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.

Corry P 4 months ago

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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I give up. Sonos doesn't care and nothing happens. These are completely uncaptable. I will proceed in a different way.

This is the link where I saw the Sonos Staff comment about the issue too…

 

Reading that reply only solidifies my decision not to buy Sonos products going forward. Anyone remember Cambridge Soundworks? 

It’s entirely your prerogative not to buy, but to be honest that’s neither here, nor there, to me. I’m just another Sonos user. You might switch away to another brand, just to find you have a similar, or even a worse/different issue anyway with your chosen new product… c’est la vie.🤷‍♂️

I was merely trying to highlight that Sonos Staff had spoken about the matter, other brands seemed to be affected by the ‘popping’ sound too and I was trying to suggest a ‘potential’ solution to perhaps try - which is disabling MC LPCM (Atmos) until a fix is (perhaps) forthcoming …and to see if using the mentioned alternative codecs will work instead.

It’s a matter for you what you decide to do, going forward. I was just trying to help, nothing more than that, until the matter is reportedly resolved.

Although not affected by the ‘popping’ sound, I too hope it gets fixed for everyone concerned.🤞

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This is the link where I saw the Sonos Staff comment about the issue too…

 

Reading that reply only solidifies my decision not to buy Sonos products going forward. Anyone remember Cambridge Soundworks? 

It’s entirely your prerogative not to buy, but to be honest that’s neither here, nor there, to me. I’m just another Sonos user. You might switch away to another brand, just to find you have a similar, or even a worse/different issue anyway with your chosen new product… c’est la vie.🤷‍♂️

I was merely trying to highlight that Sonos Staff had spoken about the matter, other brands seemed to be affected by the ‘popping’ sound too and I was trying to suggest a ‘potential’ solution to perhaps try - which is disabling MC LPCM (Atmos) until a fix is (perhaps) forthcoming …and to see if using the mentioned alternative codecs will work instead.

It’s a matter for you what you decide to do, going forward. I was just trying to help, nothing more than that, until the matter is reportedly resolved.

Although not affected by the ‘popping’ sound, I too hope it gets fixed for everyone concerned.🤞

2 years, 2 years give up. They dont care we have  to step up. 

I just got the Sonos Arc and sub. Seeing this same issue watching movies from Plex possible other apps. I believe they may all be Dolby Atmos audio. Playing from app on Hisense u8h tv hooked up to earc. First time I rebooted tv this time it looks like muting and unmuting resolved so the sound comes back. The pop is very loud and no sound once it happens.

Userlevel 7
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Hi @ProfessorFrag 

Thank you! I have found your related case number and passed it directly to an engineer. You should hear from them soon. 

Hi @Corry P ,

FYI, I have not yet been contacted by Sonos. I continue to be interested in providing replication data in devmode.

Hi @ProfessorFrag 

Thanks for flagging - a mistake, I assure you. You will hear from someone imminently.

Userlevel 6
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Hi @Corry P ,

Just got the email. I’m looking forward to working with your tech. 

Userlevel 2
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Hi

i just bought the xbox x , 2 days ago and out of nowhere a very loud pop appeared, so loud it scared the hell out of my kid and my self.  This happend now 2 times in 2 days. 
 

for sure something is damaged now.

what wil sonos do to resolve it. Do we need to change a setting  to prevent this till a solution is coming. 
For sure you could replicate this in your test center? 

 

report 635463561

 



 

Userlevel 7
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Hi @Davida111 

what wil sonos do to resolve it. Do we need to change a setting  to prevent this till a solution is coming.

The issue happens on other brands too, so a resolution is not something we’re in the right place to achieve. We’re seeking ways to mitigate the problem in the meantime.

You can prevent it from happening by disabling Dolby Atmos (on your TV), as reported at the start of this thread.

For sure you could replicate this in your test center?

We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.

 

Userlevel 1

We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.

I would get it occassionally with PC → LG CX → Sonos Arc

After I got rid of my LG CX and replaced with a monitor (PC → HDFury Arcana → Sonos Arc) I found that I can now reproduce the popping at will by running the Windows System Sound Test:

System → Sound → Arcana Properties → Select “Dobly Atmos for home theatre” and click TEST.

The pop happens consistently.  I’m glad to put in a case if the engineers want to get on a call and monitor in real-time.

Userlevel 7
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Hi @dsands75 

If you are able to produce the sound at will, then I direct you to my earlier post:

Hi Everyone

If any of you are able to reproduce one of these “popping” events more or less at will, please help us by getting in touch with our technical support team, as we’re looking for more information on this matter. It does seem to occur most often - but is definitely not limited to - when an audio stream starts/stops or changes from one to another or , e.g. going from a playing movie to a menu, rather than when something is playing uninterrupted. We need some additional testers to assist us in getting a direct recording of the feed from an affected unit, as it happens.

