Contributor I

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
December 8, 2020
1202 replies
90685 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.

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Iaincb

Lyricist III

Apple TV 4K seems to be a common denominator for a lot of the reports.

UPDATE: I had an HD Fury Arcana which I used with my older TV that only had an ARC port (never had this issue then). I have not used it since getting a new TV with an eARC port. I decided to try the HD Fury and have not encountered the issue in the last 48 hours. For clarity the below is the setup:

Apple TV 4K → HD Fury → Video to TV eARC and Audio to Sonos Arc system

If this resolves the issue, it would not be ideal for most since the HD Fury is a 249USD device.

I actually have an unused Arcana that I haven’t sold on yet but I don’t think this solution will work for me as I have multiple devices going into the TV that need to send sound to the Arc (happy to be corrected on this assumption!!).

Although I do have a 4K Dr HDMI which I might try between Apple TV and TV so see if this sorts out what seems to be some kind of a audio signal problem…

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OscarG

Lyricist I

I have just experienced the same with a Sony XBR55X950 and my Xbox Series X, besides that I have identified Sonos Arc doesn't Honorate the Volume Limit while playing Spotify on the Xbox

I have submitted reports.

Your confirmation number is: 1159343669

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JayKayMkay

Lyricist I

I’ve been reading a lot of troubleshooting articles these last months, and there seems to be a pattern.

I have not experienced this “loud pop” described by many users in this thread, but there seems be some sort of mismatch between specific types of gear when you are trying to send Dolby Atmos signals through a TV to the Sonos Arc.

The issue: huge delay between what happens on-screen and Dolby Atmos audio, at least 500 ms.

My chain: Xbox Series X > Samsung Q90t > (eARC) > Sonos Arc + Sub/2x Sonos Ones.

Passthrough is enabled on every device that supports it. Every device is kept up to date. Both cables are 2.1 certified. New Asus router/no network issues.

Sonos support has checked my diagnostic report (no errors), Samsung support has updated my HDMI-ports (they said this was a known error, but the update did not fix anything). Xbox support is notoriously difficult to reach (actually not possible right now).

My question to Sonos would be: how am I supposed to know which device is the culprit? Surely there must be some type of collaboration between these huge, global suppliers (Sonos, Samsung and Microsoft) to iron out bugs and making things play nice? Or? This is really frustrating, I can’t tell what device is causing trouble, but at the same time I have a right to expect that when something boasts “Dolby Atmos”, then I get just that. All these devices support it, but none of the suppliers will ever point to the one of the others and say “they are the cause”, because that would reflect poorly back on them for not adressing this up front.

jamie_shaw

Enthusiast I

I experienced this issue last Friday for the first time since owning the Arc watching Shang-Chi on Disney+ on an Apple TV 4K – Atmos enabled.

Attempted Snowpiercer on Netflix, same result after about 8 minutes.

After upgrading to 13.4 last night; let both run through as I worked downstairs and checked periodically to see if the audio had dropped. After a full viewing on both, no issue.

Not sure if 13.4 fixed the issue from Apple TV but it did get me digging further. Not sure if it’s been mentioned in this thread already but the common factor between Atmos on Apple TV and Xbox Series X is that they both use Dolby MAT.

(After that first failure, I tried my TV’s native Disney+ app and a Ultra HD Blu-Ray, both worked without failure, which are DD+ and Dolby TrueHD, respectively).

I

Iaincb

Lyricist III

I experienced this issue last Friday for the first time since owning the Arc watching Shang-Chi on Disney+ on an Apple TV 4K – Atmos enabled.

Attempted Snowpiercer on Netflix, same result after about 8 minutes.

After upgrading to 13.4 last night; let both run through as I worked downstairs and checked periodically to see if the audio had dropped. After a full viewing on both, no issue.

Not sure if 13.4 fixed the issue from Apple TV but it did get me digging further. Not sure if it’s been mentioned in this thread already but the common factor between Atmos on Apple TV and Xbox Series X is that they both use Dolby MAT.

(After that first failure, I tried my TV’s native Disney+ app and a Ultra HD Blu-Ray, both worked without failure, which are DD+ and Dolby TrueHD, respectively).

That’s interesting about Dolby MAT, and whether 13.4 might have fixed it for Apple TV.

I’ve ruined any chance of being able to confirm that as last night I added a Dr HDMI 4K between the Apple TV and my Sony TV and updated both Sonos and the Apple TV. No chance of a baseline now!

Fingers crossed I’ve had the last “pop”.

F

Fiestasteve

Lyricist I

But does the pop damage the unit and how are we meant to know if it has?

Only had it once, not since and so can’t do the diagnostic and ring them.

T

tew1955

Lyricist I

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.

i really see the load pop(happened to me with xbox series x) as a sonos software issue around dolby Atmos. it's not Apple Tv,xbox or other devices, it is the sonos Arc.the pop only occurs if you're using sonos. I after more than a year of complaints and issues I hope sonos has a software fix.Sonos products are very expensive.Customers deserve the best from sonos customer support.

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Bryan2021

Lyricist I

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.

I have the same issue. We have been using our brand new Sonos arc and sub woofer for about 6 weeks. It was installed professionally by Best Buy’s geek squad. We watch movies once a week and listen to Apple Music. During the last week when watching a movie we hear a loud pop and the sound goes out. I ran a diagnosis report today and sent it to Sonos to investigate the source of the problem. We were so looking forward to using this system for a family for Thanksgiving. I sure hope this can get resolved as this is very disappointing.

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Julian Cross

Trending Lyricist I

Has anyone still had this issue since the firmware upgrade to 13.4? Nothing in the patch notes but surely this must be on the Sonos radar by now.

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Fenway

Lyricist II

This has been happening for me for 3+ weeks. Have called Support Twice, left diagnostics, and have ended calls with “solutions” that days later only has it happening again.

Apple 4K plus ARC for me as well. Happens most often while watching ATV+ and Disney+ Dolby Atmos content, but it’s also happened while listening to Apple Music through ATV4K, and even while screen saver runs. I even managed to capture video of it.

I’m currently running 13.4 so that hasn’t helped either.

Sometimes it knocks out the centre channel, other times it’s just the pop. Neither is ideal

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