and my Samsung TV for 2 minutes. When I plugged them back in and checked the ARC connection in the Sonos app, it connected and worked again!

R
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I came here because I just experienced this problem (Arc works fine for streaming music, but nothing from the tv even though it worked fine for months and nothing else has changed). 

For me, I fixed it by going to the Expect Settings in the TV’s Sound menu, disabled HDMI e-ARC mode, set Digital Output Audio Format to Auto, and disabled Dolby Atmos. The sound started working. I then changed the settings back to Auto, Pass-Through, and Enabled respectively. Everything is working normally again. So it did appear to be an issue with my TV  

Hope this helps someone. 
TV: Samsung QN90A

D

My arc just stopped sending audio from my Sony tv. It has been working fine for several months. I tried unplugging it from power and hdmi but no luck. It still works with Alexa and through Amazon music in the Sonos app. I checked and the tv software is up to date. Does anyone have an idea of what I can do to solve this issue. 
 

Thanks 
David 

Airgetlam

I’ve not seen thousands upon thousands of posts about this, so I’m going to have to say it’s not a common issue….but it may be an issue, for sure, there’s no way around that. And specifically, no there has not ben a recall on the Sonos Arc.

The fact that the Arc works with music streaming, and not while playing the TV stream suggests a couple of potential things to look at. I like your thought of an HDMI issue. I’d certainly be trying a different cable (of at least HDMI 1.4, and preferably higher than that) to ensure that it’s not an issue inside either the cable, or the end ports of the cable not making appropriate connections to the pins on either side. Although if you’ve replaced the TV completely, you’ve re-seated the connection at that end, it’s worth still reseating the connection in the Arc to make sure the pins that carry the ARC connection are working. And I’d be really tempted to try a new cable. Unfortunately, I’m one of those packrats, and I’ve got HDMI cables from the beginning, and most of them aren’t labeled well or at all, so it’s hard to tell which version of HDMI they actually are. I should just throw them away, if they’re from before HDMI 1.4, they’re essentially no good for me at this point.

I’d also be checking, although I’d assume both Sony and Sonos asked you to, the TV has HDMI-CEC (which contains ARC) turned on. If the TV isn’t sending a signal on the ARC pins, the Sonos certainly won’t play anything. There was a poster in another thread today who’d accidentally  crimped his HDMI cable and was unaware that he had, it was only when he put in a new one and it worked that he realized when moving the device, the cable had been crimped, and likely had broken.

To be honest, I’d also be double checking what sort of signal the TV is sending to the Arc. There’s a limited number of types of signal the Arc can process, and since you haven’t told us what your test case is, it’s an open possibility. 

But, as you say, you’ve tried multiple cables. It’s hard to remotely figure this out, with only what you’ve provided. I’d certainly suggest that you run another diagnostic on your Arc, and contact Sonos again, and ask for level 2 support. Unfortunately, even a diagnostic wouldn’t show anything if it was a physical issue with the connectors on the Arc, but it gives them a good starting place to eliminate the more common issues that they have on their scripts.

Bruce
Ken_Griffiths

Can you try another TV, to determine if it is the TV or the Beam?

Can you tell if your TV took a firmware update? Also, what TV?

It’s an LG 50” but I don’t have the model with me at the moment. I actually have 2 of the same TV and 2 SONOS Beams in my house. One set is fine and the other is experiencing this problem so I suspect that the TV software isn’t the issue but rather the BEAM or the ARC port on that particular TV. Really strange though. 

As you have two (more or less) identical setups in the Home, perhaps swap the Beam over (and the HDMI cable too) to see if you can establish where the problem lies.

R

Yep Arc is being unplugged and being moved to each Tv. There are all different manufacturers, Sharp, Vizio, Insignia, Samsung. I will try to unplug all Tv’s for a while to see if that works, though that is doubtful. Hdmi’s work with other devices in the house.

It’s not clear if you tried a different HDMI cable, but if not, perhaps try that too. Note the cable has to have HEAC support (HDMI 1.4+) and it’s not unknown for such a cable to go faulty.

That was one the first things I tried, I have used 3 different hdmi cables with Tv’s. 

Airgetlam

Man, you’re making it hard, having done all the things we’re suggesting :)

Honestly, I’d call back support and talk your way through to what I have to assume is level 2. I can’t think of any particular reason beyond those we’ve listed for this to be failing. 

I’m assuming that you can still stream music to the Arc? It still shows up in the controller?

Might be worth posting a diagnostic number here, the forum moderators are a separate group than the phone folks. 

Bruce
C

I’ve had a sonos Arc and a LG GX 77 inch tv for about a year now. Everything was working great until suddenly I had the same issue as most people: TV audio just stopped working for some reason (although music playback worked just fine).
 