This is somewhat outside of our normal case handling procedures, so if/when you have a support case, please reference this thread to the agent you speak to, and ask the agent to message me, Corry P, the case details so I can get you in touch with an engineer directly.

Thank you.

 

Userlevel 3
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We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.

I would get it occassionally with PC → LG CX → Sonos Arc

After I got rid of my LG CX and replaced with a monitor (PC → HDFury Arcana → Sonos Arc) I found that I can now reproduce the popping at will by running the Windows System Sound Test:

System → Sound → Arcana Properties → Select “Dobly Atmos for home theatre” and click TEST.

The pop happens consistently.  I’m glad to put in a case if the engineers want to get on a call and monitor in real-time.

This sounds promising. Hopefully the fact that it is an Atmos test can flag *specifically* what’s causing the failure. 

Userlevel 6
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A small update and big thank you for the community:

Earlier today I spoke with a Sonos engineer. It was a very positive experience. He was knowledgeable about the problem and had been thinking about it for over a year, including having had an interaction with the CEO about it.

He logged into my computer to access my Arc and put it into devmode. The Arc will leave devmode if rebooted. Then he supplied me with three local URLs to access the devmode functions. The first causes the Arc to save the sound data from the last minute. The second downloads that save file. The third files a diagnostic, same as the app but more convenient.

So far I have submitted three pop files to him. Two files from two different Apple Music songs on Apple TV and one while the Apple TV was on screensaver and not playing any sound. I hope to also generate a file from the Xbox doing it, but I have not had time to get that done.

A big thank you to all of you in the community for contributing your experiences in this thread. If we had only been individually reaching out to support, I am sure we would still be changing cables, factory resetting, etc. The reason I am in a position to have real interactions with Sonos now is because I am standing on your shoulders.

Userlevel 6
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Bingo! I captured and submitted an Xbox pop as well.

I’ll stop now as this is quite time-intensive work. I’m looking forward to hearing what insights come out of this process. 

Userlevel 3
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We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.

I would get it occassionally with PC → LG CX → Sonos Arc

After I got rid of my LG CX and replaced with a monitor (PC → HDFury Arcana → Sonos Arc) I found that I can now reproduce the popping at will by running the Windows System Sound Test:

System → Sound → Arcana Properties → Select “Dobly Atmos for home theatre” and click TEST.

The pop happens consistently.  I’m glad to put in a case if the engineers want to get on a call and monitor in real-time.

Humour me on this one, just because I'm curious, if the Arc is muted during the test, does it still pop? Is it volume driven, i.e. is the pop louder if the volume is? And/or does the “Audio in” signal change on “About my System” only, when muted (not real-time, requires a page refresh).

I would try myself but as it's inconsistent, I'd rather not watch several movies in silence 😅 

Userlevel 4
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Bingo! I captured and submitted an Xbox pop as well.

I’ll stop now as this is quite time-intensive work. I’m looking forward to hearing what insights come out of this process. 

On behalf of the user community, thank you for all your hard work on this

Userlevel 4
Badge +3

We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.

I would get it occassionally with PC → LG CX → Sonos Arc

After I got rid of my LG CX and replaced with a monitor (PC → HDFury Arcana → Sonos Arc) I found that I can now reproduce the popping at will by running the Windows System Sound Test:

System → Sound → Arcana Properties → Select “Dobly Atmos for home theatre” and click TEST.

The pop happens consistently.  I’m glad to put in a case if the engineers want to get on a call and monitor in real-time.

Humour me on this one, just because I'm curious, if the Arc is muted during the test, does it still pop? Is it volume driven, i.e. is the pop louder if the volume is? And/or does the “Audio in” signal change on “About my System” only, when muted (not real-time, requires a page refresh).

I would try myself but as it's inconsistent, I'd rather not watch several movies in silence 😅 

I can confirm that I still get the pop if the Sonos itself is muted.  If the Xbox is muted, no pop

Userlevel 1
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Might as well add my experience. Recently bought an Arc and Sub (Gen 3) in November 2022 and experienced the popping issue. I experienced the popping issues in the Xbox Series X (in-game, in-app, in a menu, etc.) and an Apple TV 4K. Similar to everyone here, it’s random (i.e. I can’t create it on-demand) but after troubleshooting with Sonos support and submitting multiple (at least 5) diagnostic reports, it was determined to be with Dolby Atmos content coming out the aforementioned devices. (The Xbox is really bad with this as it’s in Dolby Atmos the entire time, it does not change audio codec/format automatically or based on the content...that’s a whole other issue!)

