Sonos beam gen 2 issues

I am having the same problem with my Beam Gen 2….loud pops while music is playing from my Apple TV 4K hooked up via HDMI to my Sony TV which is hooked up to my Beam Gen 2 via eARC. Hugely disappointing.

@SLO hombre Have you contacted Sonos (as asked above)?

@106rallye No - they dont have weekend hours. Will do so during the week.

I want to encourage everybody having this problem to go to social media and/or the review boards of where they purchased this product and let other potential users know of this problem. Between the ARC and Beam Gen 2 there are hundreds of users on here complaining about this problem and nothing helpful from Sonos.

Maybe after Sonos sees their product being accurately represented in a negative light, we will get some attention and get this fixed.

Sorry to say, my first sonos purchase has gone back to Costco. I found that the Beam Gen 2, had three issues, and I do not have the patience to deal with a foreign call centre to have them fixed. 

It took me three days to get the Beam to work with the help of their high level tech support. Everyone that I dealt with really knew their stuff.

First was the jack hammer or machine gun out of the blue in and the middle of the news or program

Second was the google commands that the Gen two did not recognize and

Third was the gen dropping the sound when watching a show. 

That was the final straw for me. Just too much to deal with, so I bought a dumb sound bar with a woofer. That should be enough for my setup.

Adios and Merry Christmas to all!

And to sonos… Good night!

I've just had this same issue for a second a time in  approximately 20 days, so not occurring often. I called customer service and they told me to do a hard reset. Because I didn't have a video or was unable to submit a diagnostic before the speaker automatically reset itself, there was nothing they could do. They can't do anything for me even though it is under warranty.  Unfortunately it's past my 30 days to return the product to pc richards and son. So looks like they know this is an issue and won't do anything to fix it, even with the product under warranty. 

I had the jackhammer/machinegun noise issue happen to me on the first day I got the beam 2. When it got delivered I set it up right away and updated it. Linked my Youtube music account to the Sonos app and tested it out. The first half hour was pretty good, then the volume went from 3 to 10 and it started making the noise. My wife and dog were in the room with the beam 2 at the time. My dog panicked and my wife didn’t know how to turn it off, she was about to smash the thing. I thought it was just a glitch or error, so I did a factory reset.  

During the weekend we were watching Youtube on the TV with the beam 2 and it did something similar. Volume went from 4 to 10 but this time a very loud static noise was coming from the beam. By this time I got the rest of the system ( 2 ones and sub) come in and set up. The rest of the speakers didn’t have this issue, it was just the beam 2. I did another factory reset just to make sure everything was setup properly. It didn’t work. I had about 7 to 8 reoccurrences with the jackhammer/machinegun noise and the static noise.  

First day I contacted support their system was down so not much they could do. Second day, the first person I talked to told me that my system was working perfectly. I summitted a diagnostic. He told me I had excellent wifi connection but with a bit of interference. None of the diagnostics will tell them anything since the jackhammer/machinegun or the static issue won’t let you submit a diagnostic and keep giving you a try again error. I assume the beam 2 freezes up during this time and restarts itself. They told me to change my wifi channel to remedy some of the interference and see if the problem comes up again. I changed the channel and restarted my wifi. I played Youtube Music at 2, then 20 to 30 minutes later machine guns blaring out in my living room. I took a video of it this time. Called customer service again, and told me to run another diagnostic. Basically all the same information as the first person. Told me to reset the wifi and if it happens again to take a video of it. If it did happen again they would send out a replacement. Told them I had a video but it wouldn’t count since they have to go through a troubleshooting procedure. Its understandable so I agreed. I reset the wifi and 4 hours later I finally got the video. I managed to recreate it a couple of times, but my camera app wouldn’t open and the beam 2 restarted itself before I could record another video. Called customer service again and sent them the video. They were about to tell me to do another factory reset then recreate the problem again but I got a little bit upset with them. Told them I already did that twice and cant keep putting my wife and dog through this. Its basically torture trying to recreate this issue. They agreed to send me the replacement. Don’t get me wrong all the people I talked to were very kind and helpful but this issue isnt something like having interference, latency, stutters, or setup problems. Having the speaker go from 1 to 10 guns blazing is traumatizing not only for me and my wife but especially for my poor dog, not to mention it can potentially damage your your hearing. One video after everything is checked out, connection, updates, and factory resets should be indicative of a defect or even just one reoccurrence. 

