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.
Here is a chance for us to ask questions about this live. Today, 8/2 at 2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific.
I doubt they will answer any technical /bug question in the live chat . They will only talk about how great the product is and how it works etc
Second time this has happened to me. This time while watching the Witcher on Netflix with Dolby Vision
Diagnostic Info 1238124446
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.
I re-enabled Atmos on my Apple TV following the update. Popped in the first show that I watched.
It makes me wonder if the issue is how both the sending source and eARC device handle atmos content. I haven’t had another pop since the update and just tested Windows Sound test again and no issue.
Another Victim here 😞 (from Mexico)
The first time I experienced the (super loud/explosive) pop was when I was navigating the menu of my XBox Series S. (It was soo scary BTW, I almost had a heart attack).
The first thing that crossed my mind was that my 2 days brand new Sonos Arc was dead because that pop literally sounded like something exploded inside, causing physicall damage of the speakers.
I inmediatly googled the issue and found several post here and on Reddit of people having the same issue.
I also had the problem with my Apple TV 2022 hearing weird noises/mini-pops and cuts in Apple Music when listening songs in Dolby Atmos.
Just a moment ago I was watching The Last Of Us (first episode) in HBO Max and having a lot of mini-pops (annoying but tolerable) but in the minute 22 (when we see the infected old lady) again an extremely LOUD and horrible pop happened (I swear my soul leaved my body). Even my dogs went crazy or scared or both.
I ended watching the episode in the native TV App and had no pops but the Sonos App showed only Dolby Digital 5.1 and no Atmos. BTW my TV is a Hisense U8G 65) .
As described in this post, the pop only happens whith dolby Atmos content (or in the Dobly Atmos Mode in the case of X Box Series S).
After disable Atmos in both devices the pop is gone, but of course what is the point of spending this ridicously ammount of money for a product if you can’t use it for what was designed and marketed. Truly shocking that the recommendation of the Sonos support was turning off Dolby Atmos (a key feature) 🫠
I am honestly very dissapointed of Sonos and now I regret of buying this thing because it’s celar that the company is aware of the problem and after all this time not even a formal statement or answer has been released (and not to mention a fix for the issue). For what I see the users are the ones who are making an effort to try to solve this or at least know the cause of the problem.
I will surely going to end returning tIhe Arc to Amazon before it Kills me of a scare.
There’s a solution posted a few posts up. Did you try it?
The live chat is already over. Did anybody have a chance to bring up the Sonos Pop? What did they say?
I have been having this issue too. Happens a couple of times a week, both on Apple TV 4K and Xbox One Series X. Very annoying. Downright embarrassing when guests are over.
It’s so loud, the first time I thought a big piece of furniture had fallen over somewhere.
+1
Happened 3 times in about two weeks. Scares the sh#$ out of my dog and sounds like its damaging the speaker.
On Xbox Series X and LG 65'CX while watching tv on an AAC 6.0 media.
Diagnostic number 650768644.
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.
Do you turn Dolby Vision off from the TV, Apple TV or Sonos itself?
and once you do aren’t you loosing something?
Thanks
I just removed ALEXA from SONOS ARC and issue was gone! That was changing point from my previous setup (no issue happened before), I added ALEXA a couple of weeks ago (never enabled before). Hope this solution works for all.
current setup is:
XBOX SERIES X DOLBY ATMOS enabled.
EARC MODE AUTO
PASS-THRU AUTO
DOLBY AUDIO DIGITAL PLUS enabled
It is time Sonos sorted this Dolby Mat issue for Apple TV and Xbox out, I can use the HDFury Arcana which does fix the issue. But sadly it introduces other issues with my Samsung Qled.
Beam Gen 2 user
I’ve had the same problem when using my Series X outputting Dolby Atmos to the Arc. Really loud pop which did sound like a gun shot. This was a couple of months ago. I read somewhere to disable Atmos from the Series X and Ive had no problems since, however sort of defeats the object of having an Atmos soundbar. Was just having a look around the net today to see if the problem has been acknowledged by Sonos or has been fixed.
+17
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.
