Beam emitting sound at volume level 0

T

Hi

I’ve recently got a Google TV stick and connected it to my Sony TV. I’m using a Beam for sound. 

With the new stick we often experience problems controlling the sound. The Google TV is controlling the volume through the TV, and the on screen volume display is moving at is should, but at volume level 0 there is still sound coming from the beam. 

If I look in the Sonos app the Google TV is controlling the volume just at is should, the app is also showing the volume at 0 when this happens. 

This only happens when the devices start up efter being turned off, e.g. in the morning or when we come home from work. Any suggestions? 

Mvh.

Torkil

 

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16 replies

J

Are you sure the residual sound is coming from the Beam and not from your TV?

T

Are you sure the residual sound is coming from the Beam and not from your TV?

Yes, that was also my first guess but I put my ear to the beam to make sure and the sound was coming from it.

Mvh.

Torkil

Ken_Griffiths

As a first step, I would try a simple power off of all and wait a couple of minutes and power all on again and see if that resolves the issue. If that doesn’t work them I’m curious as to what happens if you switch to using the Sony TV remote instead (over CEC - called ‘Bravia Sync, I believe, on Sony devices).. also switch off infrared on the Beam as part of the test, thats assuming you’re using the TV’s ARC/eARC port?

T

As a first step, I would try a simple power off of all and wait a couple of minutes and power all on again and see if that resolves the issue. If that doesn’t work them I’m curious as to what happens if you switch to using the Sony TV remote instead (over CEC - called ‘Bravia Sync, I believe, on Sony devices).. also switch off infrared on the Beam as part of the test, thats assuming you’re using the TV’s ARC/eARC port?

Power cycling the beam or the chromecast will fix it. Rebooting the TV probably aswell, but just turning it off and on again with the remote won’t. I haven’t found a reliable way to get it to reinitialize sound short of going to the TVs settings and flipping sound from external to internal speakers and back again. 

I haven’t tried with the TVs remote, I’ll do that. I’d wager that doesn’t make a difference though as the TVs onscreen volume is moving just fine with the chromecast remote.

Beam is in the ARC port yes. I’ve now turned IR off for the beam in the Sonos app but I don’t think it was used for anything? The chromecast remote uses bluetooth to talk to the chromecast and the chromecast uses CEC to control the beam if I understand it correctly.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Mvh.

Torkil

Ken_Griffiths

To ensure the TV remote has ‘control’ maybe just temporarily remove the Google TV and it’s CEC control to see what happens - you might need to power things off completely though, to setup the handshake between the TV and Beam again.

T

To ensure the TV remote has ‘control’ maybe just temporarily remove the Google TV and it’s CEC control to see what happens - you might need to power things off completely though, to setup the handshake between the TV and Beam again.

If I remove the Google TV everything will work for sure, as the rest of the setup has been running with no issues for several years. 

I just tested, albeit without the issue being present. Both the TV remote and the Google TV remote will control the sound on beam in an identical fashion with the TVs on screen volume moving in the same way. The Google TV is configured to control the sound via the TV.

Mvh.

Torkil

 

Ken_Griffiths

There seems to be some reported issues with the Google TV remote controlling volume on some TV’s - I did find this link:

https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/10094150?hl=en

I’m not sure however if the information in that link may help you, but by all accounts, this seems to be a Google TV issue with the Sony TV - is the TV & Google TV software, both up-to-date? If so, I would perhaps give Google Support a call and see if they can suggest anything to try on their device.

T

There seems to be some reported issues with the Google TV remote controlling volume on some TV’s - I did find this link:

https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/10094150?hl=en

I’m not sure however if the information in that link may help you, but by all accounts, this seems to be a Google TV issue with the Sony TV - is the TV & Google TV software, both up-to-date? If so, I would perhaps give Google Support a call and see if they can suggest anything to try on their device.

Thanks for the link. I agree this is most likely an issue with the Google TV/Sony interaction. Both devices are fully updated. 

I am also pursuing this with google. Trying to get past the “have you tried a reboot/reset” first level support currently. 

I do find it odd that the beam can emit sound when even the sonos app has the volume at 0 and I am hoping fixing that might shed more light on the whole thing. 

Mvh.

Torkil

 

Ken_Griffiths

The display is obviously showing a zero value but the Beam is a speaker that plays what is sent to it at the given volume - the fact it all works perfectly without the Google TV in the mix, tends to point to the issue being the interaction between that device and the TV - it’s probably something incorrect that the Google TV or the TV itself is doing within the CEC (control) protocol and it might be a case that a firmware update will be needed to fix things. See how things go with Google Support and perhaps let us know the outcome, as it may help ‘others’ who perhaps may come across this issue.

T

The display is obviously showing a zero value but the Beam is a speaker that plays what is sent to it at the given volume - the fact it all works perfectly without the Google TV in the mix, tends to point to the issue being the interaction between that device and the TV - it’s probably something incorrect that the Google TV or the TV itself is doing within the CEC (control) protocol and it might be a case that a firmware update will be needed to fix things. See how things go with Google Support and perhaps let us know the outcome, as it may help ‘others’ who perhaps may come across this issue.

I’m not familiar with audio protocols but that sounds odd to me. That would imply that the volume level is embedded in the stream, is that so? 

