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.
Coming in with a one month update since I decided to turn off “Auto HDR” (which in tandem with Dolby Vision forced Dolby Vision for all games) on the series X, and I have been pop free the entire time.
For those that still get the issue with Dolby he series x, what are your settings and where do you get the pop? (During gameplay, streaming movies or music, or returning to the home screen)
I am becoming somewhat confident we are stating to get to the root of the problem and perhaps the fault might not lie entirely in Sonos court. I do think that Sonos could deal with the pop exception a little better though.
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
It wouldn’t surprise me — I’ve been saying for a good while now that the culprit is specifically the Dolby MAT container, and its usage with Atmos. Definitely smells like there is a potential bandwidth issue, somewhere.
I only get the issue when returning to the Home Screen, never during gameplay. I’m going to put my money on it being some HDMI handshake issue when returning from Dolby Atmos / Vision back to standard SDR
Does anybody know if Atmos leverages the Dolby MAT container when the two are used in parallel? Or if the sound operates outside of it?
Also worth noting that if I mute the Sonos hardware itself before the potential of a pop, the pop still occurs, however if I mute the Xbox by turning on headphones, it never occurs. More evidence that it’s a device issue opposed to a Sonos issue
Hi
We’re not aware of this issue happening on Beam, though it is related to Atmos. Therefore, we would appreciate it - if it ever happens again - if you could immediately submit a support diagnostic and later get in touch with our technical support team so we can document the occurrence. We’re also not aware of this issue causing any actual damage to the units it happens on.
Hi Corry - I have experienced on my Beam Gen 2. Although I am very hesitant to try and recreate it and damage the speakers. It occurs when playing a game with Atmos and then switching to the dashboard. I’m not sure if there’s a length of time that the game would need to be played before switching to recreate, but it’s happened 2 days in a row.
It’s a bit strange because I had only experienced it once before while playing Forza Horizon 5. Since that time I have played quite a bit of Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5 and other games without a single issue. I downloaded the Resident Evil 4 demo today and about 10 minutes into it the pop happened. I got my audio back and a few minutes later it happened again. I turned off the game and completed a race in Forza Horizon 5 without a single pop. I swapped over to Halo Infinite and played a match that lasted about 15 minutes without a single issue.
While it has happened once in Forza the fact that it hasn’t happened since and I was in the clear until playing RE4 has me wondering if it’s, for the most part, game specific. I did see another poster here mention they experienced it during the Last of Us on HBO Max but with my Apple TV 4K it hasn’t happened once yet.
I just don’t even know.
Adding my identical experience to this thread.
Sonos Arc. Xbox Series X with Dolby Atmos selected. CEC disabled. LGC1 utilizing eArc.
Loud pop (like a gunshot) whenever I leave a game running Dolby Atmos and return to the Xbox dashboard. Horrifying every time.
Grateful for RC12’s advocacy on this thread.
C’mon Sonos.
Cleary, you have identical hardware and setup to me. If you disable “Dolby Vision” and “Dolby Vision for gaming” on your Series X. Do you get the pop?
Will try it out tonight and report back. Am hopeful after seeing your post. Thanks for the message.
It’s a bit strange because I had only experienced it once before while playing Forza Horizon 5. Since that time I have played quite a bit of Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5 and other games without a single issue. I downloaded the Resident Evil 4 demo today and about 10 minutes into it the pop happened. I got my audio back and a few minutes later it happened again. I turned off the game and completed a race in Forza Horizon 5 without a single pop. I swapped over to Halo Infinite and played a match that lasted about 15 minutes without a single issue.
While it has happened once in Forza the fact that it hasn’t happened since and I was in the clear until playing RE4 has me wondering if it’s, for the most part, game specific. I did see another poster here mention they experienced it during the Last of Us on HBO Max but with my Apple TV 4K it hasn’t happened once yet.
I just don’t even know.
I think it is game specific. I was pop free for the longest time, only to play “contrast” and had pops both times I played it
Please let me know how to get Sonos to pay me. I could use some additional income, or even product, instead of merely the satisfaction I derive from attempting to help my fellow humans, obviously a bad instinct that Ken and I share.
If you say you don’t have a conflict, I will take you by your word.
I appreciate the post but still does not give the warm and fuzzies that this issue will ever be fixed.
Probably in the line of expectation of a $200 soundbar kit but certainly not in line of a $2500 setup.
Sonos needs to do better and offer assurances to its loyal customer base that they will fix the problem or take back their problem hardware
Hi all,
We've seen the need to remove some posts from this topic as they're breaking the Beta NDA, which we take very seriously. With that said, yes, there is progress on a fix for the Arc popping that some users have experienced, so we kindly ask you to continue to be patient while we’re working to give you a better experience.
We will of course let you know if there is any news around this topic that can be shared.
Thank you for respecting our terms and conditions for participating in both this forum and our Sonos Beta program.
We’ve seen your need to remain largely silent on a 3 year old issue. With that said you’ve been making “progress” on a fix that many of us have experienced, we kindly ask that you give priority to your customers as opposed to an NDA so we can have a better experience. We will of course continue watching in 5.1 without the atmos that you advertised our product as. Thank you for selling us products that have made us feel like we’re in a conflict area when they pop and for the lack of transparency in both this forum and after sales support
This is ridiculous really I had 2 loud BANGS over the course of an hour and finally decided to submit an email with diagnostics and literally while TYPING THE EMAIL and my apple tv was on Screensaver BAM....ANOTHER loud bang...it's seemingly worse with this update not better. Being told to disable the number one touted feature of this $800 device is unacceptable.
Is anyone else using an HDMI Switch to allow their Xbox and PS5 to plug into the same port? Sony TV only supports HDMI 2.1 on ports 3 and 4 but port 3 is ARC so the consoles can only use port 4
I doubt this is the reason but something to consider.
