Hi @Manx John 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

To be clear, are we talking about the Arc’s microphone, or does the TV have one too? Also, when you say the audio drops, do you mean it stops entirely, or does it go down in volume for a few seconds, as it would when listening to you (which is called ducking)?

An Arc has no way of playing a music video - presumably, that’s whatever the TV was tuned into. While the Arc can turn the TV on, it would only do so with a voice command. What other devices are connected to your TV? Any one of them could have turned it on. One way to prevent this would be simply to tell the TV not to power-on with HDMI devices. 

Cory thank you for your reply!

Which confirms Sonos after sales attitude, your problem not ours,

Hi @Manx John 

When your problem is to do with Sonos equipment, then it’s our problem too.

I appreciate that you must be frustrated, but if a unit is to be replaced, we have to make sure that the replacement will actually help - i.e. confirm that the unit is faulty. Sometimes, we can only do this by trying various fixes. I for one have never heard of a Sonos product only stuttering TV audio while the microphone is active, so while I have to therefore presume it’s a coincidence, I certainly won’t dismiss it altogether.

The single most effective fix for TV audio interruptions/stuttering is to unplug the TV from power for a full minute - have you tried this? Please do so if not.

Looking at your case, I see that the last advice given was to try a factory reset - did you try this? Please be aware that as you would be resetting your only Sonos product, all favourites and playlists created within the Sonos app will be erased.

If the TV ever turns on automatically again, please submit a diagnostic as soon as you can, note the number given and, when convenient, reply here with it. I’ll look to see if the command to turn on the TV came from the Arc (all HDMI CEC messages are logged). We should be able to get a definitive answer for you easily enough.

I’ll add this thread to your case’s notes so any future agents you speak to will be in-the-loop. Although your case is currently closed, just getting back in touch by emailing (replying to your last email from our technical support) or calling and quoting the case number will reopen it.

I hope this helps.

I have tried all suggestions with the exception of the factory reset which I will do, I am not looking for a replacement I am more than satisfied with the unit but I can assure you that the problem only occurs when the “Arc” microphone is switched on. Therefore I switch the microphone off and also would add that a service engineer from the retailer who installed both the tv and soundbar has called and turned off the e arc in settings and unplugged and re connected the equipment. However  this did not resolve the problem but he said they could not test the unit at their workshop as they were not Sonos approved service agents.

The one thing we agree on is it would be be pointless replacing a unit that I am more than happy with only to find the same problem occurred with a new one but it is disappointing when it does not function fully. I will inform you whether the factory reset solves the issue or not.