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.
Answer received by Dutch Sonos customer support:
"It is a known problem and is being looked into, but it is not a Sonos problem, all soundbars have this problem (like Samsung, LG, etc.).
It is not a Sonos specific problem, it happens to all soundbars, and right now the solution is this:
Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead."
Very unsatisfactory.
Tried unplug Apple TV , disable CEC from Xbox series X still the same issue . Loud bang after a while .
I just tried disabling eARC and I can no longer reliably reproduce the audio pop. Re-enabling eARC hasn’t reproduced the issue either. Can anyone here who is able to reliably reproduce see if disabling and re-enabling eARC clears something? It might still come back, but it’s interesting that I can no longer reliably reproduce!
There was a point somewhere in this thread that we discussed CEC state when turning off certain features. It seems that when a change is made the TV holds on to certain setting which if you are lucky results in more stability and less pops. I had this happen to me personally about 6 months back. Things were incredibly stable for over a month and the the second I got one pop. I got a bunch of them
Tom, I am in a rare group where I found disabling Dolby Vision for Gaming on the series X makes a difference. I have been pop free since this change, and since Dolby Vision for gaming is a feature that offers only a small enhancement over HDR, it’s worth it to me to have this disabled in exchange for Atmos. Whether disabling this changes this internal TV / CEC state or its some other technical explanation…all I know is it works for my setup
I have a C1 / Series X / Apple TV / and full Sonos 5.1.2
I just started playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and my speaker popped again.
Cmon Sonos, I demand an update on when I can use Atmos because as of now I just disabled it. This is unacceptable!
Yes. eARC has major benefits over ARC. Better sound, better lip sync, the works.
If you get the bang, you can always turn it back off. We haven’t had any reports of the bang happening with Dolby Digital Plus compressed Atmos.
I’ve been using eARC and Pass Through as “Off” for the last year.
To confirm, here are the settings I’m going to choose in my Sony A80J -
Digital Audio Out: Auto 1
Dolby Digital Plus Output: Dolby Digital Plus
Pass Through Mode: Auto
eARC Mode: Auto
Does that look correct?
+1
Perhaps an email to Sonos CEO would help:
To be fair they sold this as an Atmos product. If they don’t provide a working product based on their intended product purpose we’re all due a full refund for anything we’ve purchased.
Sonos, this is the time to be open with your customers. We have supported you but I cannot continue to accept a product that’s priced for its Atmos capabilities when it can’t even be used due to either faulty hardware or software issues.
As I mentioned, if I turn off DV and content matching on my Apple TV, it seems to get rid of the pop and returns when I turn it back on. Doing the same on the Xbox does not.
I think we must all admit that DV having any effect in any setting is strange since it’s not an audio setting to begin with. I think it’s just as likely that whatever bug the Arc has is a subtle interaction in its code and DV happens to only sometimes touch it. Could be something as obscure as where items are in memory on the Arc. Some pointer is dereferenced badly, or a buffer overflows, or a variable is having its type changed wrongly; and it just happens to go into memory where it shouldn’t and whatever DV thing happens to live in that memory either has a popping value in it or it doesn’t.
In other words, I would caution you against taking just your experience (n=1) and generalizing from it what the problem or solution is. We need to find a diagnosis and solution that is replicable across users to solve this puzzle.
It is Sonos who bears the responsibility, not the customer, to solve this puzzle/issue and warn potential new customers. The only thing we can do is to continue to inform Sonos. The number of the accounts of new customers who experience the exact same problem grows with each passing sale of the Sonos Arc.
We all appreciate your efforts, however accountability and responsibility is what is warranted here. Sonos has yet to warn new customers. And we are all waiting for a solution or at least acknowledgement from Sonos.
The fact that newer customers who have just experienced this issue
-after plugging in an Xbox
-after only just recently purchasing a Sonos Arc to utilize Dolby Atmos
-contacting Sonos Support, issuing a diagnostic number
And the reply from Sonos support is, “everything looks fine on our end”, is outrageous!! No acknowledgment that this is a known issue, no accountability, because Sonos would have to replace all of our Sonos Arcs, and then warn us not to plug in an Xbox going forward.
As I’ve already said in the past. I have not found a single account of another brand’s Dolby Atmos sound bar having this issue with the same parameters. This is a hardware issue, otherwise there would have been a software update correcting this error.
The new, confused, and frustrated customers who still have the option to return their Sonos Arc should do so immediately. And purchase a different brand. That is their only option.
Just a thought, has anyone tried to get any of the tech sites to cover this? I’m thinking like Ars Technica or the like. Some additional pressure and eyes on the issue might help get the ball rolling on this.
I have not.
I was contacted by Sonos Level 2 Support regarding this.
“Hello Stephen,
This is Bryan from Sonos Level 2 Support. I received your case. This case will be escalated to our Engineering team for further investigation, but I need to ask you a question first: What audio format are you playing when you experience these screeching sounds in your Sonos Arc (PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos...)?
I will be eagerly awaiting your answer.”
