Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

Hey guys I have received back an email from Sonos Level 3 support team . It looks like they have more info about the POP and sounded promising . Will keep you guys updated soon once I receive more info from them 

Moderator edit: removed case number from picture

I’m certain it was Sonos good will and had nothing to do with The Verge putting them on blast by advising no one to support their products until there is a fix. 
 

On a side note I installed a full Arc+Sub+Era 300 system for a client yesterday. He loved it but I showed him the Verge video where he demonstrates the bang and he was startled. He was actually considering returning everything but I told him to wait up and let’s see how this progresses during his return window. 

Side note, anyone else find it frustrating that mods are clearly looking at this thread and taking the time to do things like manually blur out case numbers in screenshots and censor naughty words but they’ve basically gone radio silent otherwise?

Like, look at the beginning of the thread and we have responses from @Corry P on every page and now?  It’s been like two months since we’ve gotten a response.

In light of the articles that have come out it sure would be nice to know if Sonos has anything to say to us, the customers affected by the issue.

Hey guys I have received back an email from Sonos Level 3 support team . It looks like they have more info about the POP and sounded promising . Will keep you guys updated soon once I receive more info from them 

 

Moderator edit: removed case number from picture

I hope this is leading up to the solution we’ve all been waiting for. Fingers crossed 🤞 

Happened to me as well on my Arc. It is reproducible for me. When I run steam in Big Picture mode and start a game, it pops.

LG G2 TV via eArc

If @Paul Tsang ‘s conversation with support is anything to go off of, it’s probably going to be a few more patch cycles before we can expect to really see anything at all.

For what it’s worth, current notes are just “bug fixes and enhancements”.

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/release-notes-for-sonos-s2

My Decade-Long Advocacy for Sonos Comes to an End…

I’ve been a Sonos advocate since 2010, a relationship that lasted longer than most Hollywood marriages. Over the years, I've filled nearly every room in my home with Sonos speakers, singing the brand's praises to friends and family who then also took the plunge into this wireless speaker ecosystem. My faith was so unwavering that I even invested in Sonos by purchasing a significant number of shares in the company. But, much like any relationship that ends bitterly, my story with Sonos has reached an unfortunate climax.

In 2021, I decided to up the ante by converting my home cinema into a Sonos sanctuary. My set-up included a Sonos Arc, Ones, and not one but two Subs. The vision was cinematic audio bliss. However, the reality has been far from it.

For the last two years, my movie-watching experience has been marred by an incessant, loud popping sound emanating from the Sonos system. To put it mildly, it's been a pain. It’s like having an uninvited guest in your home that not only interrupts your movie but yells in your ear while doing so. 

What adds salt to the wound is the customer support experience. I contacted Sonos support three times, hoping for a resolution. Each time, I was met with the blame being shifted onto my TV or some other random piece of equipment. Following their suggestions, I replaced my TV and even my Apple TV, but to no avail. 

The only “solution” has been to disable CEC and Atmos features—two of the main reasons I invested in the system in the first place. This is the equivalent of buying a sports car only to find out it can’t go above 30 mph.

I reached out to Sonos one last time, asking for either a replacement or a refund. As you might have guessed, both requests were met with a hard no. At this point, it became clear: Sonos had their chances and they've lost a once-devoted advocate.

So, I’ve made a painful decision. I’m selling all my Sonos equipment and even offloading my shares in the company. My decade-long advocacy for Sonos has come to an abrupt and disappointing end. As I transition to another system, one thing remains crystal clear: no brand, no matter how much nostalgia or trust it has built up, can rest on its laurels indefinitely. Sometimes, you just have to know when to move on.

I have had this happening for the last month. Getting a little old. I love the Arc but may have to hook up the Beam Gen 2 if this problem persists or drop Sonos all together and move on.

Sorry to hear you’re affected. The workarounds that work for some: try turning off CEC or Dolby Vision. If that doesn’t work, you have to turn off Atmos. 
 

Sonos says that Sonos Pop does not harm the speakers.

Would be great to have this resolved. ARC popping on the Xbox series x, Lg C2 is becoming more frequent. I think. 

Experienced that "pop" for the first time last night playing FIFA23 on my XBox X...An hour later had my second experience... All seemed to be normal after I repowered the ARC

A possible solution to this Arc pop problem for some or maybe many?