I went into my LG tv settings as follows: All settings —> Sound —> additional settings —> I then noticed “eARC” was turned off. I turned it back on and everything works perfectly again.
 

I’m not entirely sure if the eARC setting just turned off on its own or there was some automatic update on the TV that unchecked it.  Anyway maybe this will help someone out there.

 

This exact situation happened to me. Sound stopped working seemingly randomly with LG TV. Promoted by your post, I checked the eARC settings and sure enough, it had toggled itself off. After turning back on everything returned to normal. Thank you for your post.

I

My arc just stopped sending audio from my Sony tv. It has been working fine for several months. I tried unplugging it from power and hdmi but no luck. It still works with Alexa and through Amazon music in the Sonos app. I checked and the tv software is up to date. Does anyone have an idea of what I can do to solve this issue. 
 

Thanks 
David 

Same here, working for months and just stopped. There was a software update for my Sony but not at the time it stopped working (was weeks after). I am in the AV industry for over 25 years so I am pretty sure this isn’t user error - have done detailed troubleshooting and setup everything fresh multiple times. 

E
Userlevel 1

Same issue… I use Sonos at two homes on different accounts- one with Samsung QLED and google wifi, the other with LG OLED and netgear router. We have used Sonos for several years, 10 speakers in total with no issues. Something about the combination of S2 and Arc soundbars have made both systems extremely unstable. There are constant dropped audio streams, disconnects from the TV or the network, loss of surrounds from the system, etc. 

 

Tech support by phone has been unable to help. Forums always blame user error or router / network config. It’s extremely frustrating and disappointing. Please fix it. The ability of these speakers to play audio is not a feature- it is the core function and needs to be reliable. 

Airgetlam

Probably a smart thing, although there’s also the very slight possibility of corrosion in the actual connector, either on the cable ends (the male part) , or the receptor on either device. Most frequently, this can be overcome in some fashion by simply pulling out and then re-seating the cable. It’s a pretty rare condition, but not impossible. I’ve had it occur on non-HDMI cables mostly. RCA, in particular, but I used to do support for my mother’s elementary school’s video equipment, long before HDMI came out, and ran across it mostly due to poor maintenance by people who were unfamiliar with electrical connections. Just throwing it out there.

As you say, HDMI 2.0 should have covered it. Unfortunately, there are so many different variables here, so attacking them one at a time makes good sense. I don’t think, based on all of the other devices that do work, that it’s an endemic issue with the Arc, but it’s entirely possible that it is specific to yours. Manufacturing isn’t always perfect, but issues are pretty rare. One of the reasons to do that doing a diagnostic and submitting it to Sonos, and calling them so they look at it makes some sense, at the least to remove that as a potential issue. Allows you to focus elsewhere. 

Bruce
D

I have the same issue. My ARC stopped working with my SONY A80J TV. I called SONY and they took remote control of my TV and could not work it out. They asked me to call SONOS which I did and they could not work it out. So, I went back to the store from where I purchased the SONY TV and SONOS equipment (JBHIFI) and they thought it was the TV. So, they sent out a brand new SONY A80J and guess what...same problem.

I had no issues with my previous TV. Also when I originally got my SONY TV it was also fine for a few weeks but then the problem started. This is extremely frustrating. I have tried 3 different HDMI cables. I even purchased an expensive high quality 2.1 HDMI cable.I have tried powering this off and on, unplugging HDMI cable's etc etc. I have tried everything!

I also the TV Setup in the SONOS app does not allow me to connect the ARC to the TV. The app just hangs.

To me this is clearly a SONOS issue. Maybe a HDMI connection issue? Something wrong with the HDMI port maybe??

Given this looks to be a common issue? Is there a recall on the SONOS ARC??

Does anyone have a fix for this??

Please help.

BTW - the ARC works just fine with music streaming. It is just s TV issue.

 

 

D
Userlevel 1
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HELP!  I have a Sony Bravia and Arc.  My Arc was working fine for a couple of weeks and now, all I get is the Sonos screen saver, with no audio.  I’ll call Sony and Sonos, but something tells me neither will be any help to me.  I would hope that Sonos knows how to make their products work with various TVs, but I have a feeling they’re going to just hand me off to Sony and Sony will hand me back to Sonos.  I’m also hoping that someone here has figured out what’s going on and can pass along solutions. 

D

Thanks for your quick reply Bruce. I do feel like I have exhausted the cable side of things. I tried 2 HDMI 2.1 cables as well as an older HDMI cable. 3 cables I have tried and 2 of those are brand new.

I will take your advice regarding contacting SONOS again. I will ask for level 2 support.

Annoyingly, this started a couple of weeks after the 12month warranty period. Hopefully they will still honour it because I know I haven't done anything wrong. I take care of my gear. Hope it doesn't get to that. Hopefully it is not a physical thing but I fear that it is. The HDMI connection into the ARC is not convincing. I would say almost loose. This could be the problem.

