Contributor I

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
December 8, 2020
1202 replies
90688 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

jamie_shaw

Enthusiast I

Anyone know if Sonos S2 v. 14.0 fixes this popping issue? The update just dropped today and I know Sonos was developing a fix.

Update: I just fired up my Xbox Series X and repeatedly jumped between 2 games that use Dolby Vision/Atmos and the Home Screen which usually triggers that loud pop. So far, no popping issue to report here. Did this for about 20 minutes and nothing. Seems like 14.0 might have fixed the issue but it would be great to hear others experience with the new update.

Time will tell — I thought the same after the last update.

I think the truth is, the installation just includes a reboot of the Sonos, which commonly—but temporarily—fixes the issue.

M

mrchris76

Lyricist III

I have just spent an hour or so on xbox series one x playing a couple of games that were guaranteed to ‘pop’ with Atmos enabled and it hasn’t happened so far again, since update. But will reserve judgement just yet in case its related to the reboot as part of the update to v14.

Fingers crossed though!

jamie_shaw

Enthusiast I

I can confirm that Sonos 14 hasn’t fixed the issue, neither has tvOS 15.3.

Just experienced the issue minutes after starting a purchased iTunes Movie on the Apple TV.

M

mrchris76

Lyricist III

I have just spent an hour or so on xbox series one x playing a couple of games that were guaranteed to ‘pop’ with Atmos enabled and it hasn’t happened so far again, since update. But will reserve judgement just yet in case its related to the reboot as part of the update to v14.

Fingers crossed though!

Update: So still no popping after many hours of xbox series X and atmos enabled, playing the games that previously would pop without fail (Forza Horizon 5, MS Flight Sim, Cyberpunk 2077). I also watched a 4K bluray with an atmos soundtrack and no pops. I never had issues with other sources such as my Apple TV 4K or the inbuilt apps on the Sony A8J and thankfully still don’t. Still keeping fingers crossed and hoping its solved it but why for me and not you Jamie I don’t know :(

J

jrh9765

Lyricist II

It worked for 3-4 days and all the sudden the pop happened again. The update didn't fix it for me.

jamie_shaw

Enthusiast I

It worked for 3-4 days and all the sudden the pop happened again. The update didn't fix it for me.

Yeah, same old same. Reboot normally alleviates the issue temporarily.

What I haven’t got around to testing is if multiple different formats causes the issue, and there’s some memory overflow somewhere i.e. if you watched DA content continuously, and not flick between 5.1, etc., would the issue continue? 🤔

M

mrchris76

Lyricist III

It popped again at least I don’t nearly **** myself when it happens now.

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

I

Ivanthree

Lyricist I

Same problem here, loud pop noise.

Sonos Arc, Xbox series X and LG G1.

Diagnostic 1668529943

Everything has been updated to their last SW. This is so annoying…

Sono team, can you please let me know if I can do something?

Thanks,

Ivan

P

Pickle

Lyricist II

Hi all,

To throw my 2¢ in here, as I've read the entire thread after experiencing issues (daily) myself, I'm running a very similar set-up to many of you:

Sony Bravia X90H

Xbox S, Switch, Arc, PS5 (in order of HDMI 1-4 slots)

The popping noise has only come about when playing Xbox, and was happening 2-3 times each evening. I opened a ticket with support during the day, and after getting home power cycled the Arc as well as swapping out the HDMI cable (just in case) before submitting a diagnostic.

Support said things looked good on their end, but I imagine what did the trick more so was disabling Auto HDR on the Xbox. After turning that feature off I had no sound disruption at all last night, even after ~4 hours of gaming. I'll post an edit/update if they come back, but compared to the last few weeks that's already a vast improvement.

One thing I'd like to note is the rep stated I may want to remove all other HDMI devices plugged in to the TV when using the Arc, which was an... interesting suggestion. Not sure I'm willing to use the Arc only when using streaming services via my TV.

jamie_shaw

Enthusiast I

Hi all,

To throw my 2¢ in here, as I've read the entire thread after experiencing issues (daily) myself, I'm running a very similar set-up to many of you:

Sony Bravia X90H

Xbox S, Switch, Arc, PS5 (in order of HDMI 1-4 slots)

The popping noise has only come about when playing Xbox, and was happening 2-3 times each evening. I opened a ticket with support during the day, and after getting home power cycled the Arc as well as swapping out the HDMI cable (just in case) before submitting a diagnostic.

Support said things looked good on their end, but I imagine what did the trick more so was disabling Auto HDR on the Xbox. After turning that feature off I had no sound disruption at all last night, even after ~4 hours of gaming. I'll post an edit/update if they come back, but compared to the last few weeks that's already a vast improvement.

One thing I'd like to note is the rep stated I may want to remove all other HDMI devices plugged in to the TV when using the Arc, which was an... interesting suggestion. Not sure I'm willing to use the Arc only when using streaming services via my TV.

Similarly, kinda, is that I changed from 4k50 SDR to 4k50 Dolby Vision in my Apple TV video settings last night. Made it through The Book of Boba Fett without issue, but will report back if anything *does* happen in the near future.

Mainly because it seems that whilst the Apple TV 4K (2nd Gen) is advertised at supporting DV over AirPlay for Photos, it only seems to work if the video output is DV by default—it won’t “upgrade” SDR to DV when starting an AirPlay stream (as it would everything else).

Whilst I can’t comprehend why video settings would affect audio; AV stuff, tracing all way back to good ol’ RF signals, is a tricky beast.

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