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.
Just forget it, just happened again!!!
But now this time I changed in SONOS APP from COMPRESSED AUDIO AUTO to UNCOMPRESSED AUDIO and finally is working great. No pop sound and ATMOS working great. And actually makes sense because my tv is configured for uncompressed audio output. That AUTO function from SONOS APP may not be working as expected.
Sounds promising! And you don’t get the pops anymore when playing DV+DA content from Xbox?
+3
Hi Everyone
If any of you are able to reproduce one of these “popping” events more or less at will, please help us by getting in touch with our technical support team, as we’re looking for more information on this matter. It does seem to occur most often - but is definitely not limited to - when an audio stream starts/stops or changes from one to another or , e.g. going from a playing movie to a menu, rather than when something is playing uninterrupted. We need some additional testers to assist us in getting a direct recording of the feed from an affected unit, as it happens.
This is somewhat outside of our normal case handling procedures, so if/when you have a support case, please reference this thread to the agent you speak to, and ask the agent to message me, Corry P, the case details so I can get you in touch with an engineer directly.
Thank you.
THANK YOU for stepping up to the plate and reaching out to help find a solution! This is more of the level of customer service I expect as a LONG time Sonos customer. As others have mentioned, around 30 minutes always seemed to be the trigger for me. The other “guaranteed” method for me is if I have an Atmos video playing on Apple TV and pause it and let it go to the screensaver, that seemed to always trigger a pop after being on screensaver for 5-10 minutes. I will now look to see if I can find the fastest method to generate this pop so we can hopefully find a resolution for this longstanding bug!
Interesting about the screensaver thing — I’ve been wondering about this myself for a while. I’ve been curious if it’s been something to do with the source change triggered on the screensaver activation 🤔
I would be interested if the Apple TV is changing dynamic range during this time. Maybe you mentioned it before but what are your video settings? 4K sdr or Dolby vision?
Previously, I was using 4K60 DV with both content match options enabled. I'm now on 4K60 HDR with both options still enabled. Currently rocking without Atmos for a whileC see if I still experience static pops and similar when flicking between content sources (like Netflix’s auto-playing trailers).
I did try it for a day, and got through three movies as above without fail, but then, it might've just been a good day. You're welcome to mirror and let me know your experience.
Nevermind it popped again after 15 mins playing resident evil. Maybe need to check and then uncheck auto hdr then restart console to make it work each time
I’m having the same issues with the loud pops. I’m using the Xbox Series X plugged in eArc of a Sony X900H. Strange that issue has been going on for 8 months and its still not resolved yet.
Hi Everyone
If any of you are able to reproduce one of these “popping” events more or less at will, please help us by getting in touch with our technical support team, as we’re looking for more information on this matter. It does seem to occur most often - but is definitely not limited to - when an audio stream starts/stops or changes from one to another or , e.g. going from a playing movie to a menu, rather than when something is playing uninterrupted. We need some additional testers to assist us in getting a direct recording of the feed from an affected unit, as it happens.
This is somewhat outside of our normal case handling procedures, so if/when you have a support case, please reference this thread to the agent you speak to, and ask the agent to message me, Corry P, the case details so I can get you in touch with an engineer directly.
Thank you.
THANK YOU for stepping up to the plate and reaching out to help find a solution! This is more of the level of customer service I expect as a LONG time Sonos customer. As others have mentioned, around 30 minutes always seemed to be the trigger for me. The other “guaranteed” method for me is if I have an Atmos video playing on Apple TV and pause it and let it go to the screensaver, that seemed to always trigger a pop after being on screensaver for 5-10 minutes. I will now look to see if I can find the fastest method to generate this pop so we can hopefully find a resolution for this longstanding bug!
Interesting about the screensaver thing — I’ve been wondering about this myself for a while. I’ve been curious if it’s been something to do with the source change triggered on the screensaver activation 🤔
I would be interested if the Apple TV is changing dynamic range during this time. Maybe you mentioned it before but what are your video settings? 4K sdr or Dolby vision?
Previously, I was using 4K60 DV with both content match options enabled. I'm now on 4K60 HDR with both options still enabled. Currently rocking without Atmos for a whileC see if I still experience static pops and similar when flicking between content sources (like Netflix’s auto-playing trailers).
I did try it for a day, and got through three movies as above without fail, but then, it might've just been a good day. You're welcome to mirror and let me know your experience.
My Apple TV is on 4K SDR 4:4:4 with dynamic range and frame rate matching, and I haven’t had issues. Sounds to me it’s only a issue when systems are trying to force DV as was the case with my Series X
+3
Looking at the thread on the Sonos subreddit, I'm surprised to see so many users who had the bang once or twice and it went away; or who have configurations identical to ours but no problems.
