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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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    yeshuah
    Lyricist I
    August 3, 2023

    I’m quite suprised that this hasn’t been properly picked up by any of the tech news / review sites. Are they too much in bed with Sonos?

      blunderdome
      Enthusiast I
      August 3, 2023

      I’m quite suprised that this hasn’t been properly picked up by any of the tech news / review sites. Are they too much in bed with Sonos?

      I reached out to a couple of tech sites last year when Sonos had the firmware debacle where they destroyed the output of the Sub when used with Trueplay.  RTINGs.com got back to me and said they would do a re-assess on whatever the latest firmware was at that time (which had the lowered bass output).

      Well, they followed through on that and tested a firmware revision that was known to have the lowered bass frequencies (this was testable and could be reproduced in a repeatable way).  They noted an improvement in the bass frequencies and upped their scores.

      So yeah, I don’t think you’re too far off base here.

        Fenty333
        Lyricist I
        August 5, 2023

        hello everyone. 
         

        I have just started to have this issue and I contacted sonos support, I have owned the arc for 18 months and the issue only started now after the latest update. 
         

        They mentioned the engineers are working on it and there is only 2 known workarounds at the moment, which is crazy considering this has been a known issue for atleast 2 years. 
         

        I am using Xbox series x on a Sony x9000h, does anyone have any better ideas other then the workarounds provided by sonos below? 


        Workaround 1: Disable CEC on HDMI connected devices, then reboot these devices as well as the TV by unplugging from power for 60 seconds then plug it back in. a. This may allow Atmos content to be played, but cannot be guaranteed. Workaround 2: Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead.

        Paul Tsang
        Enthusiast II
        August 5, 2023

        hello everyone. 
         

        I have just started to have this issue and I contacted sonos support, I have owned the arc for 18 months and the issue only started now after the latest update. 
         

        They mentioned the engineers are working on it and there is only 2 known workarounds at the moment, which is crazy considering this has been a known issue for atleast 2 years. 
         

        I am using Xbox series x on a Sony x9000h, does anyone have any better ideas other then the workarounds provided by sonos below? 


        Workaround 1: Disable CEC on HDMI connected devices, then reboot these devices as well as the TV by unplugging from power for 60 seconds then plug it back in. a. This may allow Atmos content to be played, but cannot be guaranteed. Workaround 2: Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead.

        I tried all their methods , still didn’t work . I really hope they get this issue fixed this year . I’m so fed up , the pop gives me anxiety 

          ProfessorFrag
          Enthusiast II
          August 5, 2023

          hello everyone. 
           

          I have just started to have this issue and I contacted sonos support, I have owned the arc for 18 months and the issue only started now after the latest update. 
           

          They mentioned the engineers are working on it and there is only 2 known workarounds at the moment, which is crazy considering this has been a known issue for atleast 2 years. 
           

          I am using Xbox series x on a Sony x9000h, does anyone have any better ideas other then the workarounds provided by sonos below? 


          Workaround 1: Disable CEC on HDMI connected devices, then reboot these devices as well as the TV by unplugging from power for 60 seconds then plug it back in. a. This may allow Atmos content to be played, but cannot be guaranteed. Workaround 2: Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead.

          I’m sorry to hear you’ve been affected. Those workarounds are best that we have figured out so far. Lower success rate: some posters have had luck disabling 120 Hz and/or Dolby Vision to get rid of the pop. 

          As you mentioned, many of us have been affected for well over two years. We’ve submitted diagnostics or even dev mode “recordings” of the pop. We’ve not been told of any progress by Sonos to date. 

          tomwarren
          Enthusiast I
          August 8, 2023

          I just started having the issue over the past couple of weeks on my personal system at home and I’m shocked to hear it has been affecting people for years. I’m also a reporter at The Verge, so I’ll do my best to get Sonos to comment on this properly. It’s a disgrace that they haven’t so far.

            tomwarren
            Enthusiast I
            August 8, 2023

            here’s the latest official response from Sonos support, which seems to suggest it’s specific to some TVs. I know Microsoft has been working on a HDMI 2.1 problem with the Xbox Series X on certain LG OLED models, where the console would boot up into a resolution from 1995 instead of 4K.

             

            Either way, we’ll get on to Sonos and figure out if this is TV specific or something related to Dolby MAT 2.0.

              EvanLn
              Lyricist I
              August 8, 2023

              here’s the latest official response from Sonos support, which seems to suggest it’s specific to some TVs. I know Microsoft has been working on a HDMI 2.1 problem with the Xbox Series X on certain LG OLED models, where the console would boot up into a resolution from 1995 instead of 4K.

               

              Either way, we’ll get on to Sonos and figure out if this is TV specific or something related to Dolby MAT 2.0.

              Hello everyone,
              I'm having exactly the same issue with a Sonos ARC, an AppleTV and a Sony XH9005 (not LG here) : a bang, a few clicks, then nothing. Resetting all the devices and disabling CEC didn't help. The only possible workaround is to disable Dolby Atmos in the AppleTV... The last straw for an Atmos soundbar...

                Abo116
                Lyricist III
                August 8, 2023

                here’s the latest official response from Sonos support, which seems to suggest it’s specific to some TVs. I know Microsoft has been working on a HDMI 2.1 problem with the Xbox Series X on certain LG OLED models, where the console would boot up into a resolution from 1995 instead of 4K.

                 

                Either way, we’ll get on to Sonos and figure out if this is TV specific or something related to Dolby MAT 2.0.

                I have exactly the same problem and already had 3 different OLED from LG. The CX, C1 and CS9. When I had the CX, I hadn't bought the Arc yet. The other two TVs paired with Xbox Series X and Dolby Atmos almost always made the bang we're talking about when I went from games to the dashboard. I also have the other problem with the poor resolution (640x480) on the LG OLEDs with Xbox Series X and it happened on all my OLEDs.

                  LuiG
                  Enthusiast I
                  August 8, 2023

                  I just started having the issue over the past couple of weeks on my personal system at home and I’m shocked to hear it has been affecting people for years. I’m also a reporter at The Verge, so I’ll do my best to get Sonos to comment on this properly. It’s a disgrace that they haven’t so far.

                  Hi Tom,

                  Big fan of your reporting and as someone who has been experiencing this issue for 2 years I hope you’ll be able to get Sonos to properly acknowledge this issue.
                   

                  Cheers!

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