Contributor I

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

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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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FrankCostello

Contributor I

I saw this link in another thread, so here’s my experience with it…. I have a Sony TV, although that doesn’t seem to matter. When I first got the TV, I had a Sonos Beam Gen 2. I heard the pop a few times, but nothing major. Whatever…. I upgraded to the Arc in April of this year and used a Fire Stick for a while with no issue with Atmos content. Same with the Xbox. No issues at that time there either, so long as the Fire Stick was hooked up. A couple of months ago, I got a new Apple TV and it was fine at first, but this week, it won’t go more than 20 minutes without the pop. I paid $900 for this and can’t play Atmos content on it. With Atmos off and it just playing 5.1, it’s totally fine, but that’s not what I signed up for/paid for. This setup is around $2k. I could’ve bought a Vizio 5.1.2 for every TV in the house for that 😂. Get your * together, Sonos.

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

S

sopcannon

Lyricist II

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

I really wonder why this problem occurs with so many different patterns. For me, for example, it doesn't do any good to turn off CEC. I turned it off on the Xbox and the TV and the bang still comes with Dolby Atmos. The only thing that works for me is switching to Dolby Digital 5.1

Have you tried factory reset and not to trueplay?

FYI: now many weeks later since prior posts and this (reset to factory but don’t run Trueplay when setting back up) completely solved the problem with Arc + twin 300s.

Nutshell version: executed initial setup to the “run Trueplay” step but couldn’t Trueplay for a few hours due to uncontrollable noise in the environment. Enjoyed the speakers for those few hours: they sounded as great as we all expect of Sonos speakers. When the noise ceased, ran Trueplay and the Pop-fest immediately followed (only variable changed was running Trueplay)… not just from ATMOS sources but even Sonos HD Radio and when touching the buttons on top of the Arc. Any source whether simple stereo to ATMOS was popping in a way that made us worry about the speaker. We initially believed it was blown speaker(s).

Reset to factory but bailed on the setup process again at the “set up Trueplay” step. No pops since. No other variables changed (same source, same cables, same kinds of content). CEC is on and ATMOS playback, Dolby playback, Stereo & Mono playback, sounds from the interface (button pushes on Arc) yield NO pops at all.

Gut says that if we ran Trueplay again, the pops would return… which would be a verifying step if we repeated it and got the same (popping) results. But they play and sound great now and we don’t want to re-stir this pot.

While only a single instance and thus not ideal from which to draw broad conclusions, those frustrated with no other remedy may want to give this one a try. Given the variety of hardware sources, cables, audio types, etc in play, it seems common ground variables like internal software would be much more likely to be the cause than select implementations of ATMOS, CEC, Dolby MAT, cables, AppleTV, Xbox, et all. Since Trueplay is something most people automatically run soon after pulling these out of their boxes, if it is the cause or plays a role, obviously most/all(?) of the speakers with the problem likely ran Trueplay.

If it’s everybody else that must change their tech to work with Sonos, it seems this will NEVER get resolved. But if it’s internal software, that could be a bug(s) for Sonos to find & fix. Those willing: test & report. If there is something here, it will give Sonos an area on which to focus and maybe a fix for up to everyone.

its not trueplay, I have a sonos beam v2 set up with an android device and i get the pop sound randomly.

M

MaroonRaccoon

Lyricist I

I bought an Arc looking to add more components little by little. While setting up my PS5, pop occurred and my internet research led me to here. 2 years!!! The level of ignorance from Sonos is infuriating. This would happen to most of us after the return period, leaving us stuck with a faulty equipment. They cannot reproduce it? No, I don’t believe the lie.

I won’t turn off cec or dolby atmos. Arc is advertised with those specs and I paid top dollar for it. I will return the Arc, stay away from Sonos, and suggest friends and family the same.

D

Darkii89

Lyricist III

I bought an Arc looking to add more components little by little. While setting up my PS5, pop occurred and my internet research led me to here. 2 years!!! The level of ignorance from Sonos is infuriating. This would happen to most of us after the return period, leaving us stuck with a faulty equipment. They cannot reproduce it? No, I don’t believe the lie.

I won’t turn off cec or dolby atmos. Arc is advertised with those specs and I paid top dollar for it. I will return the Arc, stay away from Sonos, and suggest friends and family the same.

