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samro1094
Contributor I
December 8, 2020

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

  • December 8, 2020
  • 1202 replies
  • 90685 views

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.

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    Pinned Reply By Corry P

    Hi Everyone!

    Good news! We are pleased to share that our team has identified a fix for the popping sound on Arc and it will be shipped to all customers as part of a software release today, Thursday Nov 16 at 09:30 ET, 14:30 GMT, 15:30 CET. Please note that some app stores may take an extra hour or two for it to become available.

    During our investigation we uncovered a rare bug that impacts how Sonos Arc and Beam (Gen 2) in certain home theater configurations process Dolby MAT, a streaming technology which is used to deliver Dolby Atmos audio over HDMI. Occasionally a Sonos product will receive a corrupted audio segment from an external source and needs to filter out unwanted audio data. The bug we identified was allowing our Dolby decoder to play audible errors on certain home theater setups rather than concealing them. The solution we’ve built and tested improves our Dolby decoder so it better filters out corrupt audio data that can manifest as a popping sound. We’ll continue to monitor customer feedback closely after the fix has been released and ship additional updates if necessary.

    We strive to deliver the best listening experience possible and work to address major issues that impact our customers. We apologize for the disruption this bug has caused and want to thank you for your patience while our team developed a fix.

    We would also like to thank our community users for their detailed setup information and steps to reproduce the issue, which were helpful to us in uncovering the cause of the bug.

     

    1202 replies

    Show previous replies
    DuranDoranMartell
    Avid Contributor III
    March 24, 2021

    I have an Xbox One X attached to the Arc via the HD Fury Arcana, and I have also had the LOUD POP. 

    Its proper frightening when it happens. It sounds like a gun going off in the room. 

    This has happened at least a dozen times but it has always been at-random. 

    I don't think my speakers were ruined but if this happened more frequently I would be concerned. 

    DC92
    Trending Lyricist I
    March 25, 2021

    I have an Xbox One X attached to the Arc via the HD Fury Arcana, and I have also had the LOUD POP. 

    Its proper frightening when it happens. It sounds like a gun going off in the room. 

    This has happened at least a dozen times but it has always been at-random. 

    I don't think my speakers were ruined but if this happened more frequently I would be concerned. 

    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 

    Corry P
    Corry P
    Sonos Staff
    March 25, 2021

    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, @DC92. Has anyone been able to confirm that doing this has helped?

    "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
    DC92
    Trending Lyricist I
    March 25, 2021

    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, @DC92. Has anyone been able to confirm that doing this has helped?

    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.

      jrh9765
      Lyricist II
      March 30, 2021

      Hello all. Been having this issue for some time. Contacted support and they offered me a new arc, but this has to be a bigger issue. I tried the auto hdr. It worked for quite a few days. The popping now all the sudden started again. Curious if anyone else's started popping with the hdr fix?

        Tall Paul
        Lyricist III
        April 3, 2021

        Hello all. Been having this issue for some time. Contacted support and they offered me a new arc, but this has to be a bigger issue. I tried the auto hdr. It worked for quite a few days. The popping now all the sudden started again. Curious if anyone else's started popping with the hdr fix?

        Hi. I’ve only had it happen once but it was so loud I though something had exploded, that was a few weeks back and I’ve been in and out of auto hdr games. But after using it a while since I am now more convinced something is degraded quality wise on the ARC because of that issue, so it’s good to know you were offered a replacement, will have to make contact with support.

        steslatt
        Contributor I
        April 30, 2021

        Same thing has just happened to me, loud pop followed by no sound. Not sure if it's damaged now. Is there any way to check each individual speaker speaker on the arc?

        Corry P
        Corry P
        Sonos Staff
        April 30, 2021

        Hi @steslatt 

        Same thing has just happened to me, loud pop followed by no sound. Not sure if it's damaged now. Is there any way to check each individual speaker speaker on the arc?

        The easiest way is just playing something and putting your ear close to each driver, I’m afraid. You may be able to find a video that plays test tones in 5.1, however - I believe searching for “test” on Netflix will produce some results. Avoid YouTube as they re-encode uploaded 5.1 tracks to stereo (you need 5.1 to test the centre speaker).

         

        Edit: Removed line stating issue was only on XBox

        "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
          steslatt
          Contributor I
          April 30, 2021

          Hi Everyone!

          As this is only happening with the XBox, I highly recommend you all report it to Microsoft if you haven’t already - the more reports they get, the more seriously they’ll take the issue.

          Same thing has just happened to me, loud pop followed by no sound. Not sure if it's damaged now. Is there any way to check each individual speaker speaker on the arc?

          The easiest way is just playing something and putting your ear close to each driver, I’m afraid. You may be able to find a video that plays test tones in 5.1, however - I believe searching for “test” on Netflix will produce some results. Avoid YouTube as they re-encode uploaded 5.1 tracks to stereo (you need 5.1 to test the centre speaker).

          Has this been confirmed to be an Xbox issue though? I didn't have this problem using my LG soundbar and I can't find any other issues online apart from Sonos.

          I've spoken to support and after looking at my diagnostic file they said everything seems to be working ok.

          Corry P
          Corry P
          Sonos Staff
          April 30, 2021

          Hi @steslatt 

          Has this been confirmed to be an Xbox issue though? I didn't have this problem using my LG soundbar and I can't find any other issues online apart from Sonos.

          Apologies - I re-read the topic and noticed the Apple TV reports too. 

          I can only recommend that anyone who experiences this immediately submits a diagnostic and then gets in touch with our technical support team when convenient.

           

          "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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