Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss


Userlevel 3

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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Userlevel 1

For me it did not help, unfortunately. 10 Minutes in on Xbox got the pop in the menu.

Userlevel 6
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For me it did not help, unfortunately. 10 Minutes in on Xbox got the pop in the menu.

Bummer. Just Compressed Audio set to uncompressed? Or did you also remove Alexa?

Userlevel 1

Just Audio uncompressed. I don’t use Alexa.

Userlevel 1
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Just Audio uncompressed. I don’t use Alexa.

😵‍💫 mine is working properly… mmm very strange issue…

I am also here to report the pop 🤦‍♂️.  New sonos user.  Sony xf900 with arc, sub,1’s for surrounds.  Xbox user.  Popping has got really bad.  Multiple times a session.  I had to change audio to 5.1 because it doesn’t happen with that setting.  Boo sonos!  This issue should be resolved,  this thread was created 2 years ago! 

Fairly new sonos user, I've had an arc work flawlessly for two months using Disney plus, Amazon prime video and just standard Freeview viewing. Decided to dust off the old Xbox one s to give it a run out along with enabling dolby Atmos, less than an hour later - pop! I nearly fell off my chair it was so loud. I was convinced with a sound like the there must have been some damage done to the arc. This was followed by silence and I'm sure I saw a flash off orange/red on the top of the arc for a moment. 

I submitted by diagnostic number via the Sonos live chat but apparently all looks good from what they can tell! It seems likes it's working fine again for my usual TV viewing but I will be following the advice from previous contributers to this thread and change the sound to Dolby 5.1 on the Xbox. Although I am reluctant to load up the Xbox for the time being. 

 

 

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there was a mentally loud pop when I was in the xbox menu and pressed the glowing x in the middle of the pad.  Turning off the automatic selection of the signal input on the tv when we press this button helped

Userlevel 4
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My DV comment wasn’t aimed at you. Earlier in the discussion there was a recommendation to turn off DV on the Xbox. Turning off DV seems to help on Apple TV, but not on Xbox.

 

Professor, I’m gathering your comment is aimed at my personal experience in which turning off Dolby vision on the Xbox has in fact solved my popping issue.  I have been more than two months pop free with it off.  I even tried turning it back on to which the popping started again just to make sure it was that feature which was causing the issues for me

This leads me to believe it is one of the other pieces of the chain then.  The two that come to mind are

  1.  Passthrough configuration of your TV. My TV is a LG C1
  2. HDMI cables both from the Xbox to the TV and the TV to the ARC.  I use the supplied cable from the Xbox to the TV and certified HDMI 2.1 cable to the ARC

Are any of these different in your setup?

Userlevel 6
Badge +5
  1. My TV is a Sony 900H. I am away from my TV right now so I can’t look up the exact name of the setting, but I’ve tried on and off for the “bitstream” passthrough setting on the TV. 
     
  2. I use the supplied cables for Xbox and Arc. I’ve also tried switching the Arc cable for an optical HDMI cable, thereby I traducing an additional physical layer signal conversion (electric → optical → electric) to no effect. 

As I mentioned, if I turn off DV and content matching on my Apple TV, it seems to get rid of the pop and returns when I turn it back on. Doing the same on the Xbox does not. 

I think we must all admit that DV having any effect in any setting is strange since it’s not an audio setting to begin with. I think it’s just as likely that whatever bug the Arc has is a subtle interaction in its code and DV happens to only sometimes touch it. Could be something as obscure as where items are in memory on the Arc. Some pointer is dereferenced badly, or a buffer overflows, or a variable is having its type changed wrongly; and it just happens to go into memory where it shouldn’t and whatever DV thing happens to live in that memory either has a popping value in it or it doesn’t.

In other words, I would caution you against taking just your experience (n=1) and generalizing from it what the problem or solution is. We need to find a diagnosis and solution that is replicable across users to solve this puzzle. 

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check with HDMI CEC turned off if the problem persists.  I think it helped me

Userlevel 4
Badge +2

Fairly new sonos user, I've had an arc work flawlessly for two months using Disney plus, Amazon prime video and just standard Freeview viewing. Decided to dust off the old Xbox one s to give it a run out along with enabling dolby Atmos, less than an hour later - pop! I nearly fell off my chair it was so loud. I was convinced with a sound like the there must have been some damage done to the arc. This was followed by silence and I'm sure I saw a flash off orange/red on the top of the arc for a moment. 

