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.
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.
+18
Hi
We are aware of this behaviour and are investigating it, but we do not have any additional information to share on a resolution at this time.
We are also aware of other manufacturer brands experiencing the same problem. Some users have reported it with in-built TV apps, so it is not limited to X-Box and Apple TV owners.
The issue only happens when playing Atmos content, so in the meantime, you can prevent this from happening by disabling Atmos audio on the TV or source device - not ideal, I know, but if it has happened to you before and you are concerned about it happening again, this step would prevent it.
I hope this helps.
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.
Over a week has passed, I’ve been using Apple TV and Xbox plenty with Atmos on, and there has been no pop. It appears that CEC-off on Xbox plus power cycling all around has solved the problem. It’s a little annoying that I now have to use the TV remote for input switching and power on/off when using Xbox, but that’s OK. More importantly my family can use Apple TV with just its remote and CEC works fine.
I have to add that I am surprised how much better I feel when watching movies and playing games. I didn’t realize just how much stress and frustration pent up from having dropped thousands on a sound system that didn’t work for its advertised purpose and, perhaps worse, where the manufacturer spent years aware of the problem and still hasn’t publicly acknowledged it.
Will I ever buy another Sonos product? I don’t know. But I’ve learned my lesson that it’s more like AliExpress than the reputable brands (Denon, Klipsch, Sennheiser, etc) from which I typically buy.
If I don’t post in this thread again for a while, bon voyage, fellow forumers. I hope your problem is resolved as well. You have been troopers sharing information, replicating, troubleshooting, etc. Yes, there are a few users who tried to throw us off the solution path through persistent gaslighting that the problem didn’t exist or surely couldn’t be Sonos’. But you all hung in there and we’ve made it. You will always have my thanks.
I might as well add my experience here too.
Been using Sonos products for > 10 years.
I have an Arc, with two Play:1s and a sub hooked up to an LG TV via eARC and use the latest 4K AppleTV for all streaming.
This set up has worked flawlessly for ages. Suddenly about 2 weeks ago I started getting intermittent very loud and increasingly frequent electrical sounding bangs and then loss of audio that was only restored with a reboot.
I disabled Atmos on the AppleTV so it only outputs Dolby 5.1 and the bangs have stopped.
Whilst this is a workaround it’s absolutely unacceptable. Why should I settle for suboptimal Dolby 5.1? I paid extra for an Arc (and upgraded my TV to get eARC also) so I could experience the best quality sound.
This is a massive issue and Sonos need to figure this out as a matter of urgency.
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
As a new Sonos user, I thought I would add my voice to the choir concerning the “popping” issue. I had just bought a new Sony TV and an Apple TV for one of my bedrooms and I wanted to add a soundbar. I decided to do some research before dipping my toe into the Sonos ecosystem. I already had a dedicated home theater/game room in my home. This would be just a bedroom TV.
I originally intended to buy a Sonos Arc. Researching the Arc was when I first learned of the popping issue. I certainly believed it was real, but I kept thinking that I’m sure Sonos has sold a ton of soundbars. Maybe I was just reading the comments from a relatively small vocal group that was having an isolated issue. After all, no one is going to complain about how great their soundbar is working.
Ultimately, because of the bedroom size and sound needs, I decided that maybe a Beam Gen 2 would be a better fit. It was also in the back of my mind that most of the popping complaints seems to be from the Arc.
It’s now been about 3 weeks since I bought the Beam Gen 2 from the Sonos website. Setup was a breeze. It sounded good, looked great, and I liked the software. I liked it so much that I ran out and bought a Sonos Amp to power two pre-existing built in speakers as surrounds. The ability to use those speakers via the Amp was another reason I went with Sonos. It all worked great.
Now, here we are, several weeks later, and I’ve had the “pop” happen five times while streaming Atmos content. It’s a loud pop and then the Beam goes dead. The video keeps playing and the Sonos Amp keeps playing the surround sound. If I press pause and then play on the Apple remote then the Beam sound resumes.
I contacted Sonos support. I didn’t really expect a solution. I just wanted to officially log the issue.
After a few questions about my TV model and software version, the tech just came out and said it. It’s a known problem with the Beam 2 and Arc. I appreciate the candor, although I do find it a bit disingenuous of Sonos to sell a premium Atmos soundbar with a known issue whose solution is to disable Atmos. Of course, he said that other manufacturers are also having similar issues with their Atmos soundbars. I don’t know. I haven’t tried them. I guess it’s possible.
He provided a couple of possible solutions. The first was the disable CEC/power cycle idea. The second was the aforementioned, disabling of Atmos. By the way, the Apple TV 4K is the only device connected to this TV. No other device has ever been connected to it. I’m using the Sonos provided HDMI cable connected to the TV’s eARC port. Every device is on Ethernet. Every device has been updated. It’s pretty much a basic setup. Everything works perfectly, except for the popping.
