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.
Another Victim here 😞 (from Mexico)
The first time I experienced the (super loud/explosive) pop was when I was navigating the menu of my XBox Series S. (It was soo scary BTW, I almost had a heart attack).
The first thing that crossed my mind was that my 2 days brand new Sonos Arc was dead because that pop literally sounded like something exploded inside, causing physicall damage of the speakers.
I inmediatly googled the issue and found several post here and on Reddit of people having the same issue.
I also had the problem with my Apple TV 2022 hearing weird noises/mini-pops and cuts in Apple Music when listening songs in Dolby Atmos.
Just a moment ago I was watching The Last Of Us (first episode) in HBO Max and having a lot of mini-pops (annoying but tolerable) but in the minute 22 (when we see the infected old lady) again an extremely LOUD and horrible pop happened (I swear my soul leaved my body). Even my dogs went crazy or scared or both.
I ended watching the episode in the native TV App and had no pops but the Sonos App showed only Dolby Digital 5.1 and no Atmos. BTW my TV is a Hisense U8G 65) .
As described in this post, the pop only happens whith dolby Atmos content (or in the Dobly Atmos Mode in the case of X Box Series S).
After disable Atmos in both devices the pop is gone, but of course what is the point of spending this ridicously ammount of money for a product if you can’t use it for what was designed and marketed. Truly shocking that the recommendation of the Sonos support was turning off Dolby Atmos (a key feature) 🫠
I am honestly very dissapointed of Sonos and now I regret of buying this thing because it’s celar that the company is aware of the problem and after all this time not even a formal statement or answer has been released (and not to mention a fix for the issue). For what I see the users are the ones who are making an effort to try to solve this or at least know the cause of the problem.
I will surely going to end returning tIhe Arc to Amazon before it Kills me of a scare.
There’s a solution posted a few posts up. Did you try it?
Yes, i just disabled CEC (both Apple TV and TV), and still had the Loud Pop in the HBO Max (The Last Of Us) in Atmos.
Gone back to 5.1 too 😢
Did you fully reboot your TV and devices after disabling CEC? This is important as CEC settings seem to hang around as the TV never acutally gets turned off….it only turns off the screen
+18
Hi
Has this been confirmed to be an Xbox issue though? I didn't have this problem using my LG soundbar and I can't find any other issues online apart from Sonos.
Apologies - I re-read the topic and noticed the Apple TV reports too.
I can only recommend that anyone who experiences this immediately submits a diagnostic and then gets in touch with our technical support team when convenient.
Sonos needs to put a disclaimer on the atmos feature of the Arc.
I agree. Even if this isn’t a Sonos issue, there should be a warning to consumers that Atoms doesn’t work right with Apple TV and Xbox. That’s just being honest at this point.
I had the same issue last night, twice whilst mid stream on Netflix. I reported through support and was provided with a reference. I have got a new TV with Atmos/EARC capability.
I have been advised to turn off Atmos which defeats the point of paying a significant amount of money for this functionality and not being able to use it.
I was surprised reading the comments on here as to how long this had been going on for.
Curious..what tv do you have and I take it you have nothing else hooked up to your system?
I have a Samsung 65QN90A and this happened on the native Netflix app on the TV - nothing else connected
Continuing on the beta NDA discussion: If there are multiple potential causes of the issue and tester ‘A’ is sent a beta that fixed issue ‘1’, but tester ‘A’ had issue ‘2’ not ‘1’, when tester ‘A’ squabbles publicly “they said it was fixed, but it’s still an issue!” an unnecessary public relations issue is created.
Also, there may be slightly different hardware builds involved. The fix must be verified on all builds and early releases might not be ready for this. Further, a beta release might not be intended to fix anything because it only has enhanced data logging — attempting to help better understand the issue.
With respect to these “pops” I can imagine that a module licensed by SONOS is causing the issue by corrupting memory outside of its own boundary. This greatly complicates identifying and resolving the issue. Multiple 3rd parties could be involved. A temporary fix might be to rearrange modules such that a seldom used memory area is at risk. Another temporary workaround could be to reboot the system every few hours or days.
