Unstable connection between Beam 2 and LG BX TV via HDMI eARC

Question

Hi community,I just bought a Beam Gen. 2 for my LG BX 4K OLED TV (latest LG WebOS firmware installed). The LG BX has HDMI 2.1 (eARC) and I used this HDMI Port to connect the Beam 2.Right after the initial connection and finishing the setup, I noticed a very unstable connection of the Beam which results in the TV constantly switching back and forth between the Beam (ARC output) and the internal speakers. So basically it’s sound coming for 3 seconds from internal TV speakers, then 3 seconds from the Beam, then 3 seconds from internal speakers, …Also I noticed that the whole TV becomes very “laggy” and unresponsive when I use the LG remote as long as I have the Beam connected via HDMI (eARC). The HDMI connection between the LG TV and the Beam seems to mess something up somewhere. When I unplug the Beam from HDMI ARC, TV becomes responsive again via the TV remove.I initially used a new HDMI 2.1 cable for the setup and have tested with a different cable - same result.Quick search indicated that some users experienced somehow similiar issues which makes me worried, given that I just put 500€ on the table for a high quality soundbar.The Beam works e.g. via Airplay when I just use the WiFi connection from a different device (e.g. my iPhone), but what else can I check/adjust to make the connection via HDMI eARC to my TV work? Of course I want to utilize the eARC connection and Dolby Atmos to get the most out of the hardware.Any help appreciated!

GuitarSuperstar · Accepted Answer

Do you have any other devices connected to the TV? If so, if you disconnect them, do you still experience the same problems?

I would also use the HDMI cable that came with the Beam to connect it to the TV.

Start from scratch. Disconnect everything from the TV. Unplug the Beam and TV from power for a couple of minutes. Plug the Beam and TV back into power but keep everything disconnected. Make sure Simplink (CEC) is enabled in your TV settings. Then run the TV Setup process in the Sonos app and connect the Beam to the TV’s HDMI eARC port when the app instructs you to. Once the Beam is connected successfully, connect the other devices to the TV.

fabian · Answer

Thanks@GuitarSuperstar for your help. I did some more testing and investigating over the past days and wanted to share what I found out.The good news is: it looks like the Beam 2 (or rather the Beam 2 connection) was/is not the cause of this issue - which is of course somewhat of a relief.After your reply, I made a factory reset of the Beam and did what you suggested: unplugged all of my other HDMI devices and started purely with the Beam (with the included Sonos HDMI cable) and went through the setup process again. The constant switching back and forth went away and everything works as expected.  I then switched back to my own HDMI 2.1 cable and it still worked (so cable issues ruled out).I was just about to blame something during the initial setup process until I found out the following: my LG BX has 4 HDMI ports which are all in use:HDMI1: PlayStationHDM2: Blu-ray PlayerHDMI3 (eARC): Beam 2HDMI4: Media PlayerAs soon as I plug in the HDMI cable into HDMI 2, the speaker “stutters” (back and forth switching between internal LG speakers and ARC connection/Beam) starts again - which is super weird, because the Blu-ray Player is not (and never was) even powered on. Also I tried different HDMI cables for HDMI port 2, but it had no effect. The speaker switching issues start as soon as the HDMI cable from the unpowered Blu-ray is plugged into the LG HDMI port 2 (it’s a “normal” HDMI port) and an onscreen Popup shows up which says:“[HDMI-2] If you setup your device from Universal Control Settings, you can control the device with Magic Remote.”When I disconnect the cable from HDMI2, there are no issues with the speaker stutters.Very strange. Not sure how I will investigate/debug this further, but thought of posting this in case somebody might have a similar issue with the LG BX. I will probably test this further soon with some other devices in HDMI2 … but bottom line is, that the Beam and the eARC connection from the Sonos device seems to be innocent in this case, from what I can say so far.

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