Besides submitting diagnostics to support, I have had 3 Arcs, one of which was sent to me by Sonos directly. And like everyone else, I have disabled Dolby Atmos on the Xbox Series X and Apple TV 4K. Support confirmed the error is a faulty amp error.

In addition to buying an Arc, I also upgraded my TV to a LG C2 77”. The webOS versions of Netflix, HBO Max, etc. play Dolby Atmos fine (or at least I don’t recall experiencing the pop when playing Dolby Atmos content from said apps).

I’ve called a few times asking for an ETA/status update on the supposed fix and I keep getting told to “rest assure they are working on the issue”. At this point, I’m willing to wait since it appears to be device specific AND the quality of the Sonos Arc and Sub are good. Even the mobile app experience is nice, so for now I’m dealing with it. I really hope that Sonos can address this OR Microsoft/Apple can address this for.

Lastly, I haven’t combed through all responses but has anyone spoken to Microsoft or Apple about this? I get the sense that they will deny the issue, say it’s not happening, or it’s not their fault.

 

Thanks!

Just had this pop while playing music from YouTube on my PC which sends the audio to my C2 and then Sonos Arc + IKEA Symfonisk surrounds. Scared the shit out of me. I'm submitting the diagnostic report now. Will update if it happens again. I configured the setup in the settings again after it happened and I set all the speakers to limited range rather than full range. 

 

Playing the songs again, that pop hasn't happened again yet, and I hope it remains that way. I can't afford another Sonos Arc right now. :'(

If it helps, it happened on Taylor Swift's Blank Space song played via YouTube. There are some loud...sounds in that sounds... I don't know what instrument it is, but these pops happened on those. It's like the system couldn't handle that. Configuring to ensure the speakers were set to full range seems to have resolved it for now. 

Not able to get to anyone on technical support. My diagnostic report number for this issue is 1264212766

Hi @dsands75 

If you are able to produce the sound at will, then I direct you to my earlier post:

Hi Everyone

If any of you are able to reproduce one of these “popping” events more or less at will, please help us by getting in touch with our technical support team, as we’re looking for more information on this matter. It does seem to occur most often - but is definitely not limited to - when an audio stream starts/stops or changes from one to another or , e.g. going from a playing movie to a menu, rather than when something is playing uninterrupted. We need some additional testers to assist us in getting a direct recording of the feed from an affected unit, as it happens.

This is somewhat outside of our normal case handling procedures, so if/when you have a support case, please reference this thread to the agent you speak to, and ask the agent to message me, Corry P, the case details so I can get you in touch with an engineer directly.

Thank you.

 

I can try going back to old settings and see if the pop is reproduced, but I want assurance first that if my Sonos Arc gets bricked, I would get a replacement. I'm from India. 

Had my Arc about 3 weeks now and it’s happened nearly every time I watch Dolby Atmos material. 

I have my Oled tv connected to my arc via HDMI to eARC socket on tv.

It’s popped on 3 occasions twice watching Netflix on tv app and once watching Apple TV also on the app.

I use my Apple TV 4K box to play Apple Music through the arc and haven’t had any issues so far.

Any ideas WTF Sonos are doing about this? 

Had a play bar for about 6 years before the arc with no problems.

 

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Had my Arc about 3 weeks now and it’s happened nearly every time I watch Dolby Atmos material. 

I have my Oled tv connected to my arc via HDMI to eARC socket on tv.

It’s popped on 3 occasions twice watching Netflix on tv app and once watching Apple TV also on the app.

I use my Apple TV 4K box to play Apple Music through the arc and haven’t had any issues so far.

Any ideas WTF Sonos are doing about this? 

Had a play bar for about 6 years before the arc with no problems.

 

You can gather diagnostics from the Sonos App and submit it to support. Their claim to me is that they will fix this issue soon. Don’t know what soon means plus it appears to be happening often.

while I’m new the Sonos world, my guess is the Playbar does not have the full bandwidth needed to support eARC and Dolby Atmos content, which explains why you never experienced it before.

Do you experience the same issues with the same apps/content that are built into your TV? In my case, I have not experienced the issue when playing Atmos content from webOS directly (I have an LG OLED) when compared to either the Apple TV or Xbox Series X.

This is happening to me also. Started a few weeks ago on my Arc. Massive pop and then sub and surrounds keep working but Arc won’t play any sound including Alexa. 
 

Not what Im expecting from a top tier product. I’ve three arcs so now wondering if I should get worried! The others are not showing the same issue but not in use as much. 

Userlevel 1

Unfortunately, also need to report this issue. Started happening today when playing Xbox Series X on my LG C2 with the Arc connected. Really loud pop when playing Forza Horizon 5 and now it keeps returning. Hope Sonos comes through with an update to finally fix it for us all.

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