B

I just wanted to post an update about my situation with some thoughts.

After calling with Sonos we confirmed it was the hdmi port on the sonos itself that had been broken somehow. Still unsure of how that could really happen, but that connection on the beam was the issue.

My Sonos was out of warranty, but they gave me discount on a new one and were able to ship one to me before I even sent the old unit back which was nice (had to put a hold on my cc but thats understandable).

I love Sonos, but man, there has got to be something funky going on with the hdmi ports. I’ve never had an hdmi port break on anything before, and I have been a video editor for ten years, gone through all kinds of machines, monitors, and audio systems with hdmi cables. It’s not like I was plugging and unplugging all the time, I maybe unplugged it 4 times in its life. 

Anyways, Sonos responded quickly and helped me right away, and people on here responded fast so there’s not a whole lot to complain about. Just a couple frustrating hours troubleshooting. Hopefully everyone else’s issues resolve as smoothly.

R

The Sonons fails to provide TV audion all the time on both systems I have. It really sucks. Unplugging everything is painful. Makes me question if Sonos was the best buy.😑

Airgetlam

I hear you….but I’ve got two Arcs, and never had an issue with either them, despite the fact that they both have been disconnected and reconnected several times with various HDMI cables as I’ve both moved and installed the HD Fury Arcana device. 

That’s not to say that there wasn’t a “run” of bad HDMI ports, but so far, it’s only really been you two commenting about that, which sure makes it not feel endemic to me. But that doesn’t make it not a problem, either, so I hope that both of your situations end up well. At least in your case, BenAltrac, it seems like it has, mostly. I’ll hope the same for Dazzia72

Bruce
S

I’m a 20 year AV guy with a small company, and have sold and installed probably 50 or 60 Sonos Arcs since it was launched. I have run into this problem with at least 8 or 10 installs (that’s getting close to a 20% failure rate). In every case, the Sonos tech support solutions did not work. It wasn’t the cable. It wasn’t the TV (Sony, Samsung, LG, client’s existing Vizio, Panasonic, etc). Unplugging things for 5 minutes did nothing.

 

The problem has come around too often and I find it incredibly hard to believe that all of these TV manufacturers are implementing HDMI standards in such a way that they don’t work with Sonos. After all, Sonos only started using HDMI fro Audio Return Channel a few years ago. TV manufacturers have been working with HDMI, for nearly 20 years for US models. Their sheer experience over the years, and the fact that other sound bars using A.R.C. don’t seem to have this problem lead me to believe Sonos needs to figure out why there are problems with their products using A.R.C. Is it a software/firmware issue? Is it a bad HDMI chip set? Is it poor construction (bad soldering, assembly)?

 

With that said, my most recent Sonos Arc TV audio communication issue is intermittent and I can’t replicate the problem while in the client’s home (3 times in the past week). Unfortunately, the client ends up texting or calling me in the evening to tell me it has dropped AGAIN.

 

Does anybody have a solution that worked, and has not been mentioned in this thread?

Dogdad
Userlevel 5
Badge +14

I’m a 20 year AV guy with a small company, and have sold and installed probably 50 or 60 Sonos Arcs since it was launched. I have run into this problem with at least 8 or 10 installs (that’s getting close to a 20% failure rate). In every case, the Sonos tech support solutions did not work. It wasn’t the cable. It wasn’t the TV (Sony, Samsung, LG, client’s existing Vizio, Panasonic, etc). Unplugging things for 5 minutes did nothing.

 

The problem has come around too often and I find it incredibly hard to believe that all of these TV manufacturers are implementing HDMI standards in such a way that they don’t work with Sonos. After all, Sonos only started using HDMI fro Audio Return Channel a few years ago. TV manufacturers have been working with HDMI, for nearly 20 years for US models. Their sheer experience over the years, and the fact that other sound bars using A.R.C. don’t seem to have this problem lead me to believe Sonos needs to figure out why there are problems with their products using A.R.C. Is it a software/firmware issue? Is it a bad HDMI chip set? Is it poor construction (bad soldering, assembly)?

 

With that said, my most recent Sonos Arc TV audio communication issue is intermittent and I can’t replicate the problem while in the client’s home (3 times in the past week). Unfortunately, the client ends up texting or calling me in the evening to tell me it has dropped AGAIN.

 

Does anybody have a solution that worked, and has not been mentioned in this thread?

You say it’s not the tv.. how do you know it’s not? I have a Sony . When I got my Sonos system ( Arc, sub, one SL’s… and Sonos in every room of my house) I had issues with no sound from the Arc. I blamed Sonos for the longest time. It turned out to be the Sony tv. They had to do a software update. It resolved the issue and I’ve never had it happen since. Many with Samsung TV’s have this issue. 