Could this be just specific Arcs malfunctioning? Has anybody had their unit exchanged and the problem came back?
If this were as straightforward as "we need new units", that would blow my mind.
I had a replacement sent to me from Sonos and still the same issue. I’m keeping mine because a) it’s specific to Dolby MAT vs DD+ and b) compared to a HT-A7000 (which I tried as a possible replacement), the Sonos killed it. While disabling Atmos on my Xbox and Apple TV sucks, the bar is fantastic and has a fairly good app experience. When it works, it works.
As I’ve said before this is a Sonos hardware bug that can be recreated with the same parameters 100% of the time.
Each time I read how we have to turn off the feature that we specifically paid for is infuriating. And the constant naysayers who are likely Sonos affiliated people is underhanded and shows what we the consumer, what kind of company we invested in.
This is a 2 year going to be 3 year issue. There is Zero excuse and Sonos is Fully aware of this issue. They have contracts with their manufacturers. This is just business. I’ve worked for large corporations in the past that release faulty hardware and software due to contracts with manufacturers and retailers.
It is far more profitable to have the likelihood of poor individuals who made the choice to plug in an Xbox Series X that DOES cause permanent damage to the Sonos Arc, rendering it completely incapable of playing Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision content concurrently from any source.
An issue that did not appear for years prior to plugging in a Sonos Arc.
This is my 3rd Arc. I unfortunately recommended the Sonos Arc to my father who currently has zero issues because I was able to warn him not to plug in an Xbox Series X that my younger half brother has.
Something we all could have benefited from bad we been given notice. Enough with the Sonos isn’t the issue nonsense.
2 of my Arcs now have this issue. Because I like so many of you thought, this might be a singular issue. As there were two releases of the Arc, one with the more expensive packaging and then the “streamlined” “uniform” box aka cheaper packaged one.
This is NOT specific to certain Sonos Arcs. This IS an issue that occurs to ALL Sonos Arcs. Considering the far fewer sales of the Xbox Series X, this is why there hasn’t been more reports than the many that already exist for over two years now.
One final note, this issue has never happened with my PS5 playing on the Sonos Arc. Which I had over a year before I got an Xbox Series X.
I still argue against your theory regarding XSX but something did change.
As I’ve said before, like you, I had period where the Arc worked fine with Atmos. Since I purchased in Dec 2020, up until around September 2021, I had no issues. Again, during this time, the Bravia X90H line, and Apple TV, and the Sonos Arc all had major OS updates. One of which most certainly introduced the issue. No change in my hardware configuration, no connected devices or cables changed or swapped. Just one day… BANG.
I’d be interested to know if you purchased an XSX around September/October 2021.
I played Apple Music for more than an hour (atmos) for nearly 2 hrs now. No issue.
I’m rooting for you! Maybe you’ll be one bang and done.
Hi Everyone!
As this is only happening with the XBox, I highly recommend you all report it to Microsoft if you haven’t already - the more reports they get, the more seriously they’ll take the issue.
Same thing has just happened to me, loud pop followed by no sound. Not sure if it's damaged now. Is there any way to check each individual speaker speaker on the arc?
The easiest way is just playing something and putting your ear close to each driver, I’m afraid. You may be able to find a video that plays test tones in 5.1, however - I believe searching for “test” on Netflix will produce some results. Avoid YouTube as they re-encode uploaded 5.1 tracks to stereo (you need 5.1 to test the centre speaker).
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.
I've spoken to support and after looking at my diagnostic file they said everything seems to be working ok.
Has anyone still had this issue since the firmware upgrade to 13.4? Nothing in the patch notes but surely this must be on the Sonos radar by now.
Has anyone using an external extractor such as the HD Fury Arcana, or the Feintech experienced this issue, or is it only coming from TV connected devices?
I have a Sony 900H and replicated some of this testing today. For those unfamiliar with the TV, it has 4 possible settings for HDMI ports 3 and 4: Standard (HDMI 2.0), Enhanced (HDMI 2.1, No DV, No VRR), Enhanced (with DV, no VRR), Enhanced (with VRR, no DV). HDMI 3 is the eARC port, so where the Sonos Arc is plugged into.
With the Apple TV set to HDR (not DV) and confirmed in the TV overlay, there was no pop with HDMI 3 set to either Enhanced or Enhanced with DV. In other words, the HDMI setting made no difference.
I know some are drawing a conclusion that turning DV off means no pop. This has only been shown on Apple TV. Both Xbox (observed by me) and Samsung TV internal apps (observed by another poster in this thread) will produce the pop even when DV is turned off.
