I occasionally get a loud buzzing over the audio from Beam connected with HDMI

Same issue here, started when using YouTube App on Samsung TV, unfortunately disconnecting and reconnecting does not resolve the issue, even temporarily

Hello all,

I’ve looked over the submitted diagnostics and have this to offer:

If you have only a Beam and no bonded surrounds, make sure that your TV is set to output PCM rather than Dolby Digital or “Auto”.

If you have bonded surrounds, make sure that it is not set to “Auto” but to either PCM or Dolby Digital. 

If this issue is only occurring on certain sources e.g. PBS content or YouTube (or Netflix or Prime) check to see if you can adjust the audio format for that account or streaming app.

If you have a Samsung TV, does switching to the provided optical adapter change anything?

Have you fully rebooted your TV since this issue began (unplug completely from power then plug it back in)

In most cases this issue has entirely to do with the audio format that the TV is passing on to the Beam and this is reflected in the diagnostic data as well.

If all suggestions in this thread have been exhausted, please reach out to us directly for one-on-one support. 

Hello Jean, 

If this is the case why has it only happened since the Sonus 2 update. I never experienced any difficulties before the update.

@Vosabhoy,

It is possible that the update may have reset the CEC connection between your TV and the Beam but the only change consistently reflected in the data is the formatting of the signal coming into the Beam from the external HT source.

Other than that, I could not say.      

I'm not happy about setting my tv out put to PCM  as the quality is not as good. I'm still feel the update is to blame here. I repeat there was no issue before the update. 

Hello @Vosabhoy 

I completely understand your frustration, unfortunately your TV doesn’t allow us to lock in the audio format to anything other than PCM/Stereo.

With your set-up I would like to see you up and running with full 5.0 surround. 

Way back in the beginning of this thread, when you were using the optical adapter, the buzzing behavior and the LG TV were the same?

Do you have another device with an HDMI/ARC or Optical audio port that we can test with your Beam?

Do you have another HDMI/ARC cable that we can switch out so we can eliminate the cable itself as a source of this audio issue? 

Unfortunately I don't have another hdmi arc cable or alternative tv with this port.

@Vosabhoy 

Do you have a DVD/DVR/Game System that has either and ARC or an Optical port?

This is clearly a Beam firmware issue (bug) and it’s very sad that Sonos fails to admit that.

As many have confirmed before - once Beam enters this “buzzing” state, HDMI input won’t work normally no matter what you do - rebooting TV, changing settings or connecting HDMI to other device will result in buzz.

There is no way to get it back to normal behaviour besides doing a powercycle on Beam itself.

As a software developer myself I know that there are those cases when bug occours in specific circumstances and can be very hard to track down but denying that there is a problem in Beam software and blaming TV’s is not going to solve this.

I'm inclined to agree. This is definitely a firmware issue on the Beam itself. The S1 firmware did not have this issue. Rebooting the TV does nothing. Even after the TV has been rebooted the problem persists. Only a hard kill on the Beam fixes the problem.

As my first Sonos product, I'm less than impressed that the solution appears to be force my TV to output in a format that doesn't sound as good. 

The Beam is definitely receiving and processing something that gets it stuck in this error state. No matter what signal it subsequently receives, it'll remain in this state. My suspicion is that the diagnostic logs are incapable of capturing this, and simply report it as receiving a normal valid signal. A TV reboot would ensure that it is receiving an error free signal, yet the error persists. The issue is 100% on the Beam side.

If it helps any diagnostic work. My experiments to date seem to show that the error happens when the Sonos app says the Beam is receiving Dolby Digital 2.0. So in my case, we're generally witnessing the issue in the Amazon Prime Video app. However a programme outputting Dolby Digital 5.1 can be seeked backward and forward with no issue. A programme outputting in Dolby Digital 2.0 will cause the Beam to go bonkers if I attempt to seek backwards/ forwards through the programme.