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.
Management should think what to do next...if you want to buy “that” next house.
+1
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.
Just try disabling cec and see if it works 🌚
This is probably a silly question, but have people with xbox tried configuring atmos through the dolby access app on xbox? Doing this fixed a really annoying latency issue and I haven’t experienced a “pop” in months. Not sure if it was that or something else, but figured it might be worth checking.
I’m a PS5 beta tester , and I can confirm loud pop also exist on the ps5 atmos . I was playing god of war Ragnarok once it loaded to the main menu loud pop occurred . Same as Xbox series X . Now more users will notice this is the problem in the future hopefully this will get more people to voice up and complain. Push Sonos to make this an official problem and get their ass to fix this damn issue . It’s very very very frustrating !!!
Damn, that’s * news. Thanks for testing it out.
LPCM is still an option, though, right?
Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*
Just try disabling cec and see if it works 🌚
Mate
+1
Reached out to Support again, I gotta say that the reps are really professional and kind and that the experience is efficient. I appreciate not having to repeat myself and seeing a resourceful person on the other end of the conversation.
We did a factory reset this time. If the issue recurs, I will most probably have to replace my Arc. Hoping it won’t recur but I’m doubtful. I also hope that if needed, a replacement would help. Looking at the comments here, seeing how many people experience this, and all have a shared scenario of streaming content through Xbox Series-X on an eArc output; I doubt it will help too.
The Service rep who assisted me promised to escalate this thread internally. I hope someone from Sonos can comment on this.
Just had it happen to me twice on series x. Wtf sonos. Guess I need to submit a report but I might just return the arc and sub. Spent $1600 for this and do not expect these types of issues.
This thread runs to 36 pages and now I wish to add my voice to the mix. I have the same problem - on an ARC that is only a few months old. With me, it happens - sometimes - when I am playing Atmos content from Apple TV through an LG 65” CX screen - in passthrough.
Shortly after starting the offending content the Arc makes a load crackle/pop and I have loss of audio. The central light on the Arc comes on red for a second then goes green and finally goes out. After that, it works fine - but, like others, I am concerned that this is damaging a very expensive piece of equipment.
Come on Sonos! You have a top end product yet this has been going on for two years. The solution is NOT to disable Atmos. I am sure you will not want a bunch of warranty returns for damage to the product.
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.
How do you know that Apple TV and Xbox are the major consumer devices that are affected? That's an assumption?
With a PS5, I can unfortunately reliably get loud pops when using multichannel PCM 7.1 with an eARC TV. It sounds like small loud bangs, if something was breaking.
I think, like many others in this discussion, that it has something to do with high bitrate multiPCM or encapsulated dolby atmos MAT (which includes multichannel PCM),
I haven’t experienced the issue. I suspect that SONOS licensed a chipset and decoder software that are included in ARC and other manufacturers using the chipset or decoder are at risk too. This would explain why a few other devices are experiencing the ‘POP’. The pop could be some sort of software overrun or perhaps a variable (from chip to chip) sensitivity to voltage or temperature and AMP’s environment is at an edge.
The cause must be with HDMI eARC, which is buggy when using high bitrate streams from external devices. I never have problems when streaming Atmos directly from my TV apps. That is the way I actually listen to Atmos now.
There must be flawed error handling when external HDMI devices are involved, and HDMI switch manufacturers like HDfury or Feintech seem to know how to work around these errors. But I'm not willing to pay more for unsupported devices and my system was expensive enough.
+1
A possible solution to this Arc pop problem for some or maybe many?
No AppleTV or Xbox involved but this solved the “Arc pop and then no sound” for me.
Yesterday, hooked up brand new set of Arc with two 300s as surrounds: ethernet-connected Arc and 300s wifi connected. Did not go through the full setup steps but simply used the S2 app to get them grouped together as Arc + Surround in “one room” and played some music & television, saving steps like Trueplay for later due to some noise in the environment that could not be cleared for a few hours. All sounded great for those couple of hours.
Connection was over HDMI eArc from a television. User uses apps on a mid-brand smart TV to watch streaming content. Not knowing about this thread, I went into the TV menus to be sure eARC was “on” and spatial audio was “on” in the S2 app. Again, all sounded great.
