Skip to main content
samro1094
Contributor I
December 8, 2020

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

  • 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.

    This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.
    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

    Show previous replies
    Chagrin
    Contributor I
    February 6, 2022

    Hey, 

     

    I add my contribution to this topic too. Couple of months ago I heard this loud bang and low volume after that first time, when watching Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision content from Apple TV 4K. Turning on TV speakers and then bacl to Sonos fixed the problem, until I heard it again when using xBox Series X and again Dolby Atmos content. Total of 5 times. Today, early morning when watching Viaplay from Apple TV 4K I had multiple sound cutouts, that got fixed by ”hardbooting” the app, but when I turned tv on later today, Sonos is complete silent! No matter what source connected to TV  I use (Playstation 5, xBox Series X, Nvidia Shield Pro, Apple TV 4K, or TV’s internal apps) there’s no audio at all. Alexa on Sonos arc works fine, also when streaming spotify from iPhone everything works. But via TV, it’s all silent 🥺

     

    Sonos Arc + sub.3gen + 2xPlay:1

    Sony 85X90H

     

    Pickle
    Lyricist II
    February 8, 2022

    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.

    I won’t claim to be knowledgable enough to know why it seems like so many of these issues are more tied to video output than audio, but it does seem to be the case, doesn’t it? Just theorizing but maybe something to do with how the information translates over the eArc channel? I have no real idea, just spitballing.

     

    Tangentially, since my first post I’ve played… a lot of Xbox (new purchase for me and loving Game Pass). I haven’t had any issues at all since turning off Auto HDR. Still curious to know what the real underlying reason is, but given how much I played over the past week I’m ready to consider the problem settled for now.

    jamie_shaw
    jamie_shaw
    Enthusiast I
    February 10, 2022

    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.

    I won’t claim to be knowledgable enough to know why it seems like so many of these issues are more tied to video output than audio, but it does seem to be the case, doesn’t it? Just theorizing but maybe something to do with how the information translates over the eArc channel? I have no real idea, just spitballing.

     

    Tangentially, since my first post I’ve played… a lot of Xbox (new purchase for me and loving Game Pass). I haven’t had any issues at all since turning off Auto HDR. Still curious to know what the real underlying reason is, but given how much I played over the past week I’m ready to consider the problem settled for now.

    Made it through another episode of Book of Boba Fett — so testing continues.

    Out of curiosity, of those with Apple TV, what is your current video output setting?
    Additionally, for those experiencing on Xbox, do you have “Auto HDR” enabled?

    mtvachon
    Lyricist I
    February 15, 2022

    My Arc has done this several times. It happened 3 times this morning! So frustrating! 
     

    Diagnostic 1667308177

    N1L5
    Lyricist I
    February 16, 2022

    I experience the same. Xbox Series X - Atmos… Signal comes via eARC from an Sony XH9000.

     

    My Diagnostic 1540348382

    Ken_Griffiths
    Ken_Griffiths
    February 16, 2022

    I experience the same. Xbox Series X - Atmos… Signal comes via eARC from an Sony XH9000.

     

    My Diagnostic 1540348382

    This is just one example link of several others I have seen online, but it seems the Xbox is prone to this popping noise even with other brands of Soundbar…

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/xbox-one-x-dolby-atmos-sound-popping/951333dc-053d-49c6-9ff4-0d2860e16dea

      TheFlamesFan
      Enthusiast II
      February 20, 2022

      I can now confirm that his problem is TV Independent.  I just had this problem on my new LG C1 whereas before I was experiencing it on the Sony X900h

      Ken_Griffiths
      Ken_Griffiths
      February 20, 2022

      I can now confirm that his problem is TV Independent.  I just had this problem on my new LG C1 whereas before I was experiencing it on the Sony X900h

      I’m wondering if there any common denominator devices connected to the TV, such as the Xbox or Apple TV - I’ve seen those mentioned in some of the posts here and elsewhere online, with different Soundbars too, having this same issue?

        TheFlamesFan
        Enthusiast II
        February 21, 2022

        I can now confirm that his problem is TV Independent.  I just had this problem on my new LG C1 whereas before I was experiencing it on the Sony X900h

        I’m wondering if there any common denominator devices connected to the TV, such as the Xbox or Apple TV - I’ve seen those mentioned in some of the posts here and elsewhere online, with different Soundbars too, having this same issue?

        There is, devices that use the Dolby MAT container for Atmos (Xbox, Apple TV and now Roku).   There was some debate before as to whether the TV passing through the MAT signal was doing it properly and since I’ve had failure with two different TVs now.  I’m more confident it has nothing to do with the TV passing through the signal but the signal itself

         

          jamie_shaw
          jamie_shaw
          Enthusiast I
          February 21, 2022

          There is, devices that use the Dolby MAT container for Atmos (Xbox, Apple TV and now Roku).   There was some debate before as to whether the TV passing through the MAT signal was doing it properly and since I’ve had failure with two different TVs now.  I’m more confident it has nothing to do with the TV passing through the signal but the signal itself


          Same model of TV? Same brand, different models? 

          Dolby MAT has been my theory all along as it’s the only consistent thread across everything.  The fact that other soundbars seem to struggle with Xbox’s Atmos content is somewhat curious—on face value, that reads as if there is a bug in the Atmos codec, and/or potentially the decoder SDK (assuming it’s provided by Dolby on licence).

            Show more replies
            Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement