Sound cutting out and periodic loss of surround channels after upgrading to 4.0

Answered
Matthew

I have a home theater group set up with a Pulse Soundbar+ in front and speakers connected to a Powernode for surround.  After upgrading to 4.0.2, I’m having issues when streaming music from both Tidal and Radio Paradise.  The sound is cutting out periodically and I keep losing the surround channels completely.  Sometimes it comes back but usually I have to reboot the soundbar to get all channels back.

I have checked diagnostics and all devices are upgraded to 4.0.2.  Signal strength to the soundbar is good (-51 dBm) and the Powernode is directly connected via Ethernet cable.  Since I was losing surround, I thought it might be an issue with the Powernode and because I have another Powernode for the patio, I swapped them.  The problem persisted.

Any help would be much appreciated.  Thank you.

2

Comments

101 comments

Date Votes
  • Christ Klinkenberg

    Yesterday, I updated my Soundbar+, Pulse M and Pulse Sub+ to 4.10.19. I’m pleasantly surprised that finally my Surround group works as it should. No drop-outs anymore, no speakers out-of-sync, stereo-surround working well on stereo sources. I hope everything remains stable and future updates don’t introduce new troubles. Fingers crossed 😁

    0
  • Vahe Shahinian

    An update- after asking Claude AI to see if it can find a fix for these constant drops of the rear speakers, it suggested I turn off Amplifier Standby Mode in the settings of the soundbar. Sure enough, the drops have gone away since turning off that option.  I recommend giving this a try if you are still seeing the issue.

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  • Christ Klinkenberg

    For the past three months, I've been experiencing "group connection lost" errors, causing my rear speakers to shut down. I tried absolutely everything, even installing a separate Wi-Fi 6 access point in the living room, but to no avail. After countless hours of trying without success, I finally decided to connect the rear speakers to my network via a wired connection. And that solved all the problems. Of course, the question remains why I bought wireless speakers that don't do what they promise. Anyway, I'm just happy that I can now enjoy music without any issues.

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  • Vahe Shahinian

    Christ, go back to wireless setup, and turn off the Amplifier Standby Mode option in the Home Theatre settings.  For me, this worked- the rears are no longer dropping, and no need for cables.

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  • James Connor

    This was fixed on previous update I think.

    But has now come back again to haunt me on latest update.

     

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  • Rob Greenwood

    James and I have been dealing with this for a long time! Amp standby has been no solution in the long run. I still lose my flex 2is periodically. My biggest issue now is I have to take my home theater off spatial sound in order for it to sync with my patio node system, this expensive system has been a nightmare

    1
  • Christ Klinkenberg

    What I have observed during wireless testing is that as the audio quality increases (hi-res FLAC files), the group connection is lost more quickly. With TV sound, this happens much less often. Restarting the soundbar restores the group connection. Wired, I can effortlessly play 24-bit / 176 kHz FLAC files. Wirelessly, it already fails halfway through the track.

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  • Rob Greenwood

    I believe the problem lies with the soundbar having a weak Wi-Fi signal to the surrounding flex 2is,

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  • Christ Klinkenberg

    I fully agree Rob. the Wi-fi signal is too weak to offer enough bandwidth for serving 2 surround speakers + sub.

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  • Konrad Kriegel

    I am not so sure on that since I had my rears hardwired and still got frequent dropouts. In my scenario, what helped me so far for a couple of months now, was changing the Samsung The Frame TV settings from eARC to ARC mode. This should not pose any issues in decreasing quality when streaming Netflix and the like as opposed to Blue Ray Discs since streaming services transmit a compressed audio signal which the older ARC can still handle losslessly.

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  • James Connor

     My powernode for rears and the soundbar+ are all hard wired with tp link powerline adaptors.

    They all have fixed IP adresses.

    The fact that this keeps being fixed then failing for us all surely points to BS firmware updates breaking stuff. 

    Downgrading from arc to earc is not an ideal solution.

    BS needs to patch this once and for all - been dragging on too long.

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