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I’m hearing a crackling static sound periodically coming from my Arc and two surround sound Ones when nothing is playing through the speakers. For instance, if the TV is paused and/or music is paused. Anyone know where I should look to determine cause of this crackling?
 

Diagnostics 

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Hi @OverSurge 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

First, it may help to keep as many devices clear from the vicinity of the Arc as possible - obviously you won’t be moving the TV, but it looks like your router is nearby. No WiFi devices should be within 1m of your router. As it stands, the Arc is having trouble maintaining its connections to the Subs and Surrounds. If you remove your router from the TV area, you’ll probably see an increase in general WiFi performance too.

Please unplug your TV from power for at least 2 minutes - there seems to be a few phantom devices on the TV’s HDMI network that could be causing the issue (about 5 copies of your Roku). If that doesn’t help, please disconnect the Roku from the TV and test - if that’s an improvement, I recommend disabling CEC functions on the Roku (they tend to relate to volume, power and automatic input selection). Alternatively, you may need to fit a CEC-less adaptor to the Roku’s HDMI cable.

I hope this helps.


Hmm. Moving my wifi router would be extremely difficult. I’ve got a long entertainment center that has all my electronics in it and is where my cable coax comes into the home and where my cable modem exists. The arc of course runs the length of my entertainment center. I had already moved my wifi router outside of the entertainment center and on the end of it, but there isn’t anything else around to move it any further without running a long ethernet cable from the model to another place in the house.

 

Until I can find time to run a cat6 drop to another place in the house for the primary mesh router, I’ll first try your other suggestions. Though further troubleshooting, I have noticed that the issue seems to only occur when using the Roku and not when using the cable box.


Hi @OverSurge 

I understand it’s awkward - there’s just no getting around physics, unfortunately, and the Arc and router are both trying to listen and speak to others while screaming in each other’s ears, to put it in human terms. 

I think the phantom Rokus are more likely to be the source of the problem you reported, however - if not, I’m sure we’d hear a lot more reports like yours, as having a router close to the TV and related boxes is not uncommon. In fact, my own modem and a network switch are right under the TV, but I have ethernet cables going back and forth so that my router is just that bit further away from it all. Practice what I preach, I guess 😁

Only hearing this issue when using the Roku makes some sense, considering what I saw in the diagnostics. I understood it to be happening even when the TV was off and music was playing (then paused), however? If the TV is always on - even when playing music - when you hear this issue, then you might get away with not moving the router, though I’d still highly recommend it. Having said that, the CEC network still exists when the TV is on standby, so perhaps it doesn’t matter if the TV is on or not.


Hey guys,

  make sure your optical plug if you have one …. Is not loose. Mine was 🤦🏻‍♂️