In my testing I encountered something else. Sonos products put out a video signal on the HDMI port that I would describe as a screen saver. I had never looked at the one of the Arc before, but I noticed that the video had glitches. The normally black-and-white picture included color pixels randomly strewn throughout. Does this have anything to do with our problem? I don’t know. But I ask you all to tell me the following:
Just maybe these glitches are only showing for those with the pop, which could be a sign of something.
I think the key here is that this is a Sonos forum. You’re extremely unlikely to get reports from other ARC speaker’s users, although one of the Sonos reps, in one of the threads on this topic, did indicate that they’ve seen reports other than Sonos. I don’t follow other systems, as I have an Arc, and devote most of my energy here in this forum, and not elsewhere.
You’re certainly within your rights to stop buying devices until a solution is found. Whether that solution is from upstream from the TV (Apple/Microsoft?) or on the TV itself (manufacturer’s updates) or Sonos itself, we’ll need to see.
But I’m just not going to blame Sonos. I don’t know yet who’s responsible, and at this point, they all are. However, all indications seem to be pointing at not Sonos.
I had time for a small experiment today. I bought a fiber optic HDMI cable to connect the Arc to the TV. Fiber cables contain active chips at each end that convert between electrical and optical signals.
I got the usual pop within half an hour. I believe this eliminates the physical layer of the connection as the problem since there is no electrical connection between the TV (and Apple TV) and the Arc anymore.
Not a huge surprise. I think we are all expecting this to come down to how Sonos decodes Dolby MAT. But there you have it.
I also tried an experiment, I set my HDMI 3 (eARC/ARC) to Enhanced format (Dolby Vision). And when playing DV DA content on my Apple TV with my Apple TV Video format setting to 4K HDR 60, disabling Dolby Vision on my Apple TV. The popping error occurred like clockwork.
Then I changed the HDMI signal format on my HDMI 3 to Enhanced Format without Dolby Vision. With my Apple TV format setting to 4K HDR 60, disabling Dolby Vision on my Apple TV. The popping error did NOT occur, and the Sonos Arc was able to play Dolby Atmos as long as the Dolby Vision was disabled in both my Sony TV HDMI setting and my Apple TV.
This is somewhat confusing — so you attempted to use the “Enhanced (Dolby Vision)” HDMI profile for your Arc, which is connected to HDMI 3 (for eARC reasons), despite that setting being an Input profile i.e. the Arc doesn’t output DV, or even 4K for that matter. Confused as to what difference this would make, unless the Arc is getting heavily confused at the EDID settings 🤔
Also assuming that whilst your Apple TV was set to 4K60 HDR, you also had “Match Dynamic Range” turned off in settings?
Match Dynamic Range is On. As I’ve stated multiple times for those still saying Dolby Vision off makes No Difference. This ONLY applies to APPLE TV. NOT Xbox Series X or Samsung TV which I also had, before I purchased Sony. I also have a Sony X900H. The Xbox Series X is what caused this popping error specifically for the Sonos Arc.
Those still claiming this is not a Sonos issue. Again for 4th time. I had ZERO issues playing DV and DA content on my Sonos Arc for over a year on an LG and a Sony, (2 TV’s in different rooms). Until I plugged in an Xbox Series X and the popping error occurred, after which the Sonos Arc immediately began to exhibit the popping error on any DV DA content from any source.
The Sonos Arc NOW has a PERMANENT (until there is a fix, even though it’s been 2 years, with zero fix) error playing DV DA content from any source. Prior to the Xbox Series X initially causing the popping error. My Sonos Arc had ZERO issues playing DV DA issues.
And the reason I tried this experiment is because people still claim that turning the DV off on their APPLE TV NOT XBOX. Doesn’t solve the issue. The HDMI 3 eARC was incorrectly set to Dolby Vision when I purchased my Sony X900H. I never adjusted it, until I had this popping error.
Again to reiterate for the 6th TIME. The Dolby Vision being disabled or turned off on both my Sony TV and Apple TV NOT XBOX DOES SOLVE the popping issue. I watched Blade Runner 2049 which is 2 hrs 43 min long. ZERO ISSUES playing Dolby Atmos on my Sonos.
Then I watched Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow. Both are Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos content.
As soon as I did my experiment, setting the HDMI 3 to Enhanced Format (Dolby Vision). The popping error occurred despite my Apple TV NOT Xbox DV being disabled. Meaning that the signal being sent from the TV to the Sonos Arc, still causes the error on the Sonos Arc. Making it a Sonos Issue.