Does everyone get the pop everytime? I have noticed audio dropping out with Atmos content in general. Sometimes I notice the loud pop, but also sometimes it seems to drop and then the Arc almost resets with a green LED on the front blinking before it picks up the signal again.
Unfortunately I spoke too soon. We had dropouts last night. The weird thing with our Beam is that it keeps dropping the dialogue track but you can still hear the environmental sounds, traffic, birds, rain etc. Sometimes it will drop the dialogue track permanently until you switch Dolby Atmos off.
+3
I too experienced the issue yesterday between Sonos 14.12 and tvOS 16 Beta.
Strangely, the rears also cut out this time, where as they've been playing previously. Typically seems to be the centre channel that falls out.
I’m not sure if people are experiencing more static between the preview auto-plays, but even my wife commented on how annoying the little static blip was after flicking through the Netflix app as the auto-playing preview abruptly stops between navigation.
I run my Xbox Series X without Auto HDR. Also Dolby Vision is disabled because my TV lets you have VRR or Dolby Vision but not both. I run it at 4K60 VRR.
I have gotten the pop within the last week with Atmos on. I have since turned Atmos back off.
Dolby Vision off is not the solution.
I'm now having this problem with a Sonos Beam Gen 2 set up with two surrounds and a sub. Connected to a Phillips OLED856 and it occurs on Netflix and Xbox Series X. I have Atmos turned on but not Dolby Vision. Does CEC stop it from occuring? Are there any drawbacks from turning it off?
The pop does not happen at a specific point in time during content. It is however relatively easy to reproduce as it happens usually within 30 minutes of playing Atmos content.
I (and others) have worked directly with Sonos in documenting the pop. Not just using “submit diagnostic” that’s available to all users. But also by having my Arc remotely put into dev-mode by Sonos, which allowed me to submit an extended (~60 seconds) data dump when encountering a pop.
I have submitted such dev mode files for multiple pops both when using Apple TV and Xbox.
There is no evidence that the pop happens outside of the Sonos Arc and Beam 2.
I'm now having this problem with a Sonos Beam Gen 2 set up with two surrounds and a sub. Connected to a Phillips OLED856 and it occurs on Netflix and Xbox Series X. I have Atmos turned on but not Dolby Vision. Does CEC stop it from occuring? Are there any drawbacks from turning it off?
try disabling cec in xbox, it helped me
I know when I want to feel like a tough guy, I always find a lower level support person who is only following the rules. I then proceed to mock and ridicule them for something over which they have no control. That really pumps my anonymous internet muscles. Then I go out into the real world and kick a kitten, cause that's how I roll.
Oh relax Karen was some humour after how they’ve handled this. Hope they’re paying you for simping. P.S. not nice to call people low level ;)
Something I noticed yesterday when it happened again: At first the Arc switches to “Dolby Multichannel PCM 1.0” (silent) and after that to “Dolby Multichannel PCM 6.1” (sometimes some sound fragments). Do these formats even exist?
+3
Rebooted the Arc yesterday.
Made it 24 hours, a grand total of 2 shows before happening 30 seconds into an episode of Severance.
At this point, I'm ready to throw the Apple TV out of the window. It’s the only thing causing me grief.
+3
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
It wouldn’t surprise me — I’ve been saying for a good while now that the culprit is specifically the Dolby MAT container, and its usage with Atmos. Definitely smells like there is a potential bandwidth issue, somewhere.
I only get the issue when returning to the Home Screen, never during gameplay. I’m going to put my money on it being some HDMI handshake issue when returning from Dolby Atmos / Vision back to standard SDR
Does anybody know if Atmos leverages the Dolby MAT container when the two are used in parallel? Or if the sound operates outside of it?
Also worth noting that if I mute the Sonos hardware itself before the potential of a pop, the pop still occurs, however if I mute the Xbox by turning on headphones, it never occurs. More evidence that it’s a device issue opposed to a Sonos issue
I believe the issue is that the Sonos hardware detects a change in signal from Atmos to Silence, and fails to compensate, but the reason behind why the signal drops appears to be occurring upstream. (You can see this in the “About my System” information screen).
The MAT container is used for handling audio in an uncompressed LPCM format with Atmos metadata sprinkled no top, which the Apple TV uses (with no option to change otherwise, just “off”)—it makes little difference to Vision. As it’s uncompressed, the bandwidth required will be, certainly, higher.
As a test, I stuck my Apple TV in 4K60 HDR rather than Vision, but left match source on. Played 3 Vision and Atmos across Netflix/Disney+ without issue.
That said, I believe the Apple TV also gives me issues with the XH92 (X900H in the UK) that I use in that I cannot load the “Live TV” apps built into the TV when swapping from HDMI 2 to the app. The TV just locks up. When you finally get it to reboot, the Apple TV drops it’s DV (again, now changed to HDR) signal to SDR until you flick inputs and back again.
I believe the problem lies with the Apple TV, and maybe the notorious Bravia — and that between the two, some signal is plain and simply, getting f’ed.
Update from my end
After having no issues for a couple of months with my Series X, I got a Apple TV for Xmas and immediately got the issue happening twice while watching Ted Lasso. Diagnostics: 1361513750 and 1202439941
I have since rebooted my system and haven’t had the issue since. I’m wondering if the working software gets slightly out of sync and leads to the pop
Either way I called Sonos support and they are sending me a new HDMI cable, but I have a certified HDMI 2.1 cable. Could that possibly the common denominator here? What cables are everyone using and are they doing it over ARC or eARC?
That’s contrary to reports earlier in this thread, certainly, but I’ve not had this issue myself, so have not been tracking it directly. If so, then yes, I agree.
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