Contributor I

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

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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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ProfessorFrag

Enthusiast II

@Airgetlam @Ken_Griffiths

Neither one of you have ever been affected by the pop, right? You just like to frequent every thread about it emphasizing that it’s probably not Sonos’ fault.

We’ve been down the path of these isolated reports. They may use the word ‘pop’ but are describing fundamentally different symptoms.

Look at this thread. We’ll be breaking 1,000 posts eventually.

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blunderdome

Enthusiast I

Hi @Abo116

We are still looking into this situation, but I don't have an update to share with you at this time.

You know this is almost more frustrating to hear than just radio silence. Two years into this thread and “We’re aware of the issue and are looking into it” simply isn’t good enough.

Ken_Griffiths

@Airgetlam @Ken_Griffiths

Neither one of you have ever been affected by the pop, right? You just like to frequent every thread about it emphasizing that it’s probably not Sonos’ fault.

We’ve been down the path of these isolated reports. They may use the word ‘pop’ but are describing fundamentally different symptoms.

Look at this thread. We’ll be breaking 1,000 posts eventually.

I’m not sure how many users that may refer to overall here, but it still seems to me that a good many mention Apple TV 4K, or XBox and I did see in that linked thread, the one user mentioned they switched to using a Roku stick and the problem disappeared for them - so maybe that’s worth a try and set aside any Apple TV, or connected problem device and try a different device and just see if the popping stops.

Ken_Griffiths

@Airgetlam @Ken_Griffiths

Neither one of you have ever been affected by the pop, right? You just like to frequent every thread about it emphasizing that it’s probably not Sonos’ fault.

We’ve been down the path of these isolated reports. They may use the word ‘pop’ but are describing fundamentally different symptoms.

Look at this thread. We’ll be breaking 1,000 posts eventually.

No I’ve not had the popping issue with the Arc, but I’m not using Apple TV 4K, or Xbox - I have an LG C9 TV with Arc, Sub, Surrounds and connected are:

HDMI-1: A V6 VM cable TV
HDMI-2: Sonos Arc
HDMI-3: Switch - Fire TV 4K/Apple TV 4HD/PlayStation
HDMI-4: NVidia Shield TV

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ProfessorFrag

Enthusiast II

- so maybe that’s worth a try and set aside any Apple TV, or connected problem device and try a different device and just see if the popping stops.

And after all these years with no fix in sight, that’s all I’m expecting from Sonos at this point: put out a statement, an FAQ, a disclaimer, a warning, anything. Sonos Arc is not a good pairing with Apple TV or Xbox. I don’t even expect them to take responsibility anymore.

Potential customers deserve to know before they buy or the string of frustrated users finding this thread will never end. It’s the only decent thing to do.

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Dano98

Lyricist I

Glad to find this thread, now following. I’ve had the pop issue with a Sonos Arc / Apple TV 4K for about a year now. I happens randomly and it’s very disappointing. More disappointing this thread is so extensive and the issues is unresolved

T

TheFlamesFan

Enthusiast II

Maybe see this link to a thread (8 pages) I found online:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254099712

It still seems like this is not a Sonos issue, as other TV connected products are mentioned.

Not entirely convinced that this is the same issue as we are experiencing. I read this to be a series of small popping sounds, not a big gunshot type pop that this thread is about

In all my searches on the internet around this issue, nobody produces a pop like the Sonos hardware does

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Abo116

Lyricist III

I've only had the problem with my Xbox Series X so far and I've had it a number of times. Today I was able to reproduce it every time I played Forza 5 and then went to the dashboard. A few seconds later there was a loud bang and the LED on the arc burned orange. So I decided to turn off Dolby Vision because I've also read this here in the chat that it's supposed to help. I couldn't believe it, but in the Xbox settings I just unchecked "allow dolby vision" and "dolby vision for gaming" and since then I haven't been able to reproduce the problem. maybe it's just a coincidence, but when I had Dolby Vision active, the bang came every time in connection with Atmos. But this means doing without Dolby Vision and “only” using HDR10.

K

KrylonBlue

Enthusiast II

I've only had the problem with my Xbox Series X so far and I've had it a number of times. Today I was able to reproduce it every time I played Forza 5 and then went to the dashboard. A few seconds later there was a loud bang and the LED on the arc burned orange. So I decided to turn off Dolby Vision because I've also read this here in the chat that it's supposed to help. I couldn't believe it, but in the Xbox settings I just unchecked "allow dolby vision" and "dolby vision for gaming" and since then I haven't been able to reproduce the problem. maybe it's just a coincidence, but when I had Dolby Vision active, the bang came every time in connection with Atmos. But this means doing without Dolby Vision and “only” using HDR10.

I have always had Dolby Vision disabled for gaming but I forgot why. It may have been a VRR thing. Either way I’ve been using HDR-10 and the issue exists.

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ProfessorFrag

Enthusiast II

I’m afraid I too got the bang with DV off on the XBOX. But if it fixes it for you and losing DV is worth Atmos to you, congratulations! Life has gotten a little better.

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