Contributor I

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

1202 replies
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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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Joshua01

Lyricist I

Wow, this is concerning. New Sonos owner here. Got an Arc in mid-December, just received a new Sub 3 yesterday, not yet out of the box. No issues yet, but now I’m thinking about returning the whole kit while I still can.

I was willing to pay the large Sonos premium for the ease of use and high quality, but now I’m questioning my choices. Insane to me that Sonos has not yet given a detailed statement, much less fixed it. Saw this as a link from the Reddit forum and one of the moderators is affected.

If you’re giving your biggest fans and buyers the run-around, you should re-think your strategy Sonos.

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T2vear

Lyricist I

I’ve had a similar issue since day one of owning the arc(shortly after the launch). Only on my Apple TV when watching with atmos content my audio will just drop out for a few seconds about every 20 minutes. Doesn’t happen on other devices just with the Apple TV. I have used both the original Apple TV 4K and the new one and had the same issue with atmos content. I’ve used different cables and nothing. Haven’t found a fix other than just watching it on another device to still experience atmos audio.

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bromos

Lyricist III

Diagnostic 427286041

Just tried again after the tvOS 16.3 update that supposedly improved Atmos. Still loud bang and audio gone. It REALLY sucks because when I turned Atmos on for the first time in almost a year it sounded so good...and then I was reminded why I had to turn it off 🤬

R

reverendmathias

Lyricist I

I’ve had an arc for just over a year and it started doing the loud bang today. Using a PC with atmos through LG TV connected to arc

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ProfessorFrag

Enthusiast II

Looking at the thread on the Sonos subreddit, I'm surprised to see so many users who had the bang once or twice and it went away; or who have configurations identical to ours but no problems.

Could this be just specific Arcs malfunctioning? Has anybody had their unit exchanged and the problem came back?

If this were as straightforward as "we need new units", that would blow my mind.

SidAlmond

Lyricist III

Looking at the thread on the Sonos subreddit, I'm surprised to see so many users who had the bang once or twice and it went away; or who have configurations identical to ours but no problems.

Could this be just specific Arcs malfunctioning? Has anybody had their unit exchanged and the problem came back?

If this were as straightforward as "we need new units", that would blow my mind.

I had a replacement sent to me from Sonos and still the same issue. I’m keeping mine because a) it’s specific to Dolby MAT vs DD+ and b) compared to a HT-A7000 (which I tried as a possible replacement), the Sonos killed it. While disabling Atmos on my Xbox and Apple TV sucks, the bar is fantastic and has a fairly good app experience. When it works, it works.

Sid

B

bromos

Lyricist III

Looking at the thread on the Sonos subreddit, I'm surprised to see so many users who had the bang once or twice and it went away; or who have configurations identical to ours but no problems.

Could this be just specific Arcs malfunctioning? Has anybody had their unit exchanged and the problem came back?

If this were as straightforward as "we need new units", that would blow my mind.

I know at least one person in this thread had theirs replaced with the issue remaining. However, I am starting to think maybe we do have defective units with the data we are getting, and maybe that person got yet another defective unit. If that is the case I am hoping Sonos will stand by their product and customers and issue replacements without needing legal action.

I

ilh23mx

Avid Contributor II

Looking at the thread on the Sonos subreddit, I'm surprised to see so many users who had the bang once or twice and it went away; or who have configurations identical to ours but no problems.

Could this be just specific Arcs malfunctioning? Has anybody had their unit exchanged and the problem came back?

If this were as straightforward as "we need new units", that would blow my mind.

@Corry P I think if this issue has not been totally reproduced by SONOS using brand new equipment, maybe it’s a good idea to buyback / replace products that has been reported with issue in this tread and then study / cross check with new equipment.

@ProfessorFrag has a good point, if this issue related to hardware malfunction then we may need new units.

P

ProfessorFrag

Enthusiast II

Presumably Sonos already knows if this is an all Arcs or some Arcs bug. But if they don’t, a more conservative start would be to send a new loaner to one, or maybe a few, users and see if it misbehaves.

Airgetlam

Or perhaps if it’s a CEC bug…..

Bruce

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