There are so many things that I really do love about the Sonos Beam. I might try disabling Atmos since it’s just a bedroom TV. It’s not like the Beam really produced any noticeable Atmos effect anyway. If I’m satisfied with the non-Atmos sound then I’ll probably just keep it.
Having said that, if I were looking to build an “Atmos” home theater system, then I don’t think I would go with current Sonos Atmos soundbars. This is just my experience and opinion. Your milage may vary.
If you're experiencing a loud pop followed by audio loss on your Sonos Arc soundbar, it could be due to a few different factors. Here are some troubleshooting steps you can try:
1. Ensure the Sonos Arc is properly connected: Check that all cables are securely plugged into their respective ports, both on the soundbar and the TV or audio source.
2. Check the audio source: Verify that the audio source (TV, streaming device, etc.) is set to output audio to the Sonos Arc. Check the audio settings on your device and ensure it is correctly configured to send audio to the soundbar.
3. Restart the Sonos system: Power off the Sonos Arc and any other Sonos components you have, including the Sonos app. Wait a few seconds, then power them back on. This can help resolve temporary software or connectivity issues.
4. Update Sonos software: Ensure that your Sonos system is running the latest software version. Open the Sonos app on your mobile device or computer, go to Settings, and check for any available updates.
5. Reset the Sonos Arc: If the issue persists, you can try performing a factory reset on the Sonos Arc. Keep in mind that this will erase any custom settings or configurations you have made on the soundbar.
6. Contact Sonos support: If none of the above steps resolve the issue, it's recommended to reach out to Sonos customer support for further assistance. They can provide specific troubleshooting guidance or determine if there may be a hardware issue with your Sonos Arc that needs to be addressed.
Remember to consult the Sonos user manual or support resources for detailed instructions specific to your model and setup.
Regards;
David Johson.
Man really? Are you a bot? Have you actually read this thread? Do you really think this post added any value to this conversation at all?
I emailed the CEO and one of the escalation team picked it up. Unfortunately the response was not great.
============================
Hey Yusuf,
Thank you for taking the time to reach out. My name is Justin, I’m a member of the Escalation Team here at Sonos Support.
Your initial email has been shared with our CEO. Patrick, however, cannot reply to all the contacts he receives, and as such a case was created in our customer care system and escalated to a Senior Technician to address your feedback.
I understand you’re experiencing troubles with loud pops with Dolby Atmos, I’ll be more than happy to take ownership of your case and see you through to a resolution.
I completely understand how frustrating it is when you face issues for a longer period and it's still not fixed. We are aware that this takes a while, but let me assure you that other soundbar manufacturers are facing the same issues as we do. There are multiple TV brands and models known for this issue, and we are all working together to get the issue resolved but when it finally will be resolved is still unknown.
The only workaround at the moment is indeed to use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead of Atmos, and I know that Atmos is way nicer to experience, but with DD 5.1 you will not hear the pops.
If you are able to reproduce the issue consistently, are you willing to help us garner more information about the root cause? If you are interested in this I will escalate your case to our higher technical department and they will reach out to you for more information.
Looking forward to your reply.
With best regards,
Justin
Sonos | Escalation Team | Contact Us
Ask questions, find answers, and share your thoughts on the Sonos Community.
============================
No timescale as to when this will be fixed, kinda saying well it’s affecting everyone, and can you help us so this takes more time….
Genuine question, how hard can it be for the Sonos team to Get an AppleTV, hook it up with an Arc and play some atmos content? Surely this cannot take a year. Why should the consumers risk damaging their Arcs with pops when Sonos probably have a few test ones lying around that can provide a far more verbose diagnostic output. Also sad they’re saying this affects multiple TV’s and brands when it’s well documented the common denominator is the ATV4K and or XBox. Sad.
Can more people email the ceo too so more cases get escalated perhaps?
This is one involving LG soundbar making ‘horrendous’ popping noise…
It seems to me to have been going on for a while - so I (still) wonder if it’s a codec problem?
Hi Ken, I cannot see anything recent on other soundbars whereas you can find lots of reports on the Arc. When this first happened on mine it was a really loud bang so not crackling/popping.
I emailed the CEO and one of the escalation team picked it up. Unfortunately the response was not great.
============================
Hey Yusuf,
Thank you for taking the time to reach out. My name is Justin, I’m a member of the Escalation Team here at Sonos Support.
Your initial email has been shared with our CEO. Patrick, however, cannot reply to all the contacts he receives, and as such a case was created in our customer care system and escalated to a Senior Technician to address your feedback.