There is no need to discuss these details publicly. This reminds me of the child who needs to proudly prove to everyone that it knows a secret, but the only way to do this is to divulge the secret.
It’s great that there’s coverage, but I’d love to see others than Sonos looking in to it. My current fear is it’s a failure of CEC handling format changes in a MAT container, and the result is that Sonos (and other audio sinks) are just playing what they’re being handed by eARC as part of CEC. Always easiest to lay the blame on the last device, but figuring out whether or not that ‘blame’ deserves to be there or not is a question as yet unanswered. Nor have I investigated the user agreement when companies implement standards such as CEC with sub specifications such as ARC and eARC. It’s possible, in my mind, that there is a legal clause there that says ‘you can feed us back data for us to look at and ‘fix’ , but you can not publicly point fingers’ or some such.
Which of course raises the issue of ‘if it is a failure in CEC’s handling of format changes in a MAT container’, how do all of these TVs get updated with newer, more robust versions. And when?
Step 1 is identifying the issue, and where it lies. Hopefully this community has provided enough detail to assist in that. Where it goes from there really depends on where the issue really lies. If it was Sonos, I’d honestly would have expected a quicker ‘fix’ to be released. Since that hasn’t happened (yet), it makes me wonder how far up the chain it goes, how complex the issue really is, and who is ultimately going to be responsible for fixing it.
Adding my identical experience to this thread.
Sonos Arc. Xbox Series X with Dolby Atmos selected. CEC disabled. LGC1 utilizing eArc.
Loud pop (like a gunshot) whenever I leave a game running Dolby Atmos and return to the Xbox dashboard. Horrifying every time.
Grateful for RC12’s advocacy on this thread.
C’mon Sonos.
With respect to these “pops” I can imagine that a module licensed by SONOS is causing the issue by corrupting memory outside of its own boundary. This greatly complicates identifying and resolving the issue. Multiple 3rd parties could be involved. A temporary fix might be to rearrange modules such that a seldom used memory area is at risk. Another temporary workaround could be to reboot the system every few hours or days.
Whatever the root cause ends up being, I hope (but doubt) we get some kind of postmortem once a patch goes live. Genuinely curious as to what this was and why it took so long to nail down.
+3
I reckon that almost every report I have ever read about this ‘popping’ issue mentioned online in relation to Soundbar’s (not just Sonos ones, but others brands too) that somewhere in the HT setup, is either an XBox or an Apple TV-4K (or both) - those two connected products seem to be a common denominator and it’s certainly happening with other manufacturers Soundbars, if you look online. It makes me wonder if it’s not a Sonos-owned issue🤔??
It might also ‘perhaps’ explain why Sonos is not making any public comment about the issue, if it is partner-related.
And the common denominator between Xbox and Apple TV 4K (and Roku it seems), is that they all use Dolby MAT as the audio container.
At my wits end with this issue guys. Over the last month I completed a RMA process to eliminate the possibility that this is a hardware issue. Everything was working great with new Arc and hdmi cable and all of a sudden this weekend, two pops occurring the same way on the series X (both when playing a upconverted dolby atmos game, and then exiting back to the Home Screen)
This now makes 2 Arcs, 3 different HDMI cables, 2 different TVs (Sony x900H, LG C1) and two different source devices (Latest ATV4K, Xbox Series X) and I’m getting the pop on every combination. Convinced it’s the Dolby MAT container but it’s unclear if it’s a source issue or a Sonos one
Opened a ticket with Microsoft to see if they are aware of any issues that exist on their end, not to mention multiple calls into Sonos all which have not produced an official acknowledgment of the problem or ETA for a fix
I do have difficulty believing with this many people all having the same issues that nobody from Sonos has been unable to recreate it even in random play testing
Will try again with support Monday, in the meantime my two failures have the following diagnostics
1981635273
1052219663
Hang in there guys with enough calls to support we can bring light to this issue
+18
I’d rather not, lol.
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.
Fenway, great response. It’s happened twice in the past week both times with Get Back on Disney+.
I only disabled CEC on my Xbox, which is where I initially heard the pop. No issues as of yet and it’s been about a month. I didn’t disable CEC on my Apple TV and so far, including Last of Us, no pops.
