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samro1094
Contributor I
December 8, 2020

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

  • 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.

     

    1202 replies

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    RémiT
    Lyricist I
    December 12, 2021

    Hi, my Arc is doing the same.

     

    connected to Xbox series X it does that pop then no more sound thing since the very beginning.

     

    here is my diagnostic : 1513982617

     

    last time I unpowered it and it came back. 
     

    am gonna try to do it once again.

    Julian Cross
    Trending Lyricist I
    December 12, 2021

    This keeps happening to me while playing hellblade on the Xbox series x!

     

    Quite infuriating 

    Mine does it when playing day of the tentacle and I navigate out of the game back to the Home Screen. Does it every time so something is triggering it at the same point, presumably when it changes audio signal. Strange thing is my arc says it is receiving Dolby Atmos from the series x all the time. Even when playing a non Atmos game. 

    Julian Cross
    Trending Lyricist I
    December 12, 2021

    I’ve email the CEO Patrick Spence about this and one of the senior technicians is looking at it. I e sent them a video of the loud pop so hopefully will get somewhere with it. 

      RémiT
      Lyricist I
      December 12, 2021

      I’ve email the CEO Patrick Spence about this and one of the senior technicians is looking at it. I e sent them a video of the loud pop so hopefully will get somewhere with it. 

      Good you could catch a video about it … it is so remote that it is hard to reproduce. Quite startling when it happens.

      SLO hombre
      Avid Contributor I
      December 13, 2021

      I’ve email the CEO Patrick Spence about this and one of the senior technicians is looking at it. I e sent them a video of the loud pop so hopefully will get somewhere with it. 

      Way to go! Hopefully you’ll get a response and all of us suffering from this bug will get a fix. So incredibly annoying.

      Airgetlam
      Airgetlam
      December 13, 2021

      Have to wonder if is actually an issue with the Sonos, or the TV having trouble switching formats internally, sending a ‘pop’ to the Sonos to play, then not sending any signal to the Sonos at all, essentially breaking ARC until it is reset. 

      Bruce
        TCMartin67
        Lyricist I
        December 13, 2021

        I reached out to Sonos support (by phone) as well. The tech did a lot of putting me on hold to talk to her level 2, but I never got to talk to that person myself. They seemed unaware of the issue. I mentioned this thread.

        The main takeaway was that they said my diagnostics couldn’t be used because they were more than 24 hours old. I should call them immediately after the Pop happens. However, there was one useful piece of diagnostic advice. I haven’t had the pop since (yet), but perhaps one of you can try it.

        After the pop, before resetting, while the Arc is still dropped out; open the Sonos app and play music from it. Does that work?

        I have a Beam Gen 2 and have it connected to the eArc port on my TV and my Xbox is connected to an HDMI 2.0 port. It happens to me once every few days during several different circumstances and always seems to happen after switching media, but only after being on the new media for a few minutes.

         

        This last time it happened I had just finished playing some Halo Infinite and switched to YouTube. After watching a video for 5 minutes the pop happened. Alexa wouldn't respond and there was no audio. I tried streaming Sonos radio from the app and it worked again, including alexa. It did not auto switch back to TV input, so I restarted my Xbox and everything worked again. All without powering off the beam, but a big hassle... 

          ProfessorFrag
          Enthusiast II
          December 15, 2021

          Just had the pop again while on the Apple TV screensaver, i.e. with no sound playing. As instructed by support last time, I ran a diagnostic and called it in immediately. I can also confirm that switching to Sonos in-app music and back to TV sound brings the sound back. So that’s faster than a reset or power cycle, you all.
           

          This time support instructed me to stop using the HDMI cable that came with my Arc and buy a third-party cable. I’m supposed to call back if the pop happens again. 

            TCMartin67
            Lyricist I
            December 15, 2021

            Just had the pop again while on the Apple TV screensaver, i.e. with no sound playing. As instructed by support last time, I ran a diagnostic and called it in immediately. I can also confirm that switching to Sonos in-app music and back to TV sound brings the sound back. So that’s faster than a reset or power cycle, you all.
             

            This time support instructed me to stop using the HDMI cable that came with my Arc and buy a third-party cable. I’m supposed to call back if the pop happens again. 

            Glad to hear that worked for you as well. The last time I commented I was using a 3rd party cable from Amazon basics. It's an Hdmi 2.1 cable just like the one they provide, and it also happened when I was using their cable. I have changed some settings since it last happened to me and will update if I don't hear the pop for a while. 

              ProfessorFrag
              Enthusiast II
              December 15, 2021

              Thanks for chiming in with info on a third-party cable. BTW everybody, they have a link to this thread in my case ID. If everybody makes sure to reference this thread and have it added to their case, it might make it easier for Sonos to track the problem across users. 

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