No Audio / Sound Issues

How passthrough causes silence

Passthrough sends the compressed audio stream, such as AC3 or E-AC3, directly to the output device and expects the television or soundbar to do the decoding. If that device cannot decode the format, the result is silence on that output while video continues normally. Nothing is broken; the format is simply not handled at the far end of the connection.

The failure is silent by design because passthrough deliberately removes the app from the audio processing path. The app believes it delivered the stream correctly, the output device believes it received something it cannot play, and the user hears nothing. Only changing the audio handling exposes the problem.

Passthrough is attractive because it lets the receiver do the decoding it was built for, which is why the setting exists at all. The problem is that it works only when every stage supports the format: the app, the cable or connection, and the output device. A single unsupported stage in that chain produces silence.

• HDMI passthrough depends on the television or receiver's codec support.
• Optical (TOSLINK) passthrough sends compressed formats many televisions cannot decode.
• Bluetooth output changes audio handling entirely and often forces its own codec.

Check volume at every stage

1. 1.Check the device's media volume

   Confirm media volume is not at zero or muted on the device itself.

2. 2.Check the display's input

   Verify the television's input volume and the soundbar's own level.

3. 3.Test another app

   Play any other source of audio to rule out the device entirely.

4. 4.Restart the app

   Transient output handshake failures often clear on a relaunch.

5. 5.Change the audio format

   Disable passthrough or switch the audio output format in the app's settings.

Audio failures are often a single stage of the chain. Working your way from the device's media volume through to the display is faster and safer than reinstalling the app, which rarely touches the audio path at all.

Android also enforces audio focus: when another app claims focus, the current app's sound can be ducked or silenced entirely without any error. A background assistant session or a navigation app holding focus can mute playback while the picture runs perfectly. Closing or force-stopping other audio apps and restarting the stream tests this in under a minute.

The decoder is fine, the output is not

When video renders but audio is silent, the video decoder has already succeeded, so the media pipeline is alive. The silence sits at the audio output stage, which is why audio format settings fix it. Understanding this split prevents pointless reinstalls and keeps the diagnosis on the actual fault.

A further clue is whether the problem is universal or per-channel. Silence on every channel means the output or the app's global audio settings are at fault. Silence on specific channels means those streams carry an audio track in a format the output cannot handle, and no amount of app reconfiguration fixes the problem on those channels alone.

Codec formats that commonly fail

If the soundbar or television cannot decode the format being passed through, expect silence rather than an error. The workaround is the same in every case: disable passthrough so the app decodes the audio before sending it as PCM to the output.

When the app decodes audio itself, it sends PCM, the uncompressed digital form that every television and soundbar accepts. That is why disabling passthrough is such a reliable workaround: it removes the format negotiation problem entirely, at the cost of the receiver doing less of the work.

Bluetooth and wireless audio

Wireless audio adds its own complications. The Bluetooth codec is negotiated when the device connects, and some players do not re-negotiate when the source changes. If audio is missing only over Bluetooth, disconnecting and reconnecting the device forces a fresh negotiation, and testing a wired output isolates the wireless path entirely.

Bluetooth problems are also the most likely to be intermittent, because the negotiated codec depends on what the speaker advertises at connection time. A speaker that drops its high-quality profile after a firmware update can leave the app sending a profile it no longer accepts, which is exactly the situation a reconnect resolves.

• Reconnect the Bluetooth device to force a fresh codec negotiation.
• Disable absolute volume if the device level seems wrong.
• Test with a wired output to isolate Bluetooth as the fault.