Long story short, for those that are experiencing this issue and to save you time. Change your wifi channel to either 1,6, or 11. Restart the wifi and modem. Perform a factory reset on the beam 2 and anything connected to it. Make sure router and beam 2 are updated. Then have your phone on hand to video the beam 2. Run diagnostic when problem does arise. Keep trying until submit one, then print screen then contact customer support. 

Recreating the problem may be different for people. I linked my Youtube music account to the Sonos app and played it from there. I have only played music using this method, not sure if other services will recreate this issue. Leave the music running at a low volume. Results may vary but my beam 2 will have guns blazing between 20-45 minutes of playing. 

For the loud static noise, I don’t have a reliable testing method. It just occurred when using the Youtube app on our TV, Netflix, and Disney. Volume would shoot from 4 to 10 and play nothing but static randomly for like a minute. We just got the LG C1 brand new so I doubt that the source would be the problem considering the machine gun noise doesn’t come from a source. 

Now just hoping the replacement doesn’t have any problems.  

@Nytro Hi there, we just had the same experience for the second time. We got our Sonos beam 2 on Sunday the 26th of December 2021, so about 3 days ago. On Monday, after 30 mins of use, we suddenly got a machine gun sound at full blast! My girlfriend, my Dog dog, and I were completely scared stiff and traumatized by this! 

The second time was just 20 minutes ago. It’s midnight here, so we must have woken up all of our neighbors. As you @Nytro my poor little dog is just traumatized and we are just too afraid to leave our dog at home while the sonos is still plugged in. 

Another guy just posted in the troubleshoot section saying that a woman support chat said that they never encountered such problems before in the company :s I find that really hard to believe seeing this post! 

Also how can we film or leave it on during this moment when the damn thing is not just waking up my neighbors but the entire neighborhood!!!!! 

I hope there will be an update or that sonos will fix this issue and admit and own up to the fact that there is a problem!

Challenge is, at least in my perception, is, what if it isn’t actually a problem with Sonos, and instead the TV sending a signal that the Sonos is playing appropriately?

Hard for Sonos to fix an issue upstream. This is probably why @Nytro suggested the diagnostic along with several other potential fixes. Best case, Sonos can take a look at the hard data recorded in the 10 minute log file, and perhaps see where the issue is originating. If it’s with the the Sonos itself, or with the signal coming in would likely be trackable in that file, and certainly help you, and if it’s in the Sonos software, everyone else. 

That's an interesting thought; however, how would the TV be able to bypass the volume limit I set for the Beam?

I sent a diagnostic to the Sonos support. I actually had the support lady on the phone while the terror was going off for a second time. They didn't know of the issue and told me to reset to factory settings and basically hope for it to not happen again...

I think the answer here is to continue to closely monitor the issue and if it happens again, to try to capture a diagnostic ‘dump’ by holding the ‘join’ (infinity) button on the device for 10 seconds or so (the status LED should begin to flash different colours). Then go onto power ‘off’ the device and power it ‘on’ again and when the device reappears in the Sonos App, immediately submit a Sonos diagnostic report and post the reference back here with details of the device(s) involved and what steps led to the issue. Any captured information should then (hopefully) get sent with the diagnostic report.

Presumably the Sonos engineers are aware of this issue .. and my thoughts are the more data that can be gathered, the sooner it can hopefully be fixed for the few folk that are experiencing this issue.

I just hope it gets fixed soon for everyone here.