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

Managed to keep away from the issue for a few weeks/months after changing to Dolby Vision as the default video output. Seemed like it shouldn't have worked, but it remained dormant until recently. Two pops in one week. Disappointing.

K

kevinomiconomics

Lyricist III

Sure would be nice to hear an official statement from Sonos on this. It’s the bare minimum that I would expect from such a high end audio product

We all know these boards are monitored, so the fact that people continue to have problems with so Sonos intervention or guidance is really sad. The problem will not go away on its own

I have about $2k worth of SONOS equipment and things like this thread have me seriously reconsidering investing anymore. There’s practically no acknowledgment of a reproducible issue occurring with a range of (very common) hardware: Apple TV, XBOX Series X/S, Sony X900H, LG C1.

The Arc sure sounds nice, but defeats a lot of the purpose of owning one if the solution is “turn off Atmos”, seeing how as it’s one of the main reasons why I purchased one.

T

TheFlamesFan

Enthusiast II

I don’t know if anybody’s experience mimics my own. But I can keep the problem at bay by doing a weekly power cycle on the Sonos Arc

Its almost like the running software starts to become less reliable over time and I’ve noticed if I go a more than a few weeks between reboots my system is more inclined to pop….never before though

G

Ggnore

Trending Lyricist I

This loud pop and audio loss just happened to me while on my Xbox series x. Controller was idle for a bit, picked it up and went to select a game and then a loud ass POP! Scared the crap out of me. I had to unplug/replug the Arc to get audio back.

Diagnostic code: 757099552

P

Pickle

Lyricist II

Managed to keep away from the issue for a few weeks/months after changing to Dolby Vision as the default video output. Seemed like it shouldn't have worked, but it remained dormant until recently. Two pops in one week. Disappointing.

Same. I hadn't had any issues since my last post until I tried playing a game the other night and then, suddenly, a pop while it was just in a menu screen. I'm going to try just turning Atmos off and having the sound come through as Dolby Digital or something instead, but it's made me hesitant to even play anything on the Xbox because of it.

J

jpmarcum

Contributor I

UPDATE & ADVICE: after a somewhat frustrating experience with support (call got dropped, email that was promised never arrived, they wanted me to send a video of it which seemed silly since this is such a widely known issue, the pop actually happened twice while we were on the call and their diagnostics couldn’t pick it up) I followed their advice to try a new HDMI cable between TV & ARC. So far, fingers crossed, this has worked.

The HDMI cable I had been using was the one that came with the ARC - perhaps Sonos shipped a bunch of defective HDMI cables? Anyway, it’s worth a shot to just swap in a new cable and a lot easier to just try it than call support.

Changed mine yesterday and no luck. Getting seriously annoyed with this. There won’t be any more Sonos purchases till this is resolved.

LG C1 with the Xbox Series X being the main culprit

Sadly, yes, the HDMI switch only worked for a bit. The popping noise returned with a vengeance and has continued across multiple programs. I’ve done a factory reset and hoping that addresses it but we’ll see. I’ve also noticed that there are many other threads about this same issue on the community board. Really unfortunate that this isn’t being more proactively addressed by Sonos.

Obi-Wan Aloni

Trending Lyricist I

Reached out to Support again, I gotta say that the reps are really professional and kind and that the experience is efficient. I appreciate not having to repeat myself and seeing a resourceful person on the other end of the conversation.

We did a factory reset this time. If the issue recurs, I will most probably have to replace my Arc. Hoping it won’t recur but I’m doubtful. I also hope that if needed, a replacement would help. Looking at the comments here, seeing how many people experience this, and all have a shared scenario of streaming content through Xbox Series-X on an eArc output; I doubt it will help too.

The Service rep who assisted me promised to escalate this thread internally. I hope someone from Sonos can comment on this.

Issue just recurred. Will reach out to Support now.