I saw this link in another thread, so here’s my experience with it…. I have a Sony TV, although that doesn’t seem to matter. When I first got the TV, I had a Sonos Beam Gen 2. I heard the pop a few times, but nothing major. Whatever…. I upgraded to the Arc in April of this year and used a Fire Stick for a while with no issue with Atmos content. Same with the Xbox. No issues at that time there either, so long as the Fire Stick was hooked up. A couple of months ago, I got a new Apple TV and it was fine at first, but this week, it won’t go more than 20 minutes without the pop. I paid $900 for this and can’t play Atmos content on it. With Atmos off and it just playing 5.1, it’s totally fine, but that’s not what I signed up for/paid for. This setup is around $2k. I could’ve bought a Vizio 5.1.2 for every TV in the house for that 😂. Get your * together, Sonos.
*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*
Seeing this thread resurrected, I want to express how important this fix was. This week, I bought two ERA 300 and Sonos stands to upgrade my surround.
I 100% would not have done that if my home theater setup was still on 5.1 without Atmos because of the pop. I know it’s often more exciting for businesses to focus on new products. But fixing flaws in already sold goods directly impacts future sales.
Hi ProfessorFrag
What is the fix you refer to? The plopping sound still happens on my Arc (bought only 3 weeks ago), whether or not Dolby Atmos content is being played?
thanks
+3
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?
Auto 1.
Auto 2 and PCM you can think of as compatibility options that change some or all audio to PCM.
Same issue here. Loud Pop and silence until cycling power to the ARC. Happened twice when streaking on Apple TV and I’ve only had the Arc for a month or so. I submitted a diagnostic but was told by the technician that is was unusable because they can only see it when submitted when watching something directly on the tv because that is what the ARC is connected to. I’m on an LG 65 CX TV. The agent told me everything looked fine but to change settings on the tv from auto to PCM. Hopefully that helps
+3
It worked for 3-4 days and all the sudden the pop happened again. The update didn't fix it for me.
Yeah, same old same. Reboot normally alleviates the issue temporarily.
What I haven’t got around to testing is if multiple different formats causes the issue, and there’s some memory overflow somewhere i.e. if you watched DA content continuously, and not flick between 5.1, etc., would the issue continue? 🤔
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
Might as well add my experience. Recently bought an Arc and Sub (Gen 3) in November 2022 and experienced the popping issue. I experienced the popping issues in the Xbox Series X (in-game, in-app, in a menu, etc.) and an Apple TV 4K. Similar to everyone here, it’s random (i.e. I can’t create it on-demand) but after troubleshooting with Sonos support and submitting multiple (at least 5) diagnostic reports, it was determined to be with Dolby Atmos content coming out the aforementioned devices. (The Xbox is really bad with this as it’s in Dolby Atmos the entire time, it does not change audio codec/format automatically or based on the content...that’s a whole other issue!)
Besides submitting diagnostics to support, I have had 3 Arcs, one of which was sent to me by Sonos directly. And like everyone else, I have disabled Dolby Atmos on the Xbox Series X and Apple TV 4K. Support confirmed the error is a faulty amp error.
In addition to buying an Arc, I also upgraded my TV to a LG C2 77”. The webOS versions of Netflix, HBO Max, etc. play Dolby Atmos fine (or at least I don’t recall experiencing the pop when playing Dolby Atmos content from said apps).
I’ve called a few times asking for an ETA/status update on the supposed fix and I keep getting told to “rest assure they are working on the issue”. At this point, I’m willing to wait since it appears to be device specific AND the quality of the Sonos Arc and Sub are good. Even the mobile app experience is nice, so for now I’m dealing with it. I really hope that Sonos can address this OR Microsoft/Apple can address this for.
Lastly, I haven’t combed through all responses but has anyone spoken to Microsoft or Apple about this? I get the sense that they will deny the issue, say it’s not happening, or it’s not their fault.
Thanks!
Auto 1.
Auto 2 and PCM you can think of as compatibility options that change some or all audio to PCM.
Great! Thanks a lot and thank you very much for all you are doing to help with the popping issue.
+13
Sell it. After 2 years IMO a fix may not come. Arc has very good value used currently (at least where I live). Probably will for a while. But eventually gen2 comes. Life is too short, best to get rid of the headache.
Definitely seems like of Sonos dedicated a little time and money to endurance testing in some of the configurations listed in this form, that they could provide an answer to their customers. Not impressed that’s this form has been going on so long with no answer
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