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.
No pop in the last four days, including both Apple TV and Xbox usage. It sucks not having Xbox CEC (used to be that I didn’t need the TV remote at all), but it’s a price I’m willing to pay and I don’t want to risk the pop coming back after the bad times over the last two years. I’m really hoping that Sonos is paying attention and eventually giving everybody an official statement on the cause and resolution of the pop.
Just because some upstream devices don’t trigger the Sonos Pop in no way implies that the bug isn’t in the Arc/Beam 2. Two facts point strongly, to the edge of conclusivity, to Sonos:
Considering that
Hi everyone
just wanted to give an update to my post 8 days back about the issue maybe not being a Dolby atmos issue entirely and could be due to devices / TVs pushing through a Dolby Vision / Dolby Atmos signal together
I disabled the force Dolby vision option in the Xbox Series X and re-enabled Atmos and after a week of playing I have yet to encounter the “pop” that we have described on this thread. I would usually encounter this at least once a day when quitting games and returning to the home screen
I think there could be merit to this approach, but obviously need the community to try this as well. Also not ruling out that bug fixes from the October Xbox update and Sonos 14.18 could of fixed this issue entirely from their end as they have also been released during this timeframe
Will keep everybody updated!
Just checked my XBox settings... Can't find this force Dolby vision setting... Please can you tell me where to find it?
I believe it’s called Force HDR. If you also have Dolby Vision enabled it auto forces Dolby Vision instead of its HDR equivalent
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.
For what it's worth I use a Playbar with the Series X and never heard a similar noise, never had loss of audio etc.
In my experience, once one starts starts with the ad hominem accusations of others of being shills, they’ve lost the argument. Shills or not, if you cannot dispute the facts, then you cannot dispute the facts.
I also find it highly ironic that in the same threads where people are asking for “official” updates or statements from verified Sonos personnel, others are vilified for being “shills” with absolutely no proof they are working for Sonos.
I haven’t experienced the issue. I suspect that SONOS licensed a chipset and decoder software that are included in ARC and other manufacturers using the chipset or decoder are at risk too. This would explain why a few other devices are experiencing the ‘POP’. The pop could be some sort of software overrun or perhaps a variable (from chip to chip) sensitivity to voltage or temperature and AMP’s environment is at an edge.
Since I cannot observe the issue, is there any dependency on the movie? For example, if you replay a ‘POP’ movie, does the event tend to repeat? Does it repeat at the same spot? Does one movie tend to predispose a following movie to ‘POP’?
It would help if ‘POP’ victims kept good logs. The log should be verbose, keeping track of time of day, temperature, play time into the movie, ARC Volume setting, etc. It would be best to submit a diagnostic and include the confirmation number in the log. If you are regularly hit with these events, the developers could be able to provide special builds and access to enhanced diagnostic procedures.
Everyone should keep an open mind. Once you decide that the problem must be […] or cannot be […], you are likely to be blindsided. One should not assume that there is a single cause. It’s possible that a string of events must occur in a certain order before there is a ‘POP’. This is why logging is important.
Coming in with a one month update since I decided to turn off “Auto HDR” (which in tandem with Dolby Vision forced Dolby Vision for all games) on the series X, and I have been pop free the entire time.
For those that still get the issue with Dolby he series x, what are your settings and where do you get the pop? (During gameplay, streaming movies or music, or returning to the home screen)
I am becoming somewhat confident we are stating to get to the root of the problem and perhaps the fault might not lie entirely in Sonos court. I do think that Sonos could deal with the pop exception a little better though.
I have a Samsung S95B with HDR, HDR10, VRR, ALLM, and sometimes 120Hz enabled and I get the pop issue while playing games. It is not exclusive to Dolby Vision as I don’t have it enabled (tv doesn’t support it). I haven’t tested extensively beyond that in movies, etc because tbh I’m keeping it in Dolby Digital mode most of the time now for fear of damaging my Arc.
I got the pop during gameplay on the Xbox Series X just last month. I was excited about maybe being pop safe without DV based on the posts here, but there it was. Took maybe 20-30 minutes before it popped.
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