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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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    TheFlamesFan
    Enthusiast II
    February 8, 2023

    Hi everyone, haven’t posted for about a month because I have been trying out a bunch of different configurations with my ATV / Series X / LG C1 combo.

     

    I originally posted about how deactivating “Dolby Vision for Gaming” on the Series X cured the pop symptom that I got while returning to the Home Screen after playing a game.  This to me didn’t really make a ton of sense seeing how the audio was in a separate container than the video.  But I even went so far as reactivating DV to see if I could get the pop to come back and sure enough within a day it did.

     

    Then I started playing with the CEC settings.  I found that on the Xbox if I completely deactivated CEC and rebooted all my hardware I didn’t get a pop regardless if I had Dolby Vision active or not.  It also explains why I don’t have the issue on my ATV as I have the device control set to off.  I have been pop free for over a month.  Full disclosure, there was a LG firmware update for the TV during this time, so there is always the chance that a bug fix from the TV was the true remedy.

     

    It’s very plausible that Bad CEC handshakes could be the explanation why some users are now getting the pop on the PS5 which I found surprising as it doesn’t even use the Dolby MAT container.  Also could explain why some users say as soon as they got one pop….they get many pops as maybe their TV hasn’t gone through a full power cycle reboot and are still using a problem handshake.

     

    For the user community, maybe try to deactivate device control (CEC) on their device and fully unplug all their hardware, see if they get the pop anymore.

      ilh23mx
      Avid Contributor II
      February 9, 2023

      You know, I can’t help but think that if it’s a known issue, ethically, Sonos should put a warning on the product page. Or maybe mention the malfunction in an FAQ.

      Right now we keep having new customers that have to go through all these steps to figure out what’s even going wrong.

      Hi @ProfessorFrag, after many trials i IMAGE MANAGEMENT in TV and XBOX I found that if I use 4K + 120hz the pop noise happens, I’ve been playing XBOX reducing to 60hz and no issue happened for at least a couple of ours… I thing there should be some bug or something which makes a relationship between hz image output and ATMOS. Could you please try? In my case running both DV enable at 60hz and DV disable at 60hz works so far good. I tried DV disable at 120hz and failed. I could try DV at 120Hz because my TV doesn’t accept it.

        ProfessorFrag
        Enthusiast II
        February 9, 2023

        I get the pop on Xbox at 4K60. I always use 4K60 because Sony fibbed about 4K120 support on the 900H TV. It actually displays 4K120 input at 3840x1080, making fine elements such as text and icons blurry. At 4K60 you get full UHD resolution however. 

          bromos
          Lyricist III
          February 9, 2023

          Hi everyone, haven’t posted for about a month because I have been trying out a bunch of different configurations with my ATV / Series X / LG C1 combo.

           

          I originally posted about how deactivating “Dolby Vision for Gaming” on the Series X cured the pop symptom that I got while returning to the Home Screen after playing a game.  This to me didn’t really make a ton of sense seeing how the audio was in a separate container than the video.  But I even went so far as reactivating DV to see if I could get the pop to come back and sure enough within a day it did.

           

          Then I started playing with the CEC settings.  I found that on the Xbox if I completely deactivated CEC and rebooted all my hardware I didn’t get a pop regardless if I had Dolby Vision active or not.  It also explains why I don’t have the issue on my ATV as I have the device control set to off.  I have been pop free for over a month.  Full disclosure, there was a LG firmware update for the TV during this time, so there is always the chance that a bug fix from the TV was the true remedy.

           

          It’s very plausible that Bad CEC handshakes could be the explanation why some users are now getting the pop on the PS5 which I found surprising as it doesn’t even use the Dolby MAT container.  Also could explain why some users say as soon as they got one pop….they get many pops as maybe their TV hasn’t gone through a full power cycle reboot and are still using a problem handshake.

           

          For the user community, maybe try to deactivate device control (CEC) on their device and fully unplug all their hardware, see if they get the pop anymore.

          I...I think this may be it.  I mean, I don't want to jinx it, but I just listened to 3 hours of Atmos content on my Apple TV without any pop.  I've never been able to go a full episode before.  Dolby Vision and Atmos both, only disabled CEC on Apple TV.  Not super ideal but volume control works just not turning TV on and off.  If nothing else it points in a direction to look.  Please don't make me regret this post.

          ProfessorFrag
          Enthusiast II
          February 9, 2023

          I have performed the following testing:

          1. Unplugged Xbox from TV. Turned off both Apple TV CEC functions (on/off and volume control) in the settings. Powercycled TV, Apple TV, and Sonos Arc.
          2. I tested by playing one hour of “Hits in Spatial Audio” on Apple TV Apple Music. Once I had my first ever pop, I would reliably get a pop within 30 minutes of this playlist.
          3. After the first hour I turned on volume control CEC. After the second hour I turned on on/off CEC while leaving volume control CEC on. It has been three hours without a pop.