Dogdad
Userlevel 5
Badge +14

I’m a 20 year AV guy with a small company, and have sold and installed probably 50 or 60 Sonos Arcs since it was launched. I have run into this problem with at least 8 or 10 installs (that’s getting close to a 20% failure rate). In every case, the Sonos tech support solutions did not work. It wasn’t the cable. It wasn’t the TV (Sony, Samsung, LG, client’s existing Vizio, Panasonic, etc). Unplugging things for 5 minutes did nothing.

 

The problem has come around too often and I find it incredibly hard to believe that all of these TV manufacturers are implementing HDMI standards in such a way that they don’t work with Sonos. After all, Sonos only started using HDMI fro Audio Return Channel a few years ago. TV manufacturers have been working with HDMI, for nearly 20 years for US models. Their sheer experience over the years, and the fact that other sound bars using A.R.C. don’t seem to have this problem lead me to believe Sonos needs to figure out why there are problems with their products using A.R.C. Is it a software/firmware issue? Is it a bad HDMI chip set? Is it poor construction (bad soldering, assembly)?

 

With that said, my most recent Sonos Arc TV audio communication issue is intermittent and I can’t replicate the problem while in the client’s home (3 times in the past week). Unfortunately, the client ends up texting or calling me in the evening to tell me it has dropped AGAIN.

 

Does anybody have a solution that worked, and has not been mentioned in this thread?

Try looking this post up …started w years ago andit’s got 740 replies and the title is “ Arc tv sound cuts in and out” .  
https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/arc-tv-sound-cuts-in-and-out-6842963

S

I am a very Tech savvy AV person, not a pro but very good non-the-less. I have been reading all of these posts and I have determined that my problem is 100% a Sonos amp issue, or a Sonos issue period. I also believe that after reading these posts that this problem is something that Sonos needs to address across all products, possibly. 100% of my products have the same issue.

I have 3 different TVs. SONY, TCL, Samsung. I have 1 Polk 5.1 Surround (2 years old) and 4 Sonos Amps (brand new). All HDMI cables are 2.1 (brand new).

All TVs work perfectly with Polk system using Arc or eArc. I can connect, disconnect and reconnect to Polk system. I can power off, power on, have gone through power outages, etc. Bottom line all TVs work Perfectly with the Polk system via HDMI ARC or eArc and also work perfectly with Optical. Polk is becoming a personal favorite very quickly.

 

Now, lets discuss the 4 Sonos Amp amplifiers I have.

  1. all stream music perfectly.
  2. can connect all amps to wifi
  3. can group all amps or play them separately.
  4. All amps work with TVS using Optical perfectly.
  5. All amps have issue using HDMI Arc.

I had one of the Sonos Amps working using a TCL Tv and HDIM Arc for a while but from time to time the audio would get choppy. I unplugged it and plugged it back in and now it will not work at all. This particular Sonos Amp will not identify the Arc port no matter what I do. Also, I have tried the other three SONOS Amps and have the same issue with the same TCL TV. I then plug the TCL TV back into the Polk system and low and behold, it works perfectly. I then introduced my Samsung TV and got it to work with one of the Sonos Amps using HDMI Arc. As soon as I disconnected the Samsung TV and installed the TV in its place, I reconnected to HDMI Arc, same issue, Sonos Amp will not identify. Sonos APP says Arc not connected when going through the install process. Settings on Samsung TVs were not changed and have not changed. Also, using same brand new HDMI 2.1 cable. And, once again, to back test, connected the Samsung TV to my Polk system and again it worked perfectly.

 

I have performed these same exact steps with my Sony TV as well. I have the EXACT SAME OUTCOME. I have also reset all TVs and SONOS Amps to factory settings and have the same issues. Now, tell me this isn’t a Sonos issue. 

G
Userlevel 7

HELP!  I have a Sony Bravia and Arc.  My Arc was working fine for a couple of weeks and now, all I get is the Sonos screen saver, with no audio.  I’ll call Sony and Sonos, but something tells me neither will be any help to me.  I would hope that Sonos knows how to make their products work with various TVs, but I have a feeling they’re going to just hand me off to Sony and Sony will hand me back to Sonos.  I’m also hoping that someone here has figured out what’s going on and can pass along solutions. 

Disconnect everything from the TV and unplug the Arc and TV from power for a couple of minutes. Plug everything back in but keep everything disconnected. Make sure Bravia Sync is enabled in the TV settings. Run TV Setup in the Sonos app and follow the app instructions. When the app instructs you, connect the Arc to the TV’s HDMI ARC port using the Sonos-supplied HDMI cable. After the Arc has been successfully connected, connect any other devices to the TV.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
G
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I had to order an adapter I must have thrown mine away I'll let you know how it goes

 

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