No AppleTV or Xbox involved but this solved the “Arc pop and then no sound” for me.

Yesterday, hooked up brand new set of Arc with two 300s as surrounds: ethernet-connected Arc and 300s wifi connected. Did not go through the full setup steps but simply used the S2 app to get them grouped together as Arc + Surround in “one room” and played some music & television, saving steps like Trueplay for later due to some noise in the environment that could not be cleared for a few hours. All sounded great for those couple of hours.

Connection was over HDMI eArc from a television. User uses apps on a mid-brand smart TV to watch streaming content. Not knowing about this thread, I went into the TV menus to be sure eARC was “on” and spatial audio was “on” in the S2 app. Again, all sounded great. 

Then, as a potential last step in the basic setup process when the environmental noise was quieted, I ran Trueplay. I’ve done this on other Sonos systems and never had any issue. However, immediately after completing Trueplay, the ARC made the pop-pop-pop sounds described in this thread whether playing Sonos Radio music or watching anything on TV. Light would flash orange. Sound would completely cease on Arc but still play in the two 300s. So Arc wasn’t dead, but seemingly in duress or potentially damaged.

I didn’t know this was widespread issue, so I did the obvious thing: unplug Arc, wait about 2 minutes, plug it back in. Pop-pop-pop. I tried this a couple of times with more time unplugged but all efforts led back to Pops and then either low sound or no sound performance of Arc (but still normal sound from the 300s). 

The whole setup had been purchased from a local retailer and time to close was approaching fast. Without the time to discover a thread like this or even seek help from Sonos Customer Service, we assumed speaker blew and tried to go swap it for another Arc. Store was closed, so the exchange got delayed to today. 

Last night, looking for any other solution, I found this thread (and many others) and was very disappointed to see how widespread the problem appears to be… and that it is getting blamed on AppleTV & Xbox (neither applying in this setup) and/or getting remedy advice like turn off CEC and/or Spatial. Digesting all of that, I thought through cause & effect: what did I do just before the popping started? Trueplay setup. All was fine for maybe 2 hours before that step.

So before swapping, I decided to turn off Trueplay in S2 app and give it another try: Pop-Pop-Pop. So then I unplugged Arc, waited a few minutes, reset to factory, and then added it back to the system to get it and 300s connected again. 

Put on some music and all sounded great. Left it playing for a couple of hours just in case perhaps temps/time had something to do with this problem. Nope. Tried television with eArc “on” and spatial “on” in the app: all just fine. Did some manual fine tuning in EQ, loudness of surrounds, height volume, bass & treble etc (things I would expect Trueplay to do) and then more testing, including with spatial audio. All just fine. It sounds as great as some of us know Arc and surrounds can sound. 

It’s been playing all day- mixes of music and television- with no issues. All other variables are as they were when I was getting the “Pop” issue EXCEPT- and this is key- this time I didn’t run Trueplay at all. 

While just a single case scenario, this makes me suspect that Trueplay is a good candidate to be the source of the issue. In the step-by-step setup process in S2, Trueplay is just one of the steps. I suspect many people just execute the steps. If so- if they just run Trueplay as recommended- perhaps that’s what triggers the issue?

I’ve had my own Arc + Move set for a few years and have Trueplayed it several times with no “pops.” I was tempted to run Trueplay again on this new setup to see if this hypothesis would repeat but I didn’t want to “mess it up” if that single variable was the cause (as it strongly seems to me through this- albeit- single sample).

If some of you got the “pops” issues AFTER running Trueplay, consider testing this hypothesis by resetting the popping speaker to factory, setting it back up again, but BYPASSING the Trueplay step. Maybe you’ll either just be lucky as this one may have been for me or maybe this will narrow this issue in on running Trueplay… which would give Sonos a more specific area on which to focus than apparently thinking the issue is OUTSIDE of Sonos products. 

Perhaps this has already been discovered and disproved earlier in the 42 pages of this or other threads- I didn’t read it all- but I share all this to hopefully help some of you who might just follow the recommended steps and thus crash into this problem. If some of you “fix” it by this method, let Sonos know and perhaps they can pound through the Trueplay code to find what may be the bug(s) that may be driving this issue for some or many (or maybe all???) of us. It’s easy enough to try.

I hope this helps some of you. I’m glad it did the trick for this new system.