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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Hi
As far as I know, there has been progress but I’ve nothing new to share right now. But I can say that we have yet to see evidence that these pops have caused any harm to the hardware. If you do think that a pop has caused harm to your product, please contact support directly to have it looked at.
One thing to note if you suspect damage - if a speaker has been damaged, you should consistently see failures when attempting to Trueplay the device. Background noise, for example, is still a factor but if damaged, it would fail under perfect conditions.
I hope this helps.
Neither one of you have ever been affected by the pop, right? You just like to frequent every thread about it emphasizing that it’s probably not Sonos’ fault.
We’ve been down the path of these isolated reports. They may use the word ‘pop’ but are describing fundamentally different symptoms.
Look at this thread. We’ll be breaking 1,000 posts eventually.
I’m not sure how many users that may refer to overall here, but it still seems to me that a good many mention Apple TV 4K, or XBox and I did see in that linked thread, the one user mentioned they switched to using a Roku stick and the problem disappeared for them - so maybe that’s worth a try and set aside any Apple TV, or connected problem device and try a different device and just see if the popping stops.
Having the exact same issue. Loud pop sound and then the sound turns off. Changed to TV speakers and back to ARC. Solved the issue for a while. Always seems to be happening when playing Dolby Atmos and when there is a lot of different sounds. Like the sound processor can’t handle all the bandwidth and just crashes.
I have same issue. With Xbox and Apple TV4k (third generation). It’s been happening since I bought the Arc back when it first released. But I stopped using the Atmos part of it (soooo disappointed). Well I got the Apple TV4k yesterday and thought it might not have the same issue. I was wrong. This is ridiculous since I bought the system because of the Dolby Atmos.
here are two reports within 10 mins of each other.
1160778921
377987038
send me a new arc!
This just happened to me and my brand new era 300 surrounds. Did trueplay tuning and soon as it was done was getting extremely sharp loud electric pops from all 3 speakers and would not stop until I unplugged one.
please advise on next steps.
I think this solved the issue? I haven’t had the loud popping sound but still have ATMOS playing
I have performed the following testing:
It is possible that somewhere in there we are looking at a permanent fix. At this point, I consider it more likely that we have a reset to “before the first pop”. I had Atmos for weeks before it popped for the first time. If CEC ties into the Arc malfunction, it also raises the question why only LPCM/Dolby MAT Atmos is affected.
When I have time I will continue testing by reconnecting the Xbox and playing with its CEC settings.
Apple TV decodes all audio to uncompressed multichannel LPCM before sending it on. Technically it’s pretty cool because it means system audio, including Siri, are seamlessly integrated even when listening to Atmos content.
The only option is to change everything to DD5.1 (no DD5.1+). That means no Atmos. And without Atmos, no pop.
This is easy to check. Connect your xbox, then set the signal input toggle on the button on the pad. While in the console menu, press this button on the pad several times (the console sends a signal to change the signal input even though the correct input is already selected) and you will immediately hear a loud bang from the sonos speaker
Apparently Sony dropped a beta update today for the PS5 to enable Dolby Atmos for games. Anyone have access to the beta and has been able to test if the popping issue is prevalent on the PS5?
I turned Dolby Vision off on the Apple TV and left Atmos on, no issues so far. Any loss of Dolby Vision enhancements are not that apparent to me.
I appreciate Atmos and sacrificing Dolby Vision was not a big trade off for me.
Could you please explain how you turned Dolby Vision off on the Apple TV. I have mine set to 4K SDR 60Hz with both Match Dynamic Range and Match Frame Rate set to on. It is my understanding at those settings that the Apple TV will match whatever is thrown at it including Dolby Vision. In other words, at that setting, if a movie broadcast in Dolby Vision the Apple TV will match and play it in Dolby Vision. How could I eliminate the Dolby Vision so the ATV will not broadcast in it? Thanks for your help
From your screenshot, you already have Dolby Vision off. Changing the format to 4K SDR 60 is all you need to do. However each time you turn off the AppleTV and turn it back on and play any Dolby Vision source, AppleTV will automatically enable Dolby Vision again and you have to manually change the format each time you turn your AppleTV back on. Which is a pain.