Then, as a potential last step in the basic setup process when the environmental noise was quieted, I ran Trueplay. I’ve done this on other Sonos systems and never had any issue. However, immediately after completing Trueplay, the ARC made the pop-pop-pop sounds described in this thread whether playing Sonos Radio music or watching anything on TV. Light would flash orange. Sound would completely cease on Arc but still play in the two 300s. So Arc wasn’t dead, but seemingly in duress or potentially damaged.
I didn’t know this was widespread issue, so I did the obvious thing: unplug Arc, wait about 2 minutes, plug it back in. Pop-pop-pop. I tried this a couple of times with more time unplugged but all efforts led back to Pops and then either low sound or no sound performance of Arc (but still normal sound from the 300s).
The whole setup had been purchased from a local retailer and time to close was approaching fast. Without the time to discover a thread like this or even seek help from Sonos Customer Service, we assumed speaker blew and tried to go swap it for another Arc. Store was closed, so the exchange got delayed to today.
Last night, looking for any other solution, I found this thread (and many others) and was very disappointed to see how widespread the problem appears to be… and that it is getting blamed on AppleTV & Xbox (neither applying in this setup) and/or getting remedy advice like turn off CEC and/or Spatial. Digesting all of that, I thought through cause & effect: what did I do just before the popping started? Trueplay setup. All was fine for maybe 2 hours before that step.
So before swapping, I decided to turn off Trueplay in S2 app and give it another try: Pop-Pop-Pop. So then I unplugged Arc, waited a few minutes, reset to factory, and then added it back to the system to get it and 300s connected again.
Put on some music and all sounded great. Left it playing for a couple of hours just in case perhaps temps/time had something to do with this problem. Nope. Tried television with eArc “on” and spatial “on” in the app: all just fine. Did some manual fine tuning in EQ, loudness of surrounds, height volume, bass & treble etc (things I would expect Trueplay to do) and then more testing, including with spatial audio. All just fine. It sounds as great as some of us know Arc and surrounds can sound.
It’s been playing all day- mixes of music and television- with no issues. All other variables are as they were when I was getting the “Pop” issue EXCEPT- and this is key- this time I didn’t run Trueplay at all.
While just a single case scenario, this makes me suspect that Trueplay is a good candidate to be the source of the issue. In the step-by-step setup process in S2, Trueplay is just one of the steps. I suspect many people just execute the steps. If so- if they just run Trueplay as recommended- perhaps that’s what triggers the issue?
I’ve had my own Arc + Move set for a few years and have Trueplayed it several times with no “pops.” I was tempted to run Trueplay again on this new setup to see if this hypothesis would repeat but I didn’t want to “mess it up” if that single variable was the cause (as it strongly seems to me through this- albeit- single sample).
If some of you got the “pops” issues AFTER running Trueplay, consider testing this hypothesis by resetting the popping speaker to factory, setting it back up again, but BYPASSING the Trueplay step. Maybe you’ll either just be lucky as this one may have been for me or maybe this will narrow this issue in on running Trueplay… which would give Sonos a more specific area on which to focus than apparently thinking the issue is OUTSIDE of Sonos products.
Perhaps this has already been discovered and disproved earlier in the 42 pages of this or other threads- I didn’t read it all- but I share all this to hopefully help some of you who might just follow the recommended steps and thus crash into this problem. If some of you “fix” it by this method, let Sonos know and perhaps they can pound through the Trueplay code to find what may be the bug(s) that may be driving this issue for some or many (or maybe all???) of us. It’s easy enough to try.
I hope this helps some of you. I’m glad it did the trick for this new system.
It is my understanding that we have users in this thread who have the pop but have never had an Xbox connected.
Which is why I’m stated a method to recreate the error. Which is what Sonos needs in order to address this issue.
None of my posts are intended to obfuscate the issues. They are intended to help Sonos understand how to recreate the error.
Which is what QA Testers require in order to report a problem or error with software and hardware.
Specificity is necessary to avoid confusion.
For me it did not help, unfortunately. 10 Minutes in on Xbox got the pop in the menu.
Bummer. Just Compressed Audio set to uncompressed? Or did you also remove Alexa?
Thanks as always @rc12 for eloquently summarizing the state of the situation. Two items of information for you:
This also just happened to me aswell very loud bang then loss of audio on xbox series x only.