Just try disabling cec and see if it works 🌚

M

MaroonRaccoon

Lyricist I

Just try disabling cec and see if it works 🌚

Mate

HobeSoundDarryl

Lyricist III

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

I really wonder why this problem occurs with so many different patterns. For me, for example, it doesn't do any good to turn off CEC. I turned it off on the Xbox and the TV and the bang still comes with Dolby Atmos. The only thing that works for me is switching to Dolby Digital 5.1

Have you tried factory reset and not to trueplay?

FYI: now many weeks later since prior posts and this (reset to factory but don’t run Trueplay when setting back up) completely solved the problem with Arc + twin 300s.

Nutshell version: executed initial setup to the “run Trueplay” step but couldn’t Trueplay for a few hours due to uncontrollable noise in the environment. Enjoyed the speakers for those few hours: they sounded as great as we all expect of Sonos speakers. When the noise ceased, ran Trueplay and the Pop-fest immediately followed (only variable changed was running Trueplay)… not just from ATMOS sources but even Sonos HD Radio and when touching the buttons on top of the Arc. Any source whether simple stereo to ATMOS was popping in a way that made us worry about the speaker. We initially believed it was blown speaker(s).

Reset to factory but bailed on the setup process again at the “set up Trueplay” step. No pops since. No other variables changed (same source, same cables, same kinds of content). CEC is on and ATMOS playback, Dolby playback, Stereo & Mono playback, sounds from the interface (button pushes on Arc) yield NO pops at all.

Gut says that if we ran Trueplay again, the pops would return… which would be a verifying step if we repeated it and got the same (popping) results. But they play and sound great now and we don’t want to re-stir this pot.

While only a single instance and thus not ideal from which to draw broad conclusions, those frustrated with no other remedy may want to give this one a try. Given the variety of hardware sources, cables, audio types, etc in play, it seems common ground variables like internal software would be much more likely to be the cause than select implementations of ATMOS, CEC, Dolby MAT, cables, AppleTV, Xbox, et all. Since Trueplay is something most people automatically run soon after pulling these out of their boxes, if it is the cause or plays a role, obviously most/all(?) of the speakers with the problem likely ran Trueplay.

If it’s everybody else that must change their tech to work with Sonos, it seems this will NEVER get resolved. But if it’s internal software, that could be a bug(s) for Sonos to find & fix. Those willing: test & report. If there is something here, it will give Sonos an area on which to focus and maybe a fix for up to everyone.

its not trueplay, I have a sonos beam v2 set up with an android device and i get the pop sound randomly.

So I presume you ran Trueplay, right… because that’s encouraged in the setup right out of the box? If popping, factory reset, set back up and do NOT run Trueplay. Still popping with all else the same?

The other variation of my wild guess is in select combinations. In my friends case, that’s Arc + Twin 300s. Before the Trueplay run for several hours, no pops. After Trueplay, immediate pop-a-rama from any audio sources including just using the buttons on top of arc. Reset to factory and set back up EXCEPT not running Trueplay: perfectly good Sonos sound for a few weeks now. All other variables (source, cables, settings, etc) are unchanged.

If not Trueplay in this case, it’s some kind of magic or luck… because everything else involved is exactly the same. The ONLY unique variable is running and not running Trueplay.

I also have Arc plus a Move sharing a room. I’ve run Trueplay on them many times. No pops ever. So one combination of Arc + Twin 300s with Trueplay ran = Popfest. Another combination of Arc + Move with Trueplay ran = No Pops. Perhaps it’s in combinations or solos and perhaps in how Trueplay sets up with combined or solo setups?

Just trying to help here. I can’t hardly believe it can be all these other pieces of equipment and it makes no sense to “turn off CEC” and/or “turn off ATMOS” for speakers sold as CEC and ATMOS speakers. What is the COMMON variable in all cases? The speakers themselves. So most likely the problem is with the speakers or speaker software. Since many- like ME- can report an Arc setup with NO pops, it’s probably NOT the hardware (unless bad batch)… which leads me to suspecting the software… especially after the experience described above.

The key to ruling this guess out is the factory reset, set back up again but bail at the Trueplay setup step. Does a popping speaker stop popping? It certainly did for my friend and hasn’t for weeks now.

B

blunderdome

Enthusiast I