I have given up on trying to play the Xbox Series X on my Sonos Arc.
My reply from SONOS tech support was fairly basic. They sent me to a link about unsupported media.
Which would be fine if it was continuing to react, except the only way to get any functionality back has been to power cycle the ARC.
Awaiting the next bang, and then I have a bit more experimenting to do.
Then submit a diagnostic within ten minutes of the occurrence and contact Sonos directly with the number of that diagnostic. If the cause is the Arc, it should show up as an issue in the diagnostic. Sonos then would have the opportunity to not only understand what the issue is, but hopefully be able to assist you in fixing the issue. Anecdotal discussion provides no hard data for them to confirm anything.
As an alternate viewpoint, this does not ever happen on either of the two Sonos Arc devices I have, which suggests, from a logical perspective, one of two things. Either the signal is being sent by the TV to the Arc across HDMI ARC, or there is some failure in your particular Arc, neither of which can be traced by mere text discussion. The diagnostic, presented to Sonos and discussed would be the optimum course of action.
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.
I have had the loud pop happen twice today, in fact it’s been happening regularly (weekly) since I purchased the Sonos Arc nearly a year ago, my setup is LG55CX, Xbox Series X, PS5, Sky tv, Panasonic 820, Sonos Arc with Symfonisk gen 1 Lamps and I have a Sonos sub arriving in the nxt few hours. I’m worried about ruining my new sub, I havnt contacted Sonos about this as there’s no point after reading this thread that started a year ago…… it’s very poor customer service that there’s zero acknowledgement really, surely Sonos should of put out a statement by now with some information as they must of looked into it. It’s absolute crazyness when I think of it considering the price of the product and all the money spent by people in this blog from over a year back. Come on Sonos. Speak !!
I had time for a small experiment today. I bought a fiber optic HDMI cable to connect the Arc to the TV. Fiber cables contain active chips at each end that convert between electrical and optical signals.
I got the usual pop within half an hour. I believe this eliminates the physical layer of the connection as the problem since there is no electrical connection between the TV (and Apple TV) and the Arc anymore.
Not a huge surprise. I think we are all expecting this to come down to how Sonos decodes Dolby MAT. But there you have it.
I also tried an experiment, I set my HDMI 3 (eARC/ARC) to Enhanced format (Dolby Vision). And when playing DV DA content on my Apple TV with my Apple TV Video format setting to 4K HDR 60, disabling Dolby Vision on my Apple TV. The popping error occurred like clockwork.
Then I changed the HDMI signal format on my HDMI 3 to Enhanced Format without Dolby Vision. With my Apple TV format setting to 4K HDR 60, disabling Dolby Vision on my Apple TV. The popping error did NOT occur, and the Sonos Arc was able to play Dolby Atmos as long as the Dolby Vision was disabled in both my Sony TV HDMI setting and my Apple TV.
This is somewhat confusing — so you attempted to use the “Enhanced (Dolby Vision)” HDMI profile for your Arc, which is connected to HDMI 3 (for eARC reasons), despite that setting being an Input profile i.e. the Arc doesn’t output DV, or even 4K for that matter. Confused as to what difference this would make, unless the Arc is getting heavily confused at the EDID settings 🤔
Also assuming that whilst your Apple TV was set to 4K60 HDR, you also had “Match Dynamic Range” turned off in settings?
I’m assuming user has a Sony TV where you have an edid option to either enable Dolby vision or 4k/120 but not both. User says he gets the error with Dolby vision option enabled but when the TV does not have DV support enabled its fine
Further proof that DV is loosely linked somehow into all of this
Exactly!
Hi
We are still looking into this situation, but I don't have an update to share with you at this time.
Thank you for the update or whatever we should call it.
I would appreciate it if you could ask them what’s going on so we have an understanding as to why a fix for the issue is taking so long. I understand technical issues aren’t always easy to narrow down but it should be easier here as others have given examples of how to replicate the issue on demand. It’s been a few years since the first reports of this has come out and one would expect a fix by now.
I am sorry if this came off as anything other than genuine curiosity. I have no grudges against you but as someone that spent $2,600 for my living room and $450 for my bedroom in audio equipment I have an expectation that my system works flawlessly.
On a side note, I am starting to get calls from clients letting me know this issue is also affecting them. They’re not very pleased when I have to inform them that this is an ongoing issue with no solution in sight. As of now I’ve told them to wait it out but if this continues for much longer I’m going to have to recommend they avoid Sonos and return their equipment moving forward. Please do not make me do this.