          It is possible that somewhere in there we are looking at a permanent fix. At this point, I consider it more likely that we have a reset to “before the first pop”. I had Atmos for weeks before it popped for the first time. If CEC ties into the Arc malfunction, it also raises the question why only LPCM/Dolby MAT Atmos is affected.

          When I have time I will continue testing by reconnecting the Xbox and playing with its CEC settings. @Rios hypothesis is that the Xbox is key (although we have affected users that never had an Xbox). In any event, big round of applause to @TheFlamesFan for bringing new information to the table! 👏👏👏

            bromos
            Lyricist III
            February 9, 2023

            I have performed the following testing:

            1. Unplugged Xbox from TV. Turned off both Apple TV CEC functions (on/off and volume control) in the settings. Powercycled TV, Apple TV, and Sonos Arc.
            2. I tested by playing one hour of “Hits in Spatial Audio” on Apple TV Apple Music. Once I had my first ever pop, I would reliably get a pop within 30 minutes of this playlist.
            3. After the first hour I turned on volume control CEC. After the second hour I turned on on/off CEC while leaving volume control CEC on. It has been three hours without a pop.

            It is possible that somewhere in there we are looking at a permanent fix. At this point, I consider it more likely that we have a reset to “before the first pop”. I had Atmos for weeks before it popped for the first time. If CEC ties into the Arc malfunction, it also raises the question why only LPCM/Dolby MAT Atmos is affected.

            When I have time I will continue testing by reconnecting the Xbox and playing with its CEC settings. @Rios hypothesis is that the Xbox is key (although we have affected users that never had an Xbox). In any event, big round of applause to @TheFlamesFan for bringing new information to the table! 👏👏👏

            I ONLY turned off CEC while leaving Volume control on through HDMI (not sure exactly how that works without CEC? unless its a new eARC feature?).  I was able to go 3 hours without a pop last night.  Never before has that been possible with my Apple TV.  I will keep testing with this setup and see if/how long for a pop.

            ProfessorFrag
            Enthusiast II
            February 9, 2023

            Further testing:

            1. Reconnected Xbox One Series X. One hour Apple TV Music, no pop. 
            2. Turned on Atmos on the Xbox. Played one hour Xbox Disney+ Thor Love and Thunder, no pop.
            3. Played one hour Apple TV Disney+ Thor The Dark World, no pop. 

            My current state is Apple TV both CEC options on, Xbox all CEC off. Atmos on both, no pops yet. If you are affected by the pop, please try the following steps:

            1. Disable both CEC options on the Apple TV and disable the main CEC option for all CEC functions on Xbox.
            2. Unplug TV, Arc, Apple TV and Xbox. Plug everything back in.
            3. Enable Atmos followed by both CEC options on Apple TV followed by Atmos on Xbox. Do not enable Xbox CEC. 
            4. Report back if or when you get a pop again. 
              Tall Paul
              Lyricist III
              February 11, 2023

              Had this happen again today & scared the heck out of me, 4th time in as many months when I was turning off the series x, every-time this happens I feel as if it will be the one to break a speaker, so frustrating.

              yusuflimz
              Lyricist III
              February 11, 2023

              Further testing:

              1. Reconnected Xbox One Series X. One hour Apple TV Music, no pop. 
              2. Turned on Atmos on the Xbox. Played one hour Xbox Disney+ Thor Love and Thunder, no pop.
              3. Played one hour Apple TV Disney+ Thor The Dark World, no pop. 

              My current state is Apple TV both CEC options on, Xbox all CEC off. Atmos on both, no pops yet. If you are affected by the pop, please try the following steps:

              1. Disable both CEC options on the Apple TV and disable the main CEC option for all CEC functions on Xbox.
              2. Unplug TV, Arc, Apple TV and Xbox. Plug everything back in.
              3. Enable Atmos followed by both CEC options on Apple TV followed by Atmos on Xbox. Do not enable Xbox CEC. 
              4. Report back if or when you get a pop again. 

              I’m about 30 mins in, no pops 👏👏👏 hopefully not just a premature celebration!

               

              No XBSX but have a PS5 / ATV 4K (2022) / Arc / Sub / One SL and been popping for the last 1.5 years. 
               

              haven’t switched the CEC on on my PS5 yet 

                yusuflimz
                Lyricist III
                February 11, 2023

                Had this happen again today & scared the heck out of me, 4th time in as many months when I was turning off the series x, every-time this happens I feel as if it will be the one to break a speaker, so frustrating.

                You tried the solution just above your comment? Have tried myself and hopefully has resolved the issue :) 

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