I submitted by diagnostic number via the Sonos live chat but apparently all looks good from what they can tell! It seems likes it's working fine again for my usual TV viewing but I will be following the advice from previous contributers to this thread and change the sound to Dolby 5.1 on the Xbox. Although I am reluctant to load up the Xbox for the time being. 

 

 

Sorry to hear this had happened to you. Just another example of why there needs to be a warning issued by Sonos on the Sonos app. If you have an Apple TV or play any source that has Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, your Arc is now permanently damaged thanks to that Xbox. 
 

Please update Sonos on what you experience and how your Arc behaves when playing Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision at the same time. I can’t believe they’re still telling customers, everything looks good on our end…when this is a 2 year old known issue.

They should have at least told you that it is a known issue: but the PR and subsequent loss of sales probably prohibits this.

Userlevel 4
Badge +2
  1. My TV is a Sony 900H. I am away from my TV right now so I can’t look up the exact name of the setting, but I’ve tried on and off for the “bitstream” passthrough setting on the TV. 
     
  2. I use the supplied cables for Xbox and Arc. I’ve also tried switching the Arc cable for an optical HDMI cable, thereby I traducing an additional physical layer signal conversion (electric → optical → electric) to no effect. 

As I mentioned, if I turn off DV and content matching on my Apple TV, it seems to get rid of the pop and returns when I turn it back on. Doing the same on the Xbox does not. 

I think we must all admit that DV having any effect in any setting is strange since it’s not an audio setting to begin with. I think it’s just as likely that whatever bug the Arc has is a subtle interaction in its code and DV happens to only sometimes touch it. Could be something as obscure as where items are in memory on the Arc. Some pointer is dereferenced badly, or a buffer overflows, or a variable is having its type changed wrongly; and it just happens to go into memory where it shouldn’t and whatever DV thing happens to live in that memory either has a popping value in it or it doesn’t.

In other words, I would caution you against taking just your experience (n=1) and generalizing from it what the problem or solution is. We need to find a diagnosis and solution that is replicable across users to solve this puzzle. 

It is Sonos who bears the responsibility, not the customer, to solve this puzzle/issue and warn potential new customers. The only thing we can do is to continue to inform Sonos. The number of the accounts of new customers who experience the exact same problem grows with each passing sale of the Sonos Arc.

We all appreciate your efforts, however accountability and responsibility is what is warranted here. Sonos has yet to warn new customers. And we are all waiting for a solution or at least acknowledgement from Sonos. 
 

The fact that newer customers who have just experienced this issue

-after plugging in an Xbox

-after only just recently purchasing a Sonos Arc to utilize Dolby Atmos

-contacting Sonos Support, issuing a diagnostic number

And the reply from Sonos support is, “everything looks fine on our end”, is outrageous!! No acknowledgment that this is a known issue, no accountability, because Sonos would have to replace all of our Sonos Arcs, and then warn us not to plug in an Xbox going forward.

As I’ve already said in the past. I have not found a single account of another brand’s Dolby Atmos sound bar having this issue with the same parameters. This is a hardware issue, otherwise there would have been a software update correcting this error.

The new, confused, and frustrated customers who still have the option to return their Sonos Arc should do so immediately. And purchase a different brand. That is their only option. 

Userlevel 4
Badge +2

For me it did not help, unfortunately. 10 Minutes in on Xbox got the pop in the menu.

Isn’t it funny how in the past few months, more and more and more and more posts involve an Xbox? How is it that Sonos has not been able to recreate this error on their end? The answer is obvious. 
 

Why they have yet to issue a warning or acknowledge this issue, involves reputation and sales. Which going forward, I will endeavor to warn anyone I know who is eyeing a Sonos Arc, and if they’ve already purchased one to NEVER plug in an Xbox product to the Sonos Arc.

 

Userlevel 3
Badge +3

For me it did not help, unfortunately. 10 Minutes in on Xbox got the pop in the menu.