I let them know that it’s only when Atmos is in use and even linked them to this ongoing discussion. I also sent them the video one user posted above showing the issue at hand.
The fact that Sonos support still acts completely surprised by this issue and asking these same questions every time is mind blowing. I stopped calling many months ago cause the first question was always the same… ‘is your Arc plugged in correctly?’ 🤷♂️
I may not have $1,700 to drop on another sound system. But I am genuinely happy for you that you can now enjoy Atmos without the constant dread of a Sonos Pop on your mind.
For now I have to hold out hope that Sonos will do right by us.
Best I can recommend, after disabling CEC on Xbox, is to power cycle (unplug/replug) everything including Arc and TV.
That worked for me. But there are others with the pop who don’t even have an Xbox. So it definitely doesn’t solve the problem for everyone.
Until Sonos makes an official statement, we just don’t know. We’re just users sharing information.
Very interesting thing just happened to me over the weekend. I encountered a pop on the Xbox for the first time in a couple of months that seems limited to a single game only. Both times that I played this game once returning to the Home Screen I got a pop, however it wasn’t the arc resetting type of pop, the system continued to function immediately after
Different type of exception perhaps? Older games causing issues with CEC or perhaps forced Dolby Vision?
Game was “Contrast” for anybody brave enough to try to replicate
Sigh!
Hi all - first time poster. I, too, am getting loud pop/crackles with audio disconnect on my new Arc (got it right before Christmas). Running content through an Apple TV 4k and paired with a sub 3. Suuuuuper bummed to see this many issues with no resolution.
Diagnostic case: 1892845096
I see Ars Technica has picked up on the Verges article and posted the story too. I’m glad to see it’s spreading.
Thank you
I had been told by Sonos Support that the latest update 14.12 was set to address the issue. After the update I re-enabled the Atmos audio on my ATV4K only to have the pop 30 minutes into my Atmos show. I’ve dis-engaged it since.
One request I have is that you or someone else from Sonos could post here on occasion to update us on any progress or if a solution had been found. That would be great. Thanks again.
They have to fix this… I got in touch with customer service about this issue around 2 or 3 months ago and they recommended changing the channel of the network of the Sonos system and it seemed that it did the trick for a while (at least when I used only my Xbox), but the moment I play music with Apple Music… I start getting that loud “pop” that even makes my ears hurt for a while. Today, after a while without hearing it (mainly because I had only used my Sonos system to play sound from the TV/Xbox/PS5), I tried playing music again directly from the Apple TV and it happened again.
→ Philips OLED TV (2022 model)
→ Arc + Two ONEs (one is a ONE and the other a ONE SL) + Sub Mini (it happened also when I didn’t have the Sub Mini)
→ So far it happened both with:
· Xbox Series X (when I wasn’t playing anything and there wasn’t any sound coming from the TV, which means basically when going back to Home Screen)
· Apple TV (many times), mostly when playing music directly from the Music app (or streaming music from any iOS device to the Apple TV). It usually happens when changing from one song to the other (when there’s that brief pause between songs). Normally it doesn’t happen with Youtube/Disney+ or other video apps on the Apple TV.
· It also happened when playing some movies directly from the USB stick and the TV native player. But it did happen when the content was paused.
With more than 1500€ spent on this system… I find this unacceptable (especially considering that this issue goes back to 2020)
New Arc owner here. With Sony now rolling out the PS5’s Atmos update, should I be cautious of using that mode for audio output?
Based on what I have read on reddit, yes. The PS5 uses Atmos via MAT as well, which appears to be the cause of the problem.
Possibly MAT processing sets a bit(s) somewhere outside of its bounds that sometimes causes issues for something else. Once there was a Mars lander crash because one routine got its one/zero origin mixed up,
---
For non programmers: Array (list) elements are reverenced by a number. Some schemes start the element ID’s at zero (#0 is the first element), other schemes start the ID’s at one (#1 is the first element). There are advantages and disadvantages to each scheme and ultimately it does not matter much which scheme is used -- unless the ‘other’ scheme is used somewhere along the line. For example Programmer ‘A’, using one origin, will call for element #1 (the first element), but this will be the second element in Programmer ‘B’ scheme of zero origin.
In this case an invalid reference could sometimes modify a single pixel in a graphic, but other times could result in output volume set at beyond infinity -- resulting in a ‘thump’ and amplifier shutdown. These things can be extremely transient and hard to track down. I’m glad that I’m not working for SONOS, tasked to fix this, and I sympathize with users who are suffering.
No, I have the Xbox running at 4K60 VRR. That being said, the Apple TV was making reproducible pops too on an HDMI 2.0 port.
Tomorrow is the 3 year anniversary of the Sonos Arc. At this point, I’m chalking this up as an inherent design flaw of the Arc and that this issue won’t be resolved until the release of the Arc 2. If it hasn’t been fixed by now, it probably never will…
The funny part is I have yet to experience this on an Apple TV 4K even when using Dolby Vision and Atmos on both my Arc and Gen 2 Beam. It’s only been my Xbox. I’m sure it’ll happen on my Apple TV soon enough but I don’t understand why I’ve had the issue with Xbox but not Apple yet.