I would think the sonos should be able to silence any audio feed regardless of the source if it is told to go to volume 0.

Mvh.

Torkil

Ken_Griffiths

I’m not familiar with audio protocols but that sounds odd to me. That would imply that the volume level is embedded in the stream, is that so? 

I would think the sonos should be able to silence any audio feed regardless of the source if it is told to go to volume 0.

Mvh.

Torkil

The CEC protocol is outlined here. It is part of the HDMI specifications and is used for command & control - powering on/off connected peripherals and volume control etc. (up-to 15 devices). For example, a TV remote control can also control a Cable TV box and a Blu-ray player:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control

Ken_Griffiths

So your Google TV/remote is controlling the volume in this instance via the TV and then to the Beam and it’s not doing it’s job via CEC, whereas as soon as you take the Google product out the mix, the Sony TV and it’s remote work perfectly and correctly set the sound-out to zero volume. So that’s why I’m thinking it’s the Google CEC control that is going awry, but that’s just my best guess here... If it was a Sonos issue, then I would have expected your TV remote to not have worked, but you said that was fine. 

There are reports of issues with Google TV sound control so that too points towards the Google device but see what their Support Staff say about the issue. HTH

T

So your Google TV/remote is controlling the volume in this instance via the TV and then to the Beam and it’s not doing it’s job via CEC, whereas as soon as you take the Google product out the mix, the Sony TV and it’s remote work perfectly and correctly set the sound-out to zero volume. So that’s why I’m thinking it’s the Google CEC control that is going awry, but that’s just my best guess here... If it was a Sonos issue, then I would have expected your TV remote to not have worked, but you said that was fine. 

There are reports of issues with Google TV sound control so that too points towards the Google device but see what their Support Staff say about the issue. HTH

The Gooogle TV device and/or remote is not playing nice with the rest of the setup, I agree with this. 

But I still think it is odd that turning the volume on the beam to 0 directly via the sonos app doesn’t quiet it. There’s no CEC or anything else involved with this, just Sonos. 

And CEC is actually working as expected in this scenario, as the TV and the Sonos app both show the volume as 0. There should be no sound but there is.

Still waiting for Google to get back to me after I asked for actual tech support.

Mvh.

Torkil

Airgetlam

CEC includes the part of the TV set sending an audible signal to the Beam. There absolutely is CEC communication going on. 

Bruce
Ken_Griffiths

So your Google TV/remote is controlling the volume in this instance via the TV and then to the Beam and it’s not doing it’s job via CEC, whereas as soon as you take the Google product out the mix, the Sony TV and it’s remote work perfectly and correctly set the sound-out to zero volume. So that’s why I’m thinking it’s the Google CEC control that is going awry, but that’s just my best guess here... If it was a Sonos issue, then I would have expected your TV remote to not have worked, but you said that was fine. 

There are reports of issues with Google TV sound control so that too points towards the Google device but see what their Support Staff say about the issue. HTH

The Gooogle TV device and/or remote is not playing nice with the rest of the setup, I agree with this. 

But I still think it is odd that turning the volume on the beam to 0 directly via the sonos app doesn’t quiet it. There’s no CEC or anything else involved with this, just Sonos. 

And CEC is actually working as expected in this scenario, as the TV and the Sonos app both show the volume as 0. There should be no sound but there is.

Still waiting for Google to get back to me after I asked for actual tech support.

Mvh.

Torkil

Am I correct in thinking here, that as soon as you remove the Google TV from your setup and switch the Beam over to use the TV remote instead, that the Sonos App volume control and/or TV volume control can then be set to the same zero value and no sound at all comes from the Beam. If that is so, then it still means, to me at least, that it’s a fault with the Google TV CEC control and that it’s "volume 0" setting is actually incorrect and still sending audio to the speaker, which is obviously above that zero volume.

As mentioned earlier the Beam is a speaker and will only play what is sent to it and it appears the Google TV is sending audio to the TV and onto the Beam and telling the connected devices over CEC protocol that the audio being sent is currently at a "volume level 0” setting when in fact the audio it is sending is above that audio level on the volume curve.

I don’t know why you wouldn’t think it was the Google TV in this case, because as soon as you remove it from the TV and switch remotes, the issue is completely resolved from what you’ve mentioned already in your posts.

If you want to test things further, then perhaps attach another ‘different’ CEC enabled device to one of the TV HDMI ports (eg. Fire TV, Apple TV, Cable TV, DVD Player etc.) and use its remote over CEC and just see if that causes the same issue - my guess is the device will be fine …and that too may help to point the finger as the Google TV being the ‘culprit’ in this instance. 

I’m not too sure what else I can add, but those are my thoughts based on what you have mentioned so far about the issue.

T

As mentioned earlier the Beam is a speaker and will only play what is sent to it and it appears the Google is sending audio to the TV and onto the Beam and telling the connected devices over CEC protocol that the audio being sent is currently at the "volume level 0” setting when in fact the audio it is sending is above that audio level in the volume curve.

Thanks both of you. I agree the finger is pointed solely at the Google TV/CEC if the protocol embeds the volume with/in the audio stream. 

I’ve had a Fire TV 4K stick for years and it works just fine. 

Mvh.

Torkil

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