Then submit a diagnostic within ten minutes of the occurrence and contact Sonos directly with the number of that diagnostic. If the cause is the Arc, it should show up as an issue in the diagnostic. Sonos then would have the opportunity to not only understand what the issue is, but hopefully be able to assist you in fixing the issue. Anecdotal discussion provides no hard data for them to confirm anything.
As an alternate viewpoint, this does not ever happen on either of the two Sonos Arc devices I have, which suggests, from a logical perspective, one of two things. Either the signal is being sent by the TV to the Arc across HDMI ARC, or there is some failure in your particular Arc, neither of which can be traced by mere text discussion. The diagnostic, presented to Sonos and discussed would be the optimum course of action.
Hi I also have the same issue - please advise how do I send you the diagnostic data? What do I need to do? Thanks!
I have a Sony 900H and replicated some of this testing today. For those unfamiliar with the TV, it has 4 possible settings for HDMI ports 3 and 4: Standard (HDMI 2.0), Enhanced (HDMI 2.1, No DV, No VRR), Enhanced (with DV, no VRR), Enhanced (with VRR, no DV). HDMI 3 is the eARC port, so where the Sonos Arc is plugged into.
With the Apple TV set to HDR (not DV) and confirmed in the TV overlay, there was no pop with HDMI 3 set to either Enhanced or Enhanced with DV. In other words, the HDMI setting made no difference.
I know some are drawing a conclusion that turning DV off means no pop. This has only been shown on Apple TV. Both Xbox (observed by me) and Samsung TV internal apps (observed by another poster in this thread) will produce the pop even when DV is turned off.
In my testing I encountered something else. Sonos products put out a video signal on the HDMI port that I would describe as a screen saver. I had never looked at the one of the Arc before, but I noticed that the video had glitches. The normally black-and-white picture included color pixels randomly strewn throughout. Does this have anything to do with our problem? I don’t know. But I ask you all to tell me the following:
Just maybe these glitches are only showing for those with the pop, which could be a sign of something.
Interesting. Seeing as we have the same TV. However you have a Sonos Beam I believe? I just checked the screen saver video signal for my Sonos Arc. It does not appear to be sending the video signal when switched to my HDMI 3 input.
When I had my Sonos Arc connected to my Samsung TV the screen saver video signal used to appear. Mind you I had no issues at that time. This was before Xbox Series X was connected.
Hi everyone, haven’t posted for about a month because I have been trying out a bunch of different configurations with my ATV / Series X / LG C1 combo.
I originally posted about how deactivating “Dolby Vision for Gaming” on the Series X cured the pop symptom that I got while returning to the Home Screen after playing a game. This to me didn’t really make a ton of sense seeing how the audio was in a separate container than the video. But I even went so far as reactivating DV to see if I could get the pop to come back and sure enough within a day it did.
Then I started playing with the CEC settings. I found that on the Xbox if I completely deactivated CEC and rebooted all my hardware I didn’t get a pop regardless if I had Dolby Vision active or not. It also explains why I don’t have the issue on my ATV as I have the device control set to off. I have been pop free for over a month. Full disclosure, there was a LG firmware update for the TV during this time, so there is always the chance that a bug fix from the TV was the true remedy.
It’s very plausible that Bad CEC handshakes could be the explanation why some users are now getting the pop on the PS5 which I found surprising as it doesn’t even use the Dolby MAT container. Also could explain why some users say as soon as they got one pop….they get many pops as maybe their TV hasn’t gone through a full power cycle reboot and are still using a problem handshake.
For the user community, maybe try to deactivate device control (CEC) on their device and fully unplug all their hardware, see if they get the pop anymore.
I...I think this may be it. I mean, I don't want to jinx it, but I just listened to 3 hours of Atmos content on my Apple TV without any pop. I've never been able to go a full episode before. Dolby Vision and Atmos both, only disabled CEC on Apple TV. Not super ideal but volume control works just not turning TV on and off. If nothing else it points in a direction to look. Please don't make me regret this post.
So now finally after a year of the multiple threads and call to techs/ diagnostic reports they are finally working on it?!?! This has honestly been a known issue for over a year... How is this now just being worked on...
Fair enough, let me supply a link to the FAQ: submit a system diagnostic
So I was very curious this weekend. I was thinking perhaps Xbox had fixed the issue and that my disabling Dolby vision and auto HDR wasn’t necessary, as I had been symptom free for over a month
So I deactivated both and within two days of light play I got the pop, and it was with a game that uses both natively (Forza Horizon 5). There is definitely something behind this line of thinking that Dolby Vision is causing some of the issue
I have since deactivated both again and have been symptom free again
Stay Tuned
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