Isn’t it funny how in the past few months, more and more and more and more posts involve an Xbox? How is it that Sonos has not been able to recreate this error on their end? The answer is obvious. 
 

Why they have yet to issue a warning or acknowledge this issue, involves reputation and sales. Which going forward, I will endeavor to warn anyone I know who is eyeing a Sonos Arc, and if they’ve already purchased one to NEVER plug in an Xbox product to the Sonos Arc.

 

I don’t own an Xbox, and have never changed the hardware configuration of my TV since purchase.

Userlevel 4
Badge +2

For me it did not help, unfortunately. 10 Minutes in on Xbox got the pop in the menu.

Isn’t it funny how in the past few months, more and more and more and more posts involve an Xbox? How is it that Sonos has not been able to recreate this error on their end? The answer is obvious. 
 

Why they have yet to issue a warning or acknowledge this issue, involves reputation and sales. Which going forward, I will endeavor to warn anyone I know who is eyeing a Sonos Arc, and if they’ve already purchased one to NEVER plug in an Xbox product to the Sonos Arc.

 

I don’t own an Xbox, and have never changed the hardware configuration of my TV since purchase.

Please read through this thread I have already addressed others who have this issue who do not have an Xbox.

Userlevel 6
Badge +5

@ilh23mx and everyone: bad news, I have replicated the pop with all voice assistants removed and Compressed Audio set to Uncompressed (and also on auto). 

At first when I removed Alexa and set Compressed Audio to Uncompressed, it took hours of Atmos content for the pop to reappear. I thought we might have a solution! But now that it has happened once, it’s coming back in the usual less than 30 minutes under either setting. 

I completed all testing using Apple TV and did not use my Xbox in between. 

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Has anyone tried disabling hdmi cec?

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I'm now having this problem with a Sonos Beam Gen 2 set up with two surrounds and a sub. Connected to a Phillips OLED856 and it occurs on Netflix and Xbox Series X. I have Atmos turned on but not Dolby Vision. Does CEC stop it from occuring? Are there any drawbacks from turning it off?

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I'm now having this problem with a Sonos Beam Gen 2 set up with two surrounds and a sub. Connected to a Phillips OLED856 and it occurs on Netflix and Xbox Series X. I have Atmos turned on but not Dolby Vision. Does CEC stop it from occuring? Are there any drawbacks from turning it off?

try disabling cec in xbox, it helped me

Hi @Corry P 

I am having the same issue. Sonos Arc, 5.1. Xbox, Sony xh90.

Loud Pop, makes the dog jump. Complete loss of audio.

What is interesting, not sure if you are aware. I can still send the audio signal to other rooms. The audio is fine on play 1 or one sl in kitchen, still off in the living room. 

Spoken to support says the system is fine.  

Diagnostic info : 488565616 

Regards 

Dan 

Makes one wonder if it’s an issue with the signal coming in from the CEC, and not a Sonos problem per se, especially given the reports that it happens on other company’s sound bars as reported up thread. Perhaps something the CEC alliance needs to answer with regards to MAT? That could be why Sonos hasn’t been able to come up with a firm answer….

Userlevel 7
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Hi @Magnesiumion 

That is not completely surprising, but I do not know if it is useful information or not. I shall certainly inform someone though, as it may give more indication as to which stage of the audio reproduction process the issue occurs - thank you.

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This is easy to check.  Connect your xbox, then set the signal input toggle on the button on the pad.  While in the console menu, press this button on the pad several times (the console sends a signal to change the signal input even though the correct input is already selected) and you will immediately hear a loud bang from the sonos speaker

Userlevel 7
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Hi @pawel20k-ce 

Thank you! This may even help us reproduce the issue by ourselves! I’ve passed it on.

Userlevel 1
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Has anyone experienced with this issue with Fire TV Cube (specifically the latest version, though I’m curious if anyone with any generation cube has experienced this)? I ask because I’m considering swapping my Apple TV 4K for a Fire TV Cube and would like to enable Dolby Atmos on the device without have to worry about the sudden pop/fault amp errors! As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’ve had to disable Dolby Atmos on my Xbox Series and Apple TV 4K currently to ensure no popping. Dolby Atmos content coming from the LG C2 directly (i.e. apps running on webOS) have experienced ZERO popping sounds.

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