I understand you’re experiencing troubles with loud pops with Dolby Atmos, I’ll be more than happy to take ownership of your case and see you through to a resolution.
I completely understand how frustrating it is when you face issues for a longer period and it's still not fixed. We are aware that this takes a while, but let me assure you that other soundbar manufacturers are facing the same issues as we do. There are multiple TV brands and models known for this issue, and we are all working together to get the issue resolved but when it finally will be resolved is still unknown.
The only workaround at the moment is indeed to use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead of Atmos, and I know that Atmos is way nicer to experience, but with DD 5.1 you will not hear the pops.
If you are able to reproduce the issue consistently, are you willing to help us garner more information about the root cause? If you are interested in this I will escalate your case to our higher technical department and they will reach out to you for more information.
Looking forward to your reply.
With best regards,
Justin
Sonos | Escalation Team | Contact Us
Ask questions, find answers, and share your thoughts on the Sonos Community.
============================
No timescale as to when this will be fixed, kinda saying well it’s affecting everyone, and can you help us so this takes more time….
Genuine question, how hard can it be for the Sonos team to Get an AppleTV, hook it up with an Arc and play some atmos content? Surely this cannot take a year. Why should the consumers risk damaging their Arcs with pops when Sonos probably have a few test ones lying around that can provide a far more verbose diagnostic output. Also sad they’re saying this affects multiple TV’s and brands when it’s well documented the common denominator is the ATV4K and or XBox. Sad.
Can more people email the ceo too so more cases get escalated perhaps?
This is absolutely crazy. Sonos is trying to say that this is an industry-wide issue that’s plaguing other sound bar manufacturers, too. That’s a real “pass the buck” kind of response. I certainly haven’t seen these issues mentioned on forums for other manufacturers sound bars (and I’ve read a lot the last several months researching high end/premium sound systems).
In addition, the whole thing simply makes NO sense. Sonos is attempting to lay the blame elsewhere, with the statement about other sound bar manufacturers. But that would mean they are blaming Dolby themselves for having two incompatible technologies. So, now, they are just saying one can’t use Dolby Vision with DOLBY Atmos? I’m shocked. It’s bad enough that the full Arc/surround setup remains 5.1.2 and not 7.1.2 but now, you can’t even get full Atmos support and are limited to just 5.1. This shatters any hope I once had for Sonos enabling DTS:X support.
I have a Sonos setup for our bedroom that we’ve temporarily used in our main living area to try out. We were planning on moving that back to the bedroom and upgrading to a full Sonos setup with Arc, Sub, and surrounds. But with it taking 3 months for them to fix the recent firmware debacle (a problem they created by forcing the profile/sound change without warning & breaking TruePlay w/Sub) and seeing that this Dolby Vision/Atmos issue has been going on for more than a year now with no resolution, I’m seriously rethinking investing so much with Sonos. I also can’t believe they are having their customer base do their testing. As other members have said, why can’t Sonos test this out with an AppleTV?
Disappointed.
As you probably know, I have, many times. For a long time they didn’t acknowledge the problem, made me go through very time consuming steps like buying other HDMI cables (and I was using what came with the hardware!) as well as factory resets and building the system back up. They also wanted video taping of the problem occurring as proof. Now, they have been at the “we are looking into it” stage for 6+ months. That’s it. That’s all direct support is doing.
I respect that you are a superfan that wants to defend Sonos. But there are real customers who have been affected for a year+ and we are not even getting communication.
We’ve had a few people chime in with nothing-plugged-in, native TV app pops in this thread. Common factor appears to be that those TVs use Dolby MAT Atmos. I suspect the Apple TV and Xbox get so much attention because they are hugely popular devices.
I have not seen any evidence of any other manufacturer having the pop. Any links that have been posted so far may have had users use words such as “pop” or “crackle”. But when you chase it down, it’s completely different. There might be a rhythmic clicking in the background, or static. It also affects very few users; probably specifically defective units, bad cables, etc.
I have not seen any other brand that has a loud bang that cuts out audio reproducibly, and where the problem seems to be specific to Atmos.
The two Home Theater Control settings for Apple TV and then the one master on/off for CEC on Xbox.
Has anyone tested the Apple TV 4K 3rd-gen with this issue yet? Thinking about picking one up today or tomorrow to see if the issue exists with that combination of hardware, I did try a bunch of config changes to my setup and had the pop happen within 30 minutes again
I picked up an Apple TV 4k (3rd Generation), this issue still exists with it.
+18
Hi
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.
Upgraded from a playbar to Arc a couple of weeks back. LG C1 and an Xbox one X. Had popping a number of times now.
Previously zero issues before the Arc. This must be a sonos Atmos issue.
Have they even acknowledged this as a bug? Not really acceptable for any product, let alone one that costs this much.
