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Contributor I
December 8, 2020

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

  • December 8, 2020
  • 1202 replies
  • 90682 views

I was playing on my Xbox when the arc suddenly made an extremely loud pop sound and then lost audio completely. The app wouldn’t let me adjust the volume and Alexa wake up didn’t emit its usual tone. I had to remove the power from the arc and reapply which resumed the audio. I’m concerned that one of the speakers in the arc may have been damaged when this happened. Has anyone had this issue?

We have had no issues with the arc since purchasing it earlier this year.

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Pinned Reply By Corry P

Hi Everyone!

Good news! We are pleased to share that our team has identified a fix for the popping sound on Arc and it will be shipped to all customers as part of a software release today, Thursday Nov 16 at 09:30 ET, 14:30 GMT, 15:30 CET. Please note that some app stores may take an extra hour or two for it to become available.

During our investigation we uncovered a rare bug that impacts how Sonos Arc and Beam (Gen 2) in certain home theater configurations process Dolby MAT, a streaming technology which is used to deliver Dolby Atmos audio over HDMI. Occasionally a Sonos product will receive a corrupted audio segment from an external source and needs to filter out unwanted audio data. The bug we identified was allowing our Dolby decoder to play audible errors on certain home theater setups rather than concealing them. The solution we’ve built and tested improves our Dolby decoder so it better filters out corrupt audio data that can manifest as a popping sound. We’ll continue to monitor customer feedback closely after the fix has been released and ship additional updates if necessary.

We strive to deliver the best listening experience possible and work to address major issues that impact our customers. We apologize for the disruption this bug has caused and want to thank you for your patience while our team developed a fix.

We would also like to thank our community users for their detailed setup information and steps to reproduce the issue, which were helpful to us in uncovering the cause of the bug.

 

1202 replies

Simon B
Retired Sonos Staff
December 10, 2020

Hi there @samro1094, Thanks for reaching out, and welcome to the community. Sorry about this issue on your Sonos system, So that we can check the status of your whole Sonos system, I’ll ask you to submit a diagnostic report for us to investigate further what could be causing this issue on the loud pop sound on your Sonos Arc. You may reply to the thread with the confirmation number to assist you with this issue. 

Let us know how it goes and we're here to answer any further questions you have.

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samro1094Author
Contributor I
December 10, 2020

Hi Simon, 

my diagnostic report reference is 954465062

thank you

Simon B
Retired Sonos Staff
December 10, 2020

Hi @samro1094, thanks for the update and for sending a diagnostic report of your Sonos system, upon checking the diagnostic report. We can’t detect any issues with the Sonos Arc. but we’ll take this further, I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting steps. They may ask for video proof when the loud pop sound is happening so that they can provide additional options to resolve this issue if any of the 8 woofers are broken.

Let us know how it goes and we're here to answer any further questions you have.

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Contributor I
December 27, 2020

Hi,

I have experienced the exact same issue as described by the original poster while using my xbox series X

To clarify there was one loud pop prior to the audio loss.

 

Diagnostics submitted, 496314429.

I am concerned that the ARC may have been damaged.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Simon

 

Simon B
Retired Sonos Staff
December 29, 2020

Hi @Derry Brewer, Thanks for reaching out, and welcome to the community. and thanks for sending a diagnostic report of your Sonos system, Sorry to hear that you have the same issue on your Sonos Arc, upon checking, I can’t see any issues on the Sonos Arc on your system. but since this is a sound quality issue. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting steps.  They may require additional steps and ask for video proof when the issue is happening and give further options about this issue. 

Let us know how it goes and we're here to answer any further questions you have.

Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question
Contributor I
December 31, 2020

Hi,

 

Must admit a bit disappointed with this response. I don’t consider a loud electrical bang followed by complete audio loss a sound quality issue. I consider it a product failure.

just had the problem happen again.

In addition as an intermittent problem I am not sure how I am expected to film a one off failure event when I don’t know when it will happen and it happens over the course of a second. To clarify after the bang the unit is silent until power cycled.

Tried ringing support, on hold for ages, no reply so rang John lewis as I was within return period and have exchanged for a new unit. Not sure if this will help but clear Sonos themselves are not interested just like the audio drop out issue. 

Really disappointed with Sonos when it comes to the ARC as there are clearly issues that they are refusing to acknowledge as systemic faults with the product. The xbox issue and drop outs have numerous posts so clearly not an isolated problem. 
I will be contacting the review sites to make them aware of this new issue in addition to the audio drop out.

I still suspect a hardware issue that will/has been fixed with new units while they hope existing owners suffer or wait until out of exchange periods.

 

Lyricist I
January 30, 2021

Hello,

Just experienced this exact issue on my Arc while streaming from an external device. Loud startling pop, audio cuts out. After disconnecting power and reconnecting, audio did come back.

My unit is less than 2 weeks old, so I can say the hardware does not appear to be updated. I’m definitely concerned about this issue coming up again as it did for @Derry Brewer  and the damage it could cause to the sound bar and audio quality.

I concur with the previous post, this is extremely disappointing. After spending $1500 on the arc + sub, I should not have to be waiting with concern for this issue to happen again. This is my first Sonos product, so I can’t speak for other ones, but I’m not impressed and can’t see getting another Sonos product after this type of failure. 

 

 

Simon B
Retired Sonos Staff
January 30, 2021

Hi @Logan G, Thanks for reaching out, and welcome to the community. Sorry to know that you have the same issue with @Derry Brewer. So that we can check if we can see anything wrong with your Sonos system, please submit a diagnostic and respond with the confirmation number. This way we can identify the cause of this issue and provide feedback. If we can’t detect the issue, then we’ll take it further. 

Please, feel free to let me know if you require any further information. We’re always here to help

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Lyricist II
February 18, 2021

I also had the same issue occur just now. Upon starting the Xbox Series X, there was a very loud pop sound and then no audio would come from the Arc. I switched inputs to my cable box and the sound was now coming through the Arc. When I switched back to the Xbox, the sound worked again.

I submitted a diagnostics report to make sure there was no damage to the speakers: 43849977

For reference. I’m using the Arc via eARC output from my LG CX 55” TV with the Sonos supplied HDMI cable. Likewise my Xbox is connected via the Microsoft supplied HDMI cable.

Ken_Griffiths
February 18, 2021

I also had the same issue occur just now. Upon starting the Xbox Series X, there was a very loud pop sound and then no audio would come from the Arc. I switched inputs to my cable box and the sound was now coming through the Arc. When I switched back to the Xbox, the sound worked again.

I submitted a diagnostics report to make sure there was no damage to the speakers: 43849977

For reference. I’m using the Arc via eARC output from my LG CX 55” TV with the Sonos supplied HDMI cable. Likewise my Xbox is connected via the Microsoft supplied HDMI cable.

To get feedback on your diagnostic report submission you are perhaps best to contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK.