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.
Hi,
Must admit a bit disappointed with this response. I don’t consider a loud electrical bang followed by complete audio loss a sound quality issue. I consider it a product failure.
just had the problem happen again.
In addition as an intermittent problem I am not sure how I am expected to film a one off failure event when I don’t know when it will happen and it happens over the course of a second. To clarify after the bang the unit is silent until power cycled.
Tried ringing support, on hold for ages, no reply so rang John lewis as I was within return period and have exchanged for a new unit. Not sure if this will help but clear Sonos themselves are not interested just like the audio drop out issue.
Really disappointed with Sonos when it comes to the ARC as there are clearly issues that they are refusing to acknowledge as systemic faults with the product. The xbox issue and drop outs have numerous posts so clearly not an isolated problem.
I will be contacting the review sites to make them aware of this new issue in addition to the audio drop out.
I still suspect a hardware issue that will/has been fixed with new units while they hope existing owners suffer or wait until out of exchange periods.
The update hasn’t fixed anything for me
my sound still drops for half a second every 20 seconds or so, sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse, and same with the popping sound
I also factory reset the whole thing after the update to make sure it’s all fresh
this is my setup:
I'm using a Chromecast with Google TV 4K, and a BenQ TK700 projector
I’m not understanding this post (sorry) …as I read that the current fix is to address a Dolby MAT issue with components like Apple TV 4K, Xbox and PlayStation-5 - whereas your issue sounds like a different problem altogether here.
It almost sounds like a cable or port hardware problem, but I assume you’ve investigated those things already.
I would certainly go onto reproduce the issue and submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and then contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to resolve the matter.
(edit:
I have this happen multiple times a day, its been happening for at least a year and I search for a solution every few months to find there is still no solution. I have a 900H with the Arc plugged into eARC, I watch content exclusively on Apple TV 4K (2nd Gen). We frequently watch Disney+ content which has a ton of Atmos content available, we can rarely make it through a single piece of media without the pop and sound cut out at some point, if we back out of the video playing and hit play again the sound comes back.
Many topics exist related to this, the issue should be escalated to the product team instead of telling people to file individual support tickets.
I just started having the issue over the past couple of weeks on my personal system at home and I’m shocked to hear it has been affecting people for years. I’m also a reporter at The Verge, so I’ll do my best to get Sonos to comment on this properly. It’s a disgrace that they haven’t so far.
Hi Tom,
Big fan of your reporting and as someone who has been experiencing this issue for 2 years I hope you’ll be able to get Sonos to properly acknowledge this issue.
Cheers!
Thank you all for the support (special shout out to
I think that’s a great point
I would also add one more point - even IF this is an issue that is not related to how Sonos decodes MAT and handles that content (be it upstream issues with eARC and/or CEC (when enabled) or errors in timing from BOTH the XBox and ATV encode process with MAT), Sonos still could make changes in how these errors are handled. I would far prefer if there were brief audio drops when there are decoding/processing errors with the Arc/Beam as opposed to a MASSIVE gunshot sound that wakes up my entire house, scares me to death, and makes me worried it might ultimately blow out a speaker. It would be an incremental, though substantive improvement if Atmos content did not result in such a catastrophic breakdown specific to Sonos products. I’m scared to even enable Atmos to do testing because the noise is so loud that I’m on edge the entire time (don’t even get me started on the terror it induces for our cats).
I finally had time to sit down and listen to Atmos music since the fix. I’m happy to report that I did not have a pop in an hour of listening, which is unprecedented. So add me to the voices saying the fix is the real deal.
Of course I did still have latent anxiety about getting hammered by the pop while listening. I wonder how long it will take for that to go away.
This is one involving LG soundbar making ‘horrendous’ popping noise…
It seems to me to have been going on for a while - so I (still) wonder if it’s a codec problem?
Hi Ken, I cannot see anything recent on other soundbars whereas you can find lots of reports on the Arc. When this first happened on mine it was a really loud bang so not crackling/popping.
It’s not a topic that I’ve greatly researched personally, so forgive me, but I know the ‘popping’ sound on soundbars has been around for a while, and it was (is?) affecting other manufacturers products too - I assume everyone switched to Sonos at the time the issue was first encountered ..ha ha 😂 (just joking of course).
I haven’t gone looking/found recent reports, but will post here if I come across any, but I was merely mentioning that this ‘popping’ sound has been around a while - whether that be loud, or otherwise, on manufacturers soundbars and in that other thread I linked to earlier, it shows Sonos Staff are aware and mentioned other brands were affected with the same/similar issue and so were investigating.
It was the case that someone earlier in the thread here, was inferring Staff had not commented and didn’t mention that other brands were having the same issue. That’s why I made mention of that other thread and Staff comment.