Sonos?
What is being done about this?
Still not one single word from the Sonos rep ?
I have this happen multiple times a day, its been happening for at least a year and I search for a solution every few months to find there is still no solution. I have a 900H with the Arc plugged into eARC, I watch content exclusively on Apple TV 4K (2nd Gen). We frequently watch Disney+ content which has a ton of Atmos content available, we can rarely make it through a single piece of media without the pop and sound cut out at some point, if we back out of the video playing and hit play again the sound comes back.
Many topics exist related to this, the issue should be escalated to the product team instead of telling people to file individual support tickets.
This is one involving LG soundbar making ‘horrendous’ popping noise…
It seems to me to have been going on for a while - so I (still) wonder if it’s a codec problem?
Hi Ken, I cannot see anything recent on other soundbars whereas you can find lots of reports on the Arc. When this first happened on mine it was a really loud bang so not crackling/popping.
It’s not a topic that I’ve greatly researched personally, so forgive me, but I know the ‘popping’ sound on soundbars has been around for a while, and it was (is?) affecting other manufacturers products too - I assume everyone switched to Sonos at the time the issue was first encountered ..ha ha 😂 (just joking of course).
I haven’t gone looking/found recent reports, but will post here if I come across any, but I was merely mentioning that this ‘popping’ sound has been around a while - whether that be loud, or otherwise, on manufacturers soundbars and in that other thread I linked to earlier, it shows Sonos Staff are aware and mentioned other brands were affected with the same/similar issue and so were investigating.
It was the case that someone earlier in the thread here, was inferring Staff had not commented and didn’t mention that other brands were having the same issue. That’s why I made mention of that other thread and Staff comment.
Also I jumped in here to say that it may not be a Dolby Vision issue, as I use that video format often with my TV, but when most (maybe not all) people seem to encounter the ‘popping’ sound, they are/have mostly been using the MC LPCM codec playing Atmos audio from either an Xbox, Apple TV 4K or similar device, so if that is ‘perhaps’ widely connected to the ‘popping’ sound and a possible culprit here, it makes more sense to me to switch off MC LPCM transcoding and switch (if possible) to using DD+ (Atmos) instead or Dolby True HD (Atmos), as I’ve not ‘yet’ seen a report of those codecs causing the ‘popping’ sound. I use those codecs almost every day with an Arc, or Beam (gen2) and not seen an issue so far and I’ve had both products since they were first released.
That's not to say that this matter should not be fixed of course, by whoever is responsible, (it may or may not be on Sonos to fix this), but at least see if not using MC LPCM becomes one way to avoid the issue until the matter is ‘perhaps’ resolved.
I agree this might be a codec issue, however I have tried to look for articles of other sound bars from other manufacturers, however I have not been able to find this issue with the same mitigating factors.
As of now I do not see a correlation. As you mentioned in jest, other sound bars may have had popping issues and Sonos came out with the Arc and then people jumped to buy a new product that supposedly is superior without that problem.
I gave up my 7.1 traditional sound system for minimalistic ideals. My point is, when a company is establishing a reputation, releases and advertises a product that has been sold to a consumer, and the product has been found by the customer to have a defect.
That company has the responsibility to address the issue and provide a solution in a timely manner. Two years is more than enough time to address the issue.
What’s so strange about the CEC fix is that it works for those of us with an Xbox. Turn it off on the Xbox, and now everything is good even with CEC-on on the TV and Apple TV.
But then there are others with the bang that don’t have an Xbox, or even an Apple TV! I hope support has a nice spreadsheet going of all affected customers and the totality of their equipment (TVs and source devices) so that they can run cross-tabs on whether combinations of equipment produce the bug on Sonos. And then only one of the affected devices would need to go CEC-off.
Plus that would make for the best possible FAQ on the product pages. E.g. “Be advised that this product has a compatibility issue with Apple TV and Xbox being used in combination. CEC will have to be deactivated on one of those devices.” Or something along those lines.
Hi
Thank you! I have found your related case number and passed it directly to an engineer. You should hear from them soon.
Hi
FYI, I have not yet been contacted by Sonos. I continue to be interested in providing replication data in devmode.
Hi
Thank you! I have found your related case number and passed it directly to an engineer. You should hear from them soon.
Thank you
FYI, if you have an Xbox Series X the best way to replicate the pop issue is by switching between a Dolby Atmos enabled game and the Xbox Dashboard constantly. It should trigger the pop after a few attempts.
also thanks
With all due respect, have you tried lately? I called (again) in early October and was told by a very nice operator to ‘change my cables.’ Something Sonos Support told me to do 10 months ago when this first started for me. Something I did even though I knew my cables were up to date. Just more money I wasted.
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