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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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    TheFlamesFan
    Enthusiast II
    March 19, 2023

    It’s a bit strange because I had only experienced it once before while playing Forza Horizon 5. Since that time I have played quite a bit of Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5 and other games without a single issue. I downloaded the Resident Evil 4 demo today and about 10 minutes into it the pop happened. I got my audio back and a few minutes later it happened again. I turned off the game and completed a race in Forza Horizon 5 without a single pop. I swapped over to Halo Infinite and played a match that lasted about 15 minutes without a single issue. 
     

    While it has happened once in Forza the fact that it hasn’t happened since and I was in the clear until playing RE4 has me wondering if it’s, for the most part, game specific. I did see another poster here mention they experienced it during the Last of Us on HBO Max but with my Apple TV 4K it hasn’t happened once yet. 
     

    I just don’t even know. 

    I think it is game specific.  I was pop free for the longest time, only to play “contrast” and had pops both times I played it

    KrylonBlue
    Enthusiast II
    March 19, 2023

    Is anyone else using an HDMI Switch to allow their Xbox and PS5 to plug into the same port? Sony TV only supports HDMI 2.1 on ports 3 and 4 but port 3 is ARC so the consoles can only use port 4  

     

    I doubt this is the reason but something to consider. 

    ProfessorFrag
    Enthusiast II
    March 19, 2023

    No switch here. Apple TV on HDMI 2, XBOX on 4. 

      notmos
      March 20, 2023

      Have the same issue with apple tv & Sony x91j, it’s insane that an atmos capable device is just another sound bar now. Not worth >$2k if this is the support customers get. 

        Odnam93
        Lyricist II
        March 20, 2023

        Another Victim here :( (from Mexico) 

        The first time I experienced the (super loud/explosive) pop was when I was navigating the menu of my XBox Series S. (It was soo scary BTW,  I almost had a heart attack). 

         

        The first thing that crossed my mind was that my 2 days brand new Sonos Arc was dead because that pop literally sounded like something exploded inside, causing physicall damage of the speakers.

        I inmediatly googled the issue and found several post here and on Reddit of people having the same issue. 

         

        I also had the problem with my Apple TV 2022 hearing weird noises/mini-pops and cuts in Apple Music when listening songs in Dolby Atmos. 

        Just a moment ago I was watching The Last Of Us (first episode) in HBO Max and having a lot of mini-pops (annoying but tolerable) but in the minute 22 (when we see the infected old lady) again an extremely LOUD and horrible pop happened (I swear my soul leaved my body).  Even my dogs went crazy or scared or both.

        I ended watching the episode in the native TV App and had no pops but the Sonos App showed only Dolby Digital 5.1 and no Atmos. BTW my TV is a Hisense U8G 65) . 

        As described in this post, the pop only happens whith dolby Atmos content (or in the Dobly Atmos  Mode in the case of X Box Series S).

        After disable Atmos in both devices the pop is gone, but of course what is the point of spending this ridicously ammount of money for a product if  you can’t use it for what was designed and marketed. Truly shocking that the recommendation of the Sonos support was turning off Dolby Atmos (a key feature) 🫠

        I am honestly very dissapointed of Sonos and now I regret of buying this thing because it’s celar that the company is aware of the problem and after all this time not even a formal statement or answer has been released (and not to mention a fix for the issue). For what I see the users are the ones who are making an effort to try to solve this or at least know the cause of the problem.
        I will surely going to end returning tIhe Arc to Amazon before it Kills me of a scare. 

        UPDATE ONE MONTH LATER:

        The Pop just happened again, even with Atmos Off 😭

        I was watching YouTube in the Apple TV 4K 2022, Atmos disabled, the video was not even in 5.1 and the F*cking LOUD POP scared me again. 
        It’s a shame that now I won’t be able to watch any content in my Arc without the fear of the popping. I’ve been lucky this only has happened when I’m watching alone.

        Sonos team: if you are reading this I hope you feel Bad, because your work is Bad and you should feel Bad. 

          ProfessorFrag
          Enthusiast II
          March 20, 2023

          I’m sorry to hear that Odnam. Are you sure Atmos is off in Apple TV settings? I’d get the pop even during the screensaver, no sound playing, but only if Atmos was on in the settings. 
          And then for our thread reference, is your setup still Hisense U8G, Xbox Series S, and Apple TV?

          Odnam93
          Lyricist II
          March 20, 2023

          I’m sorry to hear that Odnam. Are you sure Atmos is off in Apple TV settings? I’d get the pop even during the screensaver, no sound playing, but only if Atmos was on in the settings. 
          And then for our thread reference, is your setup still Hisense U8G, Xbox Series S, and Apple TV?

          Yes, the setup is the same.

          and yes, I’m sure Atmos was disabled.

          You can see the audio settings in the picture (In spanish, sorry)

           

          ProfessorFrag
          Enthusiast II
          March 20, 2023

          Bummer. If it helps, having ”change format” set to “no” but Atmos off separately was my setup. 

            FruitcakeGSi
            Contributor I
            March 21, 2023

            So I disabled the CEC on my Xbox Series X and Samsung TV. I have an older TV so using a HDFury Arcana to give me eArc and Dolby Atmos to my Sonos Arc. So far, it is looking very positive. It used to be that I could start a game, press the X button to switch to Xbox menu and I would get the bang every single time. Now no bang at all. I also played Thor 4K and confirmed Dolby Atmos feed in my Sonos app. Hitting X button, again no bang. It is obviously early days but I will repost back after more testing... Thanks so much to all of you guys for the valuable information.

            So been running with above setup and disabled CEC for a month now. I can confirm that it has only popped once in all this time. I have watched a variety of movie sound formats inc 4k movies with Dolby Atmos - all good.

              TheFlamesFan
              Enthusiast II
              March 21, 2023

              Unfortunately not good news for me.  Ever since I had a pop with the game “contrast” on the series X.   I now have recurring pops on games I never used to have them on.  CEC is disabled and I have done power cycle but no longer having the same luck as I did before.  Seems like getting back to the state I had before isnt as easy as just resetting my configuration to the options I previously had.  Crazy frustrating!!

               

              Cory.  Sure would be nice to get an official Sonos update on this. The longer that Sonos keeps to the story that the technical teams are looking at this and nothing more concrete, the more I start to wonder if a fix is actually coming.   The optics sure don’t look good for Sonos, seeing that this has been a problem for 2 years and only under investigation for a few months, I will remember to take my time as well when Sonos wants me to spend more money to upgrade my ones to Era 300s

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