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samro1094
Contributor I
December 8, 2020

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

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.

     

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    1202 replies

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    ProfessorFrag
    Enthusiast II
    January 18, 2023

    @Corry P could we get an update? Does Sonos foresee that we will be able to reenable Atmos on Apple TV?

    About a month ago I worked with you to get some devmode capture of the pop as produced with Apple Tv and Xbox. Both when playing sound and also when the Apple TV was just on screensaver.

    After being without Atmos for more than a year, and with Apple releasing its new HomePods today, I have to figure out for myself if it’s time to go through the pain of selling my Sonos system and changing horses so that I can have Atmos back. No hard feelings, it is what it is.

      Corry P
      Corry P
      Sonos Staff
      January 19, 2023

      Hi @ProfessorFrag 

      I appreciate that you want an update - I would too - but I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you, other than that we are still actively investigating.

      "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
        ProfessorFrag
        Enthusiast II
        January 19, 2023

        Thanks, dude. I’m just frustrated. I’ll try to hang to hang in there a little longer. 

        When it works, it really does sound great.

          Printnamehere
          Lyricist I
          January 19, 2023

          So I’ve been following this thread for a while I got my arc on Black Friday and experienced the popping noise whilst playing my Xbox on the first day. After reading this thread I disabled Dolby vision as suggested by a poster. Since doing so I haven’t had a pop. This might just be luck and it’s a shame to have to sacrifice having nicer visuals for the sake of preserving the soundbar. Let’s hope there’s an update soon. 

            ilh23mx
            Avid Contributor II
            January 20, 2023

            So I’ve been following this thread for a while I got my arc on Black Friday and experienced the popping noise whilst playing my Xbox on the first day. After reading this thread I disabled Dolby vision as suggested by a poster. Since doing so I haven’t had a pop. This might just be luck and it’s a shame to have to sacrifice having nicer visuals for the sake of preserving the soundbar. Let’s hope there’s an update soon. 

            Unfortunately not working for me, I always have DV disable and issue occurs… so no other option than change to 5.1 DTS, very very poor sound experience specially with XBOX (Forza, Halo, etc)

            ilh23mx
            Avid Contributor II
            January 20, 2023

            Hi @ProfessorFrag 

            I appreciate that you want an update - I would too - but I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you, other than that we are still actively investigating.

            Maybe difficult to say from your side, but at least could you confirm issue was able to reproduce during you investigation? Maybe root cause and countermeasure still not defined, but at least is a good starting point.

            If so, have you notice any damage to any part of hardware? Specially speakers…

            What’s your expert recommendation? Turn off ATMOS output in any device connected through TV to SONOS ARC?

            Honestly I think we need a Statement from SONOS at least in the meantime you find a solution, otherwise we will damage our equipment and of course we will eventually claim for a replacement.

            Corry P
            Corry P
            Sonos Staff
            January 20, 2023

            Hi @ilh23mx 

            As far as I know, there has been progress but I’ve nothing new to share right now. But I can say that we have yet to see evidence that these pops have caused any harm to the hardware. If you do think that a pop has caused harm to your product, please contact support directly to have it looked at. 

            One thing to note if you suspect damage - if a speaker has been damaged, you should consistently see failures when attempting to Trueplay the device. Background noise, for example, is still a factor but if damaged, it would fail under perfect conditions.

            I hope this helps.

            "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
              jshauffer
              Lyricist I
              January 22, 2023

              Hi @ilh23mx 

              As far as I know, there has been progress but I’ve nothing new to share right now. But I can say that we have yet to see evidence that these pops have caused any harm to the hardware. If you do think that a pop has caused harm to your product, please contact support directly to have it looked at. 

              One thing to note if you suspect damage - if a speaker has been damaged, you should consistently see failures when attempting to Trueplay the device. Background noise, for example, is still a factor but if damaged, it would fail under perfect conditions.

              I hope this helps.

              Hi @Corry P,

              I am someone who has spent about $10k on Sonos since August 2022 and sold my entire Bose system equivalent. I am starting to think I made the wrong choice…at least on the home theater side. For over 2 years Sonos has ignored this thread just until recently. Don’t you think this is unacceptable? And sharing vague comments about progress also feels like it’s not good progress…can you say if it is either good progress or bad progress? What will Sonos do if they can’t fix the issue with software? I think a 25-26 page thread on your support community is grounds for a class action lawsuit that Sonos probably doesn’t want and neither do we. But we are the suckers here waiting. I feel really really bad for the Sonos owners who have suffered this insanity for the full duration of the issue. Please give us something more…like potential timelines or what Sonos will do if they can’t fix it. We all know you can reproduce this issue at will now. 

                SidAlmond
                SidAlmond
                Lyricist III
                January 22, 2023

                Hi @ilh23mx 

                As far as I know, there has been progress but I’ve nothing new to share right now. But I can say that we have yet to see evidence that these pops have caused any harm to the hardware. If you do think that a pop has caused harm to your product, please contact support directly to have it looked at. 

                One thing to note if you suspect damage - if a speaker has been damaged, you should consistently see failures when attempting to Trueplay the device. Background noise, for example, is still a factor but if damaged, it would fail under perfect conditions.

                I hope this helps.

                While it’s nice to know that our equipment will likely not be damaged after these pops, a real firmware update would be even better. I signed up to take part in the beta channel, assuming this would gain faster access to updates but nothing so far. This has been very disappointing…

                Sid
                  dadilus
                  dadilus
                  Lyricist I
                  January 23, 2023

                  We were watching a show through our Fios box and had the loud pop with the loss of sound until it had power cycled. I’m very worried about damage it may have caused. We just got this for ourselves as a Christmas gift, so it has only been used for less than 4 weeks. Any progress on a fix.

                  Dadilus
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