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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Userlevel 4
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Ridiculous. As I’ve said before it’s time to switch. And never look back.

Switch to what? …It happens on other makes of soundbar too, by all accounts.. I would rather ditch the Xbox or Apple TV 4K, but I’m happy to use DD5.1 anyway, personally speaking, until the matter is resolved. I still think the issue lies with the Mc LPCM codec, but that’s just a guess on my part.

As I’ve already said again, please read through this thread, I’ve already mentioned twice what I would switch to. 

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I’ve been running an Arc w/Sub since April while connected to an Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch OLED, PS5 and an Apple TV 4K. Of course, I don’t always have Atmos content playing but when I do I never had any issues. Upon booting Forza Horizon 5 up on my Sony A80J OLED this week my Arc made that loud banging noise followed by an orange light. The light eventually turned white but no audio came from the Arc. I unplugged it and once it booted back up it worked fine but I did disable Atmos on my Xbox and Apple TV. 
 

Hopefully there’s a fix soon because Atmos is a major selling point here. I am a home theater installer and am quite surprised that this has been happening for 2 years (based on this thread) as none of my clients (nor myself) have experienced or at least mentioned this (until now). 
 

I also have a Beam in my bedroom on an A80J but as with the Arc setup I haven’t had any issues with the Apple TV setup yet. 

Userlevel 6
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Welcome to the club @KrylonBlue. We are all hoping to get Atmos back. 

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@ProfessorFrag I hope you don’t mind me asking you, but seeing you have the same TV I have, could you tell me which Digital Audio Out you use on your Sony for the Arc with Apple TV 4K set up? Auto 1, Auto 2 or PCM. I currently use Auto 1. Any advice is appreciated. 

 

Userlevel 6
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Auto 1.

 

Auto 2 and PCM you can think of as compatibility options that change some or all audio to PCM.

Userlevel 3
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Auto 1.

 

Auto 2 and PCM you can think of as compatibility options that change some or all audio to PCM.

Great! Thanks a lot and thank you very much for all you are doing to help with the popping issue. 

Been using different Sonos speakers for almost 10 years now and couple months ago bough Arc. Today was the day when I first time had this issue with LG TV. I don’t have XBox or Apple TV connected, Arc connected directly to TV over HDMI
 

Here’s a video showing how it sounded. My son was watching Netflix and this happened. My wife thought it’s going to burn whole house, panicked and called me.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bhp8e455jqqkb1g/Video%20Jan%2013%202023%2C%2018%2056%2041.mov?dl=0

If someone could please confirm that this is same sounds that you guys hearing.

 

Submitted diagnostic 236163412

 

to be honest this is crazy that this is still ongoing for devices that sold years after first reports of this issue and software hasn’t fixed yet

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no not the same i had a loud bang.  yours looks like something else

Userlevel 4
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no not the same i had a loud bang.  yours looks like something else

Actually, I believe it’s the same issue. It’s not uncommon for something like this to display different variations of noises. I heard the same thing as this video showed from mine when Atmos activated once I booted up Forza Horizon 5. 

Userlevel 1

Hi all - first time poster. I, too, am getting loud pop/crackles with audio disconnect on my new Arc (got it right before Christmas). Running content through an Apple TV 4k and paired with a sub 3. Suuuuuper bummed to see this many issues with no resolution. 

 

Diagnostic case: 1892845096

Userlevel 6
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@Corry P could we get an update? Does Sonos foresee that we will be able to reenable Atmos on Apple TV?

About a month ago I worked with you to get some devmode capture of the pop as produced with Apple Tv and Xbox. Both when playing sound and also when the Apple TV was just on screensaver.

After being without Atmos for more than a year, and with Apple releasing its new HomePods today, I have to figure out for myself if it’s time to go through the pain of selling my Sonos system and changing horses so that I can have Atmos back. No hard feelings, it is what it is.

Userlevel 7
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Hi @ProfessorFrag 

I appreciate that you want an update - I would too - but I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you, other than that we are still actively investigating.

Userlevel 6
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Thanks, dude. I’m just frustrated. I’ll try to hang to hang in there a little longer. 

When it works, it really does sound great.

So I’ve been following this thread for a while I got my arc on Black Friday and experienced the popping noise whilst playing my Xbox on the first day. After reading this thread I disabled Dolby vision as suggested by a poster. Since doing so I haven’t had a pop. This might just be luck and it’s a shame to have to sacrifice having nicer visuals for the sake of preserving the soundbar. Let’s hope there’s an update soon. 

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So I’ve been following this thread for a while I got my arc on Black Friday and experienced the popping noise whilst playing my Xbox on the first day. After reading this thread I disabled Dolby vision as suggested by a poster. Since doing so I haven’t had a pop. This might just be luck and it’s a shame to have to sacrifice having nicer visuals for the sake of preserving the soundbar. Let’s hope there’s an update soon. 