Also I jumped in here to say that it may not be a Dolby Vision issue, as I use that video format often with my TV, but when most (maybe not all) people seem to encounter the ‘popping’ sound, they are/have mostly been using the MC LPCM codec playing Atmos audio from either an Xbox, Apple TV 4K or similar device, so if that is ‘perhaps’ widely connected to the ‘popping’ sound and a possible culprit here, it makes more sense to me to switch off MC LPCM transcoding and switch (if possible) to using DD+ (Atmos) instead or Dolby True HD (Atmos), as I’ve not ‘yet’ seen a report of those codecs causing the ‘popping’ sound. I use those codecs almost every day with an Arc, or Beam (gen2) and not seen an issue so far and I’ve had both products since they were first released.
That's not to say that this matter should not be fixed of course, by whoever is responsible, (it may or may not be on Sonos to fix this), but at least see if not using MC LPCM becomes one way to avoid the issue until the matter is ‘perhaps’ resolved.
I agree this might be a codec issue, however I have tried to look for articles of other sound bars from other manufacturers, however I have not been able to find this issue with the same mitigating factors.
As of now I do not see a correlation. As you mentioned in jest, other sound bars may have had popping issues and Sonos came out with the Arc and then people jumped to buy a new product that supposedly is superior without that problem.
I gave up my 7.1 traditional sound system for minimalistic ideals. My point is, when a company is establishing a reputation, releases and advertises a product that has been sold to a consumer, and the product has been found by the customer to have a defect.
That company has the responsibility to address the issue and provide a solution in a timely manner. Two years is more than enough time to address the issue.
What’s so strange about the CEC fix is that it works for those of us with an Xbox. Turn it off on the Xbox, and now everything is good even with CEC-on on the TV and Apple TV.
But then there are others with the bang that don’t have an Xbox, or even an Apple TV! I hope support has a nice spreadsheet going of all affected customers and the totality of their equipment (TVs and source devices) so that they can run cross-tabs on whether combinations of equipment produce the bug on Sonos. And then only one of the affected devices would need to go CEC-off.
Plus that would make for the best possible FAQ on the product pages. E.g. “Be advised that this product has a compatibility issue with Apple TV and Xbox being used in combination. CEC will have to be deactivated on one of those devices.” Or something along those lines.
Hi
Thank you! I have found your related case number and passed it directly to an engineer. You should hear from them soon.
Hi
FYI, I have not yet been contacted by Sonos. I continue to be interested in providing replication data in devmode.
Hi
Thank you! I have found your related case number and passed it directly to an engineer. You should hear from them soon.
Thank you
FYI, if you have an Xbox Series X the best way to replicate the pop issue is by switching between a Dolby Atmos enabled game and the Xbox Dashboard constantly. It should trigger the pop after a few attempts.
also thanks
With all due respect, have you tried lately? I called (again) in early October and was told by a very nice operator to ‘change my cables.’ Something Sonos Support told me to do 10 months ago when this first started for me. Something I did even though I knew my cables were up to date. Just more money I wasted.
Btw, when I call Sonos support I’m still told to change the cables. 🤷♂️😵💫
I second the request for an update. It’s been 2 months since
At this point, I’m willing to spend literally $1,000 if it means I can finally enjoy Atmos from my Apple TV and Xbox.
Has there been any updates I’ve missed, this thread has died lately.
Nothing major. We now have some workaround hacks, each of which work for some users:
I think as a consequence of these hacks and continued radio silence from Sonos, there’s just not been much to discuss.
I have been told my Sonos support that “at this moment we are having an issue with that, so it is something that we are investigating.” I went through all their “troubleshooting recommendations” re: new cords, CEC disabling, resetting the TV, resetting Apple TV, resetting Arc, etc, and obviously no changes. I was told “the workaround we have so far is to Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead. I know that is not what you expected, but we are working hard to solve it as soon as possible.” I was told today that the case was escalated to a Level 3 engineer, but they could not give me the name or contact information of anyone in specific who is working on the issue - I was promised that someone would reach out via email. I think anyone dealing with this issue should continue reaching out to Sonos regularly, as it is clear that this is an ongoing common problem with the way the Arc handles Atmos content - it seems to mainly affect Atmos content coming from a Xbox or ATV and suspect it may have something to do with the processing of a MAT container. At $900 for a sound bar with Atmos advertised as a main feature, this should NOT be an issue that has been allowed to languish for two years.
Joining you in your experience, I had the same, including replacing my Arc to a new Arc - and the pop did happen again with the new speaker. When reaching out ro support again was yold, like you were, to disabling Atmos.
After purchasing additional 300's, disabling Atmos isn't an option for me. I hope this gets resolved. I have and over 2000$ set. This is unacceptable.
Same here.
Arc + Era 300 means Atmos is a must. Disabling is it unacceptable. Not happening.
The fix should have existed ages ago.
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.
While it’s nice to know that our equipment will likely not be damaged after these pops, a real firmware update would be even better. I signed up to take part in the beta channel, assuming this would gain faster access to updates but nothing so far. This has been very disappointing…
Dear Sonos,
Today when watching Netflix, Outer Banks, 4k and atmoss, the popping sound came by 2 times. Is there any solution to this problem? 🤔
I finally had time to sit down and listen to Atmos music since the fix. I’m happy to report that I did not have a pop in an hour of listening, which is unprecedented. So add me to the voices saying the fix is the real deal.
Of course I did still have latent anxiety about getting hammered by the pop while listening. I wonder how long it will take for that to go away.
HA! I also feel the same way. I have been absolutely ENJOYING my setup for the first time in almost 3 years since I got it, but not fully as I have minor PTSD over the whole situation still :x
I am beyond happy with this being fixed finally. I only wonder where all the naysayers are now that it was confirmed a Sonos error handling issue :)
Fingers crossed it’s worked. After 2 years I’ve finally turned Dolby Atmos back on on my Series X. Let’s hope we don’t get any loud pops. Will report back.
This is happening to me also. Started a few weeks ago on my Arc. Massive pop and then sub and surrounds keep working but Arc won’t play any sound including Alexa.
Not what Im expecting from a top tier product. I’ve three arcs so now wondering if I should get worried! The others are not showing the same issue but not in use as much.
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. 😕
Yes I mentioned. When I logged a support call with Sonos they did the remote diagnostics thing and said they saw some ‘high frequencies on the atmos feed’ or something to that effect. I was told that there is a fix being tested now in beta firmware, but given no ETA on when to expect. So by that I took it as acknowledgement of the problem.
Would be nice to turn on Atmos on my xbox one series x again! Thankfully not had this happen for me on Apple TV 4K Atmos content… yet.
We’ve had reports of both both LG and Samsung TVs being affected. The most interesting one was of an affected Samsung TV that had only ever used built-in apps, but which uses LPCM for Atmos. So that is a common denominator. Let’s also note that LPCM wasn’t supported at Arc launch, so all the reviews missed it.
Sonos has suggested that other soundbars have the same problem. I don’t think that’s true. Problem reports of other soundbars might have used the word “pop”, but described different problems: a rhythmic clicking, static noise, etc. I’ve seen no systemic reports of our slamming pop followed by sound cutting out.
In my assessment this is a Sonos-specific issue. Months ago I even worked with Sonos to submit recordings of the pop with the Arc in dev mode, which lets you download an internal log of what happened which I submitted to Sonos. Not only did I submit logs for Apple TV and Xbox producing the pop, I even submitted a pop where no audio was playing and the Apple TV was just on screensaver.
Unfortunately since then Sonos has chosen radio silence.
I still have the same issues with Atmos, which involve audio loss every 15 minutes (for 1 second). The update didn’t yield results in my case.
That's not the problem that was fixed here. Your problem is completely different. I had this problem before, but it was due to my television.
The primary problem here is the bang that occurs with Dolby Atmos MAT.
Sonos could send engineers to people who can reliably reproduce the issue, as Apple did for me one time long ago:
Just to add to this thread. Same problem as everyone. I have contacted in multiple times support via phone and email, with the same corporate response everyone here has experienced. I could never get through the “first tier” of support since they always asked for a video that showed the issue and being such a random thing I didn´t had the time nor the drive to get on with the filming, and always telling me that it was the first report of this issue and nothing more. The last time it happened it did while watching The last of us E5, and noticed that it kept happening everytime at the same spot (moreless 3 min in the episode) so I recorded the event and sent it, now with the video a “tier 2” representative, called Jason, was “in charge” of the case. After almost an hour of keeping me on the phone just going in circles and deflecting he asked me to try to reproduce the problem but with him on the phone, so he could “verify” that the video was good (like I had the time or drive to make a video just to mess around and waste my time with them on the phone), so I did, and when he heard the pop and verified it, he went silent for a moment and told me to wait a little. After 5 min he came back and told me “you know, you´re right. Since more or less 2 weeks ago we have been receiving calls with this issue. Our engineers are working tirelessly to solve this. I´m putting you on a special list with the few others that have been reporting this for the last 2 weeks and we´ll contact you as soon as we have a solution, you don´t need to call us again”. After this, I pointed out at him the existence of this thread and that the company has acknowledged the problem and that in almost 3 years we don´t have a solution and that despite this they are still selling the product without any warning of this known issue. After hearing me he went full defensive (and a little verbal aggresive) mode and basically cut the conversation with the classic “is there anything else I can help you with?” and that was it. Personally I feel a little robbed because they know this issue, do nothing to solve it, not issuing a warning to the customers and still sell the product like nothing is happening. I´ve tried the CEC disabling method with no success, the problem persists with the appletv and with some movies in the PS5. Just a little venting, best regards.
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