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.
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? 
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.
Wait. If using the HDFury Arcana fixes the issue, doesn’t that mean the issue isn’t in the Sonos, but in the TV itself?
I doubt it. The thread has people with all brands of TVs having the issue. Also, most people have their TV set to passthrough, so the TV shouldn’t really be doing anything (as I understand it at least).
I use an HDFury arcana, epson projector, appleTV and Arc. No TV. Pops all the time…so no fix for me.
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.
Funny how AI has been able to give a plausible explanation when Sonos support over two full years haven’t.
Maybe AI can do the fix for us 
As it stands now the end user is suffering and Sonos seem unable to fix the issue. Perhaps they are hoping that Apple and Microsoft can fix it for them, Or LG,Samsung,Sony and other TV brands fix it for them.Or maybe they are hoping that Dolby themselves will fix it for them.
Currently ARC owners may as well just be using a Playbar and Beam Gen 2 owners may as well be using the Gen 1 as we cannot really use Atmos. Now I own both the Apple TV 4K and the Xbox Series X and it really is an unacceptable end user experience.
It really is time this problem is sorted out or simply refund us for our purchase so we can move on to something that does work.
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.
By far the best news we have heard on this thread in a while. Not that you are having issues, but that there is somebody with deep links to the tech community that can start to put a little exposure on this issue outside this thread.
Welcome Tom, big fan here personally!
Sonos could send engineers to people who can reliably reproduce the issue, as Apple did for me one time long ago:
Fixing difficult issues and customer support
FWIW, I think Tom made exactly the right call in his presentation. Apple TV and Xbox are the major consumer devices that are affected by the Sonos Pop at the moment. PS5 probably will be, but that’s only on beta firmware, so too soon to report. I expect additional coverage in the tech press if that beta software goes production and users start experiencing the pop. There are a lot more PS5 out there than Xbox and Apple TV.
On the TV brand side, we have at a minimum lots of Samsung, Sony, and LG users affected. So that’s basically everyone.
And then on the soundbar side, only Sonos Arc and Beam 2 make the Sonos Pop. Yes, there can be problems with other soundbars, such as crackling, rhythmic clicking, etc where users may use the word “pop” to the describe the issue. But a gunshot-like sound followed by audio drop out on the soundbar while the surrounds keep playing? That’s totally unique to Sonos.
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 bought an Arc looking to add more components little by little. While setting up my PS5, pop occurred and my internet research led me to here. 2 years!!! The level of ignorance from Sonos is infuriating. This would happen to most of us after the return period, leaving us stuck with a faulty equipment. They cannot reproduce it? No, I don’t believe the lie.
I won’t turn off cec or dolby atmos. Arc is advertised with those specs and I paid top dollar for it. I will return the Arc, stay away from Sonos, and suggest friends and family the same.
Thank you to everyone at Sonos who worked to get this fix out. Can’t wait to re-enable Atmos on my Xbox and PS5!
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:
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, this is the first time I seek support from Sonos, I didn’t know the Chromecast didn’t support MAT as the behaviour is identical to the issue that everyone else was experiencing. I’m now in contact with someone from Sonos and I hope that I can get this sorted!
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
Hi there
Let us know how it goes and we're here to answer any further questions you have.
I would certainly recommend that you use the link provided by Ken to contact Sonos directly.
Same issue: (diag:1831142006)
loud popping during movie
Netflix → FireStick4K → Sony → Sonos Arc
XBR65X950G
Sony Bravia 4K UR2 ver 9
Ah that’s great thanks! I’ll keep an eye on my emails :)
Hey, I read online disabling the auto HDR feature on the Xbox and switching audio delay to on with the arcana should stop this happening. I have an arcana too and this is what the engineers who make the arcana suggest on their discord 
If you give this a go and let us know if it works that'd be brilliant. In the process of testing this myself
Thanks for sharing that,
A couple of people on the discord said it’s not happened since, it hasn’t happened to myself either yet but very limited use. It’s not perfect scenario due to me having Arcana but the issue does occur with LG eARC tv’s commonly from what I’ve seen. I’ll keep the auto HDR feature turned off and then keep you posted on whether it happens again.
OK, sorry a lot to unpack. Same thing happened to me with Apple TV on a Vizio OLED 65 inch. Who do I call or what do I do. My diagnostic was sent my confirmation is 1189733447. This is a fairly expensive item to have this happen, I have noticed I am limited to how load I can set the arc now before it goes down in volume and a orange light appears. Also sound quality has taken a dive for sure. Didn’t know if that has also been happening.
Hi
I’ve taken a look at your diagnostic, and combining that with the information in your post, I suspect your Arc is suffering from a hardware failure.
Please get in touch with our customer care team to explore the options available to you.
Make sure you give them this diagnostic number, as it shows the issue more clearly on your system: 1296489069
I’ve email the CEO Patrick Spence about this and one of the senior technicians is looking at it. I e sent them a video of the loud pop so hopefully will get somewhere with it.
Not using the Sonos provided cable here – one of three pack of 48Gbps 8K Cable Matters HDMI leads.
Has been fine for the most part of a year, until mid-October.
Seems a majority of us are using Sony Bravia, and the X900H series. The Android 11 firmware was released not long before this October time frame…
Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.