Unfortunately not working for me, I always have DV disable and issue occurs… so no other option than change to 5.1 DTS, very very poor sound experience specially with XBOX (Forza, Halo, etc)

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Hi @ProfessorFrag 

I appreciate that you want an update - I would too - but I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you, other than that we are still actively investigating.

Maybe difficult to say from your side, but at least could you confirm issue was able to reproduce during you investigation? Maybe root cause and countermeasure still not defined, but at least is a good starting point.

If so, have you notice any damage to any part of hardware? Specially speakers…

What’s your expert recommendation? Turn off ATMOS output in any device connected through TV to SONOS ARC?

Honestly I think we need a Statement from SONOS at least in the meantime you find a solution, otherwise we will damage our equipment and of course we will eventually claim for a replacement.

Userlevel 7
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Hi @ilh23mx 

As far as I know, there has been progress but I’ve nothing new to share right now. But I can say that we have yet to see evidence that these pops have caused any harm to the hardware. If you do think that a pop has caused harm to your product, please contact support directly to have it looked at. 

One thing to note if you suspect damage - if a speaker has been damaged, you should consistently see failures when attempting to Trueplay the device. Background noise, for example, is still a factor but if damaged, it would fail under perfect conditions.

I hope this helps.

Hi @ilh23mx 

As far as I know, there has been progress but I’ve nothing new to share right now. But I can say that we have yet to see evidence that these pops have caused any harm to the hardware. If you do think that a pop has caused harm to your product, please contact support directly to have it looked at. 

One thing to note if you suspect damage - if a speaker has been damaged, you should consistently see failures when attempting to Trueplay the device. Background noise, for example, is still a factor but if damaged, it would fail under perfect conditions.

I hope this helps.

Hi @Corry P,

I am someone who has spent about $10k on Sonos since August 2022 and sold my entire Bose system equivalent. I am starting to think I made the wrong choice…at least on the home theater side. For over 2 years Sonos has ignored this thread just until recently. Don’t you think this is unacceptable? And sharing vague comments about progress also feels like it’s not good progress…can you say if it is either good progress or bad progress? What will Sonos do if they can’t fix the issue with software? I think a 25-26 page thread on your support community is grounds for a class action lawsuit that Sonos probably doesn’t want and neither do we. But we are the suckers here waiting. I feel really really bad for the Sonos owners who have suffered this insanity for the full duration of the issue. Please give us something more…like potential timelines or what Sonos will do if they can’t fix it. We all know you can reproduce this issue at will now. 

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Hi @ilh23mx 

As far as I know, there has been progress but I’ve nothing new to share right now. But I can say that we have yet to see evidence that these pops have caused any harm to the hardware. If you do think that a pop has caused harm to your product, please contact support directly to have it looked at. 

One thing to note if you suspect damage - if a speaker has been damaged, you should consistently see failures when attempting to Trueplay the device. Background noise, for example, is still a factor but if damaged, it would fail under perfect conditions.

I hope this helps.

While it’s nice to know that our equipment will likely not be damaged after these pops, a real firmware update would be even better. I signed up to take part in the beta channel, assuming this would gain faster access to updates but nothing so far. This has been very disappointing…

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We were watching a show through our Fios box and had the loud pop with the loss of sound until it had power cycled. I’m very worried about damage it may have caused. We just got this for ourselves as a Christmas gift, so it has only been used for less than 4 weeks. Any progress on a fix.

Wow, this is concerning.  New Sonos owner here.  Got an Arc in mid-December, just received a new Sub 3 yesterday, not yet out of the box.  No issues yet, but now I’m thinking about returning the whole kit while I still can.

 

I was willing to pay the large Sonos premium for the ease of use and high quality, but now I’m questioning my choices.  Insane to me that Sonos has not yet given a detailed statement, much less fixed it.  Saw this as a link from the Reddit forum and one of the moderators is affected.  

 

If you’re giving your biggest fans and buyers the run-around, you should re-think your strategy Sonos.

I’ve had a similar issue since day one of owning the arc(shortly after the launch). Only on my Apple TV when watching with atmos content my audio will just drop out for a few seconds about every 20 minutes. Doesn’t happen on other devices just with the Apple TV. I have used both the original Apple TV 4K and the new one and had the same issue with atmos content. I’ve used different cables and nothing. Haven’t found a fix other than just watching it on another device to still experience atmos audio. 

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Diagnostic 427286041

 

Just tried again after the tvOS 16.3 update that supposedly improved Atmos.  Still loud bang and audio gone.  It REALLY sucks because when I turned Atmos on for the first time in almost a year it sounded so good...and then I was reminded why I had to turn it off 🤬

I’ve had an arc for just over a year and it started doing the loud bang today. Using a PC with atmos through LG TV connected to arc

Userlevel 6
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Looking at the thread on the Sonos subreddit, I'm surprised to see so many users who had the bang once or twice and it went away; or who have configurations identical to ours but no problems.

Could this be just specific Arcs malfunctioning? Has anybody had their unit exchanged and the problem came back?

If this were as straightforward as "we need new units", that would blow my mind.

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