I sent a diagnostic 1551340322
I have just spent an hour or so on xbox series one x playing a couple of games that were guaranteed to ‘pop’ with Atmos enabled and it hasn’t happened so far again, since update. But will reserve judgement just yet in case its related to the reboot as part of the update to v14.
Fingers crossed though!
+3
We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.
I would get it occassionally with PC → LG CX → Sonos Arc
After I got rid of my LG CX and replaced with a monitor (PC → HDFury Arcana → Sonos Arc) I found that I can now reproduce the popping at will by running the Windows System Sound Test:
System → Sound → Arcana Properties → Select “Dobly Atmos for home theatre” and click TEST.
The pop happens consistently. I’m glad to put in a case if the engineers want to get on a call and monitor in real-time.
Humour me on this one, just because I'm curious, if the Arc is muted during the test, does it still pop? Is it volume driven, i.e. is the pop louder if the volume is? And/or does the “Audio in” signal change on “About my System” only, when muted (not real-time, requires a page refresh).
I would try myself but as it's inconsistent, I'd rather not watch several movies in silence 😅
But that means that the PS5 also runs with MAT Dolby Atmos. Anything else would have surprised me too. DD+ Dolby Atmos is only used by streaming providers like Netflix and Disney+, right?
I got my Era 300 yst, and I have put all my Sonos from sonosnet to all Wifi . And somehow I’m not getting any pop sound even playing at 4k120hz VRR on my Xbox series X
Blunderdome, what TV hardware do you have?
Gathered you were running 4K/120 with VRR enabled?
Paul Tsang, same question to you?
Same issue as everybody in this thread with an Apple TV 4K. Get in touch with Sonos support this morning, they’ve told me everything is fine with my Arc from the diagnostic. They are aware of the issue but it seems they don’t have a solution at the moment.
Not the best case scenario for Dolby Atmos customers.
Hi
Thank you for the quick reply.
I’m actually using an HDFury Arcana, no sound passes through my TV. The two HDMI sources are connected to an HDFury Vertex2 that passes the sound to the Arcana via “HDMI Audio Out” and the Video directly to the TV.
I just had a chat with Sonos first level support, unfortunately they denied support because of the Arcana. The agent claimed that only eARC connections would be supported. When I explained that the Arcana is eARC he changed this to “only connecting to a TV is supported as these adapters produce error signals”. :-(
Can you confirm that using a HDFury Arcana is not supported? Your comment above suggests otherwise.
I referenced this thread which shows that several customers have that problem and asked my case to be escalated to second level which was also denied. Mentioning that the sound is so loud that I fear it could damage both my ear drums and the Arcana were just ignored. :-(
The ticket number is 0xxxxxxx. Could you help to escalate this to someone who can help troubleshoot on a technical level?
I’m a networking engineer myself and have the expertise and understanding to work with technical support on this.
[Mod edit: removed case number]
Or maybe 15.2 firmware fixed it ?
Blunderdome, what TV hardware do you have?
Gathered you were running 4K/120 with VRR enabled?
Paul Tsang, same question to you?
LG C2, so yeah, 4K/120 +VRR.
Edit: Note that I do not have the PS5 beta firmware and haven’t tested on it.
Sonos has demonstrated that the issue will die unless we continue to press for a solution. We have seen promised “work on a solution” for three years, always devoid of specifics or a timeline. At a minimum, they could commit to changing their product advertising until a solution is found. This would at least make me feel like they are not okay with continued false advertising and truly being upfront with new customers - until this is done, it’s hard to see any response from Sonos as being in good faith.
So….class action when?
Certainly is an interesting angle to come from. Couple of questions though. When you got the pop-pop-pop. I’m assuming it was one pop at a time but was it a gunshot type blast? Did you by chance have a chance to look into the app to see what audio codec you were using when the pop happened? Reason I ask is that you say it also happened when you were watching TV. I don’t know if any TV service today that encodes Dolby MAT Atmos in their feed so I’m assuming that you were either DD+ or 5.1
If that’s the case, I am curious if it is the same Atmos pop that this thread has experienced. None the less, I will try the theory because enough things from your experience resonated for me
Thanks
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