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.

Show previous replies

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”.

With an air of false confidence I took out the Dr HDMI shortly after this post and have had almost a month of no issues at all (with a lot of atmos content being watched).

Until watching Hawkeye last night when I got the pop at the usual approx. 7 minute mark (unusually I got a pop and then a second pop shortly after when the video was paused. That was a new thing).

I tried playing music straight away and that played without a problem, switching back to TV then had all sound playing normally and for the rest of the episode.

I think the Apple TV box had updated so I’m unsure whether some working combination has been updated out.

I’m going to switch to the Apple TV app on my TV until this is sorted as it’s just frustrating and I’m unsure what damage is being done to the Arc each time….

K

Ksylvain77

Lyricist I

I have had the same issue with my arc popping using Disney+ with my Apple 4K. I think I just solved it for my situation. I changed the video settings on the Apple 4K to turn off the Dynamic Range and Frame rate matching. I can recreate the issue by turning them back on. I haven’t tried them individually yet, but maybe this can help someone out there

A

amenim2k

Lyricist I

I’m having the same issues with the loud pops. I’m using the Xbox Series X plugged in eArc of a Sony X900H. Strange that issue has been going on for 8 months and its still not resolved yet.

Airgetlam

It’s entirely possible that it isn’t a Sonos issue at all, but the Sonos is just playing the ‘pop’ signal being sent to it by the TV, which could just be passing on a signal from the originating devices.

Bruce

K

kevinomiconomics

Lyricist III

Second time this has happened to me. This time while watching the Witcher on Netflix with Dolby Vision

Diagnostic Info 1238124446

106rallye

@kevinomiconomics For future reference: what model TV are you experiencing this with?

T

TheFlamesFan

Enthusiast II

Update from my end

After having no issues for a couple of months with my Series X, I got a Apple TV for Xmas and immediately got the issue happening twice while watching Ted Lasso. Diagnostics: 1361513750 and 1202439941

I have since rebooted my system and haven’t had the issue since. I’m wondering if the working software gets slightly out of sync and leads to the pop

Either way I called Sonos support and they are sending me a new HDMI cable, but I have a certified HDMI 2.1 cable. Could that possibly the common denominator here? What cables are everyone using and are they doing it over ARC or eARC?

I

Iaincb

Lyricist III

I have had the same issue with my arc popping using Disney+ with my Apple 4K. I think I just solved it for my situation. I changed the video settings on the Apple 4K to turn off the Dynamic Range and Frame rate matching. I can recreate the issue by turning them back on. I haven’t tried them individually yet, but maybe this can help someone out there

Tried this change to the settings on mine and it all seemed to be fine. Watched Hawkeye (and others) without a problem but tonight watching “Book of Boba Fett” it’s happened three times in succession. Music played with no problem after each instance.

what was new was that there was a loud pop and no sound, but then a few seconds later a small, quieter pop and the sound came back. This hasn’t happened before.

resorted to the TV app and no problems at all…

would be nice for some kind of acknowledgment of the problem from Sonos- it isn’t the cable.

K

kevinomiconomics

Lyricist III

@kevinomiconomics For future reference: what model TV are you experiencing this with?

It’s occurring with a Sony X900H.

M

mrchris76

Lyricist III

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.

Hi All

Unfortunately I’m also experiecing this exact same problem and it appears to be getting more frequent.

Arc + 2x One SLs

Sony A80J

Xbox One Series X

Using HDMI cable the Arc came with.

First time it happened whilst playing MS Flight Simulator and it was so loud I jumped out of my seat. Then it didn’t happen again for a few weeks, then I found this thread and tried a few things suggested like disabling Dolby Atmos, Auto HDR, but it didn’t make any difference. Also I want Dolby Atmos as thats why I bought the Arc.

Now it pops loudly without fail when playing other games too such as Forza Horizon 5. I have to power cycle to get it back (although i can select music through the app and this plays without need for cycle). So far it doesn’t appear to have degraded the sound but I am worried its only a matter of time.

I have submitted 3 diagnostic reports right after it has happened today - 1286287503, 664679292 & 1164353300.

Can someone please advise what I can do? I don’t see any acknowledgement of the issue from Sonos unless I missed it?

Kind regards

Chris

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