When I play my Xbox Series X I just shut off all Dolby settings Dolby vision and Dolby Atmos.
This issue is almost over a year old with zero support.
I’m thinking of selling my Sonos system and getting the Sony HT-A9 instead with Black Friday sales happening now.
Fantastic news! Just in time for Black Friday too. Excited to update and test it out. Hoping to complete my setup with a sub gen 3 tomorrow too. Huge thank you to @tomwarren for raising awareness and helping push this issue
Apparently Sony dropped a beta update today for the PS5 to enable Dolby Atmos for games. Anyone have access to the beta and has been able to test if the popping issue is prevalent on the PS5?
Will definitely try once I have access to the beta. PS5 doesn’t have Dolby Vision (should that be involved in the Dolby Atmos pop), but will be eager to test regardless.
It does not. Unplugging is unplugging. That’s a purely physical layer move.
+16
Hi
Let us know how it goes and we're here to answer any further questions you have.
+16
Hi
Let us know how it goes and we're here to answer any further questions you have.
This just happened to me and it was scary!
can anyone help?
If the matter does persist for you, then you are best to try to gather the evidence from your setup, perhaps take a video and/or submit diagnostic data, noting any reference(s) and pass all the information onto Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and then see what they suggest.
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So I ran into the issue twice more over the weekend (one from ATV and one from Xbox) and I noticed a pattern starting to emerge. I have the issue occur in bunches and then after a hard reset of the Sonos system it goes away for a month or two with no other resets in between
I am wondering if the working software isn’t experiencing some sort of memory leak as after a reboot it’s rock solid for weeks on end and then happens two and three times in a single evening
The strange thing is that it also isn’t always a killer. I’ve noticed that sometimes, it is a “pop”, followed by complete silence from the ARC. Sometimes, you can hear a subtle “crackle” in the track (still Atmos content) but audio continues.
But as you say, always fixed by a Sonos reboot.
(If only we still had the :1400 pages…, could automate it overnight 🙄 )
+18
Hi
Thanks for adding that information. Given the multiple sources involved, and that your Arc is reporting briefly receiving data it didn’t understand how to decode as an Atmos stream, I would look to the TV as the culprit here.
What seems to be happening is that the TV is momentarily sending data in a different format (or failing to properly maintain the format feed). The Arc will play this for a fraction of a second before realising there’s something wrong with the stream and stop. It’s this fraction of a second of data that doesn’t describe a “real” sound that’s creating the pop noise. If the Arc didn’t stop playing, it would presumably sound something like a data CD playing in an Audio CD player. With no meaningful control over the volume level of this sound, it’s all at the maximum actual level that the current volume level can achieve.
Unfortunately, the only way of confirming this is either by swapping the TV (ideally for another brand) to test, or using a device such as the HD Fury Arcana to act as the coordinator of these feeds and turn the TV into a glorified monitor.
If you haven’t rebooted your TV by unplugging it from power for 30 seconds, I recommend you try this first. It can help with a lot of Home Theatre audio issues.
Have to wonder if is actually an issue with the Sonos, or the TV having trouble switching formats internally, sending a ‘pop’ to the Sonos to play, then not sending any signal to the Sonos at all, essentially breaking ARC until it is reset.
Just to note I upgraded my sonos Arc to 14.18 last night and the Windows Sound test using “Dolby Atmos for home theatre” vi HDFury Arcana no longer produces the loud pops.
+3
Hi,
I have the same loud pop issue with Arc, Sub, AMP (for surround speakers), Sony TV X91J and Apple 4K (2nd Gen). The loud pop only happens in Atmos mode. If I set Apple TV to change format to Dolby 5.1 then the loud pop doesn’t happen. I’m wondering if anyone has heard from Sonos regarding solutions or possible ETA for fix.
Not sure if it was this thread or another but someone mentioned that a fix was in the current beta builds, apparently.
Not sure if Sonos have confirmed the issue at all, but it’s clearly becoming more widespread. 😕
Well 750+ recordings from all the
over world. No one is mentioning this problem when you want to buy your products. Sonos this is not fixed. See you soon...
And we know the problem, as you are!
+18
Hi
Thank you! This may even help us reproduce the issue by ourselves! I’ve passed it on.
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