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samro1094
Contributor I
December 8, 2020

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

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.

     

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    1202 replies

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    ProfessorFrag
    Enthusiast II
    August 11, 2023

    Thanks as always @rc12 for eloquently summarizing the state of the situation. Two items of information for you:

    1. When I worked with Sonos having my Arc in “dev mode”, which I assume is what you are describing when talking about an “audio tap”, the engineer told me that the file you generate from the local webpage on the Arc ([ArcIPaddress]:1400/snapshotspdiftap) records 60 seconds prior to the being triggered.
    2. One of the files I submitted was of the pop happening with Apple TV in screensaver mode, i.e. no audio playing. Therefore I am not surprised that the answer cannot be found in the audio information. However, surely there is data on what the Arc is outputting independently of the signal it is receiving.
    blunderdome
    Enthusiast I
    August 12, 2023

    Sonos has demonstrated that the issue will die unless we continue to press for a solution. We have seen promised “work on a solution” for three years, always devoid of specifics or a timeline. At a minimum, they could commit to changing their product advertising until a solution is found. This would at least make me feel like they are not okay with continued false advertising and truly being upfront with new customers - until this is done, it’s hard to see any response from Sonos as being in good faith.

     

    So….class action when?

    Tall Paul
    Lyricist III
    August 12, 2023

    So glad to finally see this get some attention, can’t believe I’m going back 2 years to page 1 when it first happened to me and has done many times since (LG c9 & Xbox SX) 

    Cannot be confident it hasn’t damaged the speakers in some way, let’s see how it progresses but really should not be something that takes this long to address, come on Sonos.

    peterbault
    peterbault
    Enthusiast II
    August 13, 2023

    for what it’s worth here are my set ups and I have never experienced this issue. Just putting it out there for more data

     

    Living room:

    sony A9g OLED

    apple tv 4K 3rd gen

    sonos arc, 2 subs, play:1 as rears

    using eArc

     

    game room:

    LG CX OLED

    Using eArc

    sonos arc, 1 sub, 2 era 100 as rears 

    xbox series x with atmos enabled

    nintendo switch

    PS5 using beta firmware with atmos enabled 

     

    Hope Sonos can fix this soon for those affected 

    Paul Tsang
    Enthusiast II
    August 13, 2023

    I was able to make the POP go away by unplugging the TV , XBOX and ARC for 60 secs then plug everything back in . CEC also disabled . This is a guarantee fix for me but it’s annoying every time I have to do that when I turn on my TV and XBOX 

    Darkii89
    Lyricist III
    August 13, 2023

    I was able to make the POP go away by unplugging the TV , XBOX and ARC for 60 secs then plug everything back in . CEC also disabled . This is a guarantee fix for me but it’s annoying every time I have to do that when I turn on my TV and XBOX 

    How frequently it happens ?

    alan1974us
    Lyricist III
    August 13, 2023

    Curious if anyone who has this issue has access to the PS5 beta which includes Atmos. 

    Paul Tsang
    Enthusiast II
    August 13, 2023

    Curious if anyone who has this issue has access to the PS5 beta which includes Atmos. 

    I do . And confirm still exist on PS5 atmos

    KrylonBlue
    Enthusiast II
    August 13, 2023

    I was able to make the POP go away by unplugging the TV , XBOX and ARC for 60 secs then plug everything back in . CEC also disabled . This is a guarantee fix for me but it’s annoying every time I have to do that when I turn on my TV and XBOX 

    Is it really a guaranteed fix if it happens again? 
     

    I have been using my system without Atmos because I don’t want to hear those loud bangs. I’m not happy about this and Sonos needs a fix soon because I didn’t buy an Atmos system to not use it. Otherwise, I want a refund on my equipment so I can find something that works as advertised. 

    Paul Tsang
    Enthusiast II
    August 13, 2023

    I was able to make the POP go away by unplugging the TV , XBOX and ARC for 60 secs then plug everything back in . CEC also disabled . This is a guarantee fix for me but it’s annoying every time I have to do that when I turn on my TV and XBOX 

    Is it really a guaranteed fix if it happens again? 
     

    I have been using my system without Atmos because I don’t want to hear those loud bangs. I’m not happy about this and Sonos needs a fix soon because I didn’t buy an Atmos system to not use it. Otherwise, I want a refund on my equipment so I can find something that works as advertised. 

    Yup I have been testing it for couple of days and it works. Give it a try and let me know

     

    cheers

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