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Playbar and Sonos app not detecting signal from optical cable

  • October 14, 2023
  • 10 replies
  • 2639 views
W

Hi folks, I’ve been trying to troubleshoot this but have had no luck so any advice would be appreciated.

I’ve recently bought a Playbar through an auction. I did the factory reset on it, and connected it to the Sonos app on my phone.

When trying to set it up with my TV (model: Toshiba 55U6863DB) using the optical cable I hit a problem with the app, it gives the following message:

  • No signal detected. Make sure the optical cable is securely plugged into your TV and your Playbar.

I have tried the classic turn it off and on again with both the TV and the Playbar, I’ve tried reconnecting the cables, swapping cables, I’ve changed the audio settings on the TV, tried connecting it with an optical-to-AUX adapter plugged into the headphones jack on the TV, and none of it seems to work.

I can stream music from the Spotify app directly to the Playbar with no issues and can confirm the Playbar works from that, and I can also connect my computer to the Playbar but get no audio from it.

Does anyone have any idea what could be the issue here?

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10 replies

G

Make sure you have removed the plastic caps on each end of the optical cable. Also be sure the cable has been fully inserted into the optical ports on the Playbar and TV.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
ratty
  • ratty
  • October 14, 2023

And look into the end of the optical cable from the TV to check for a red light.

W
  • waterwitch
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • October 14, 2023

No plastic caps and cable is fully inserted into both ports.

I do get a red light when first turning the TV on but it stops if I change the source (e.g. to my games console or Chromecast) and then it doesn’t come back unless I power cycle the TV.
I’m not sure why this is happening but at this point I’m tempted to buy a HDMI audio splitter/extractor

Stanley_4
  • Stanley_4
  • Lead Maestro
  • October 14, 2023

Any other devices you can use to feed the Playbar? You may have been sold one with a dead optical port.

106rallye
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  • 106rallye
  • October 15, 2023

You mention the signal stops when you turn on connected devices. So you have sound when whatching TV?

W
  • waterwitch
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • October 15, 2023

@Stanley_4 Unfortunately no, this is the only device I have that has an optical port. I’ve ordered the extractor so when that arrives I’ll try it out

@106rallye this is where it gets tricky to test, I don’t actually have a TV line hooked to my TV since I only use streaming services. So the actual TV source doesn’t have any channels that I can use to verify whether it works or not

buzz
  • buzz
  • October 15, 2023

If you are watching a TV App, there should be a red light. Optical connections are one way only, the TV cannot detect if anything is attached. If there is no red light at PLAYBAR’s end, there is no audio output from the TV.

106rallye
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  • 106rallye
  • October 15, 2023

I seem to remember some older TV’s do not relay HDMI sources to optical.

K
  • kdebs
  • Contributor I
  • December 18, 2023

@Stanley_4Unfortunately no, this is the only device I have that has an optical port. I’ve ordered the extractor so when that arrives I’ll try it out

@106rallye this is where it gets tricky to test, I don’t actually have a TV line hooked to my TV since I only use streaming services. So the actual TV source doesn’t have any channels that I can use to verify whether it works or not

@waterwitch did you ever find a solution for this? I'm having a similar issue and for the life of me can't figure out how to fix it. 

W
  • waterwitch
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • December 19, 2023

@kdebs I did! I bought this HDMI audio extractor to Toslink off Amazon and it worked. Not had any issues with it since.

Stanley_4
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