I operate my Apple TV in the bedroom, but I also had it in the living room on my ARC and couldn't find the problem. But I think that's because most of the movies and series I streamed had no atmos at all. Most of the time they only have atmos on the original soundtrack. I'm from Germany and I always look at German audio and this is usually "only" Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus
Thanks I will do that.
Also worth adding, I have not had this issue as yet with the Apple TV 4K playing Atmos content (unlike some others on here). I did have a few issues with cables on that device and ended up buying the recommended Belkin Ultra High Speed HDMI cable which solved all my issues on that front. I will try using that cable with the Xbox perhaps something going on there. Although would have expected the Xbox Series X bundle cable to be adequate but who knows worth a try.
Chris
None of those four examples fit the behavior described in this thread.
The only thing any of them have in common is some sort of general “popping sound”. Users here are reporting that their Sonos soundbar, when playing Atmos content from an Apple TV or XBOX, makes a loud noise and crashes, requiring a power cycle to fix. I’ve yet to see an example this exact same behavior reproduced by any other soundbar.
Those were just some ‘examples’ of quite a few sites that I came across during a web search and it’s often different makes of soundbar with either the XBox or Apple-T`V.. if anything, folk should be speaking to Microsoft or Apple, I think… (Unless it’s a Dolby codec issue)?
I run my Xbox Series X without Auto HDR. Also Dolby Vision is disabled because my TV lets you have VRR or Dolby Vision but not both. I run it at 4K60 VRR.
I have gotten the pop within the last week with Atmos on. I have since turned Atmos back off.
Dolby Vision off is not the solution.
The Dolby Vision disabled solution only works for Apple TV. With Xbox Series X, both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos must be disabled.
Not true. I am a very heavy gamer and have Atmos enabled for all my gaming. I haven’t had the issue since deactivating Auto HDR which forced Dolby Vision
After reading the comments, I’m starting to wonder if this is a TV passthrough thing. I have a LG C1 for the record
I have a Sony X900H, and please specify about the Xbox Series X, my PS5 plays without any issue. I will clarify for my Xbox Series X the only way I was able to play without issue is to shut off both. And I discovered the Apple TV fix initially from your post that lead me to Reddit. Please clarify the Dolby vision issue as people are getting confused about that.
People on here seem to be confused about the Dolby vision “fix”. It only applies universally for the Apple TV.
And you’re absolutely right it is the TV pass through as the Sonos Arc is unable to process the signal of both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos content at the same time.
I have also tested this on a Samsung TV in another room which obviously doesn’t Dolby Vision. No issues.
But the same problem occurs now with my LG in the bedroom. With an Apple TV set up in there as well. That’s how I know it’s the Sonos Arc, as once the error is initiated in the Sonos Arc, it is consistently there now. To clarify, had the Xbox Series X not have initiated the Popping Sound loss bug, the Sonos Arc, which had no issues for the past 2 years, which was playing Dolby vision and Dolby Atmos just fine on my LG in the bedroom through an Apple TV, before I moved it to my living room and played Xbox Series X a month ago on my Sony which started this bug/error, and lead me to this thread and Reddit threads.
So to all the nay sayers, it is a Sonos issue. As once the error occurs, it affects the Sonos Arc’s ability to passthrough Dolby Atmos content that also has Dolby Vision. I’ve moved my Arc back to the LG set up in the bedroom and it now has issues playing Dolby vision and Dolby Atmos content. And when I play dolby vision and Dolby Atmos through the installed app on both the Sony and LG native Apple TV App or any streaming apps, same error/bug.
Just ordered both beam and arc to see which is best. With all this going on, should I just return the arc and keep the beam?
I only have a gen 1 Beam myself (no Atmos) but my understanding is that both the current Beam and Arc are affected.
So I think the real question is whether you’re cool with turning off Atmos. Hopefully we’ll get a fix and then we can turn it back on.
Yep, it’s been years looking at this thread. We did a video of it too.
Good that you did a video, Ovios73! Have you shared this with the Sonos team?
I mean, they must have experienced this in their tests! It’s not that hard to reproduce it…
I’m going to try to turn off CEC for all devices and see if that helps, but that isn’t obviously the solution. They need to fix this with a proper software update.
I’m starting to believe that this is very similar to an issue that the original HomePods had, where they also popped (really loud) sometimes when playing music and sometimes just a few seconds after you stopped playing content on them. Apple ended up fixing this (it took them a while...) with a software update → https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=homepod+popping&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8. There’s even a technical explanation of why that happened, so something similar might be happening with the Sonos speakers.
For those of us not really interested in combing through 35 pages of this, is there a solution or anything that needs to be done for anyone who experiences this issue?
I’ve had my Arc since launch with no issues ever, and just started seeing this issue relatively often
I’m sorry to hear you’ve been affected. Once the Sonos Pop has struck, there is no way to go back.
Some of us have had success with keeping it from triggering by disabling certain features on our devices. Unfortunately there isn’t one approach of that that’s worked for everyone. We just know too little.
What are all the devices you use?
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