tvOS 26.4, Continuous HDMI Connection, Breaks Playback on Sonos

By Adrian Wyka, 25 March, 2026

Forum
tvOS and Apple TV Apps

Hi,

I was really excited when I found out that in tvOS 26.4 the bug with switching audio formats and VoiceOver freezing was fixed.

And indeed, now it’s the case that if you enable “continuous HDMI connection” in the audio settings, the problem disappears.

I have Sonos speakers connected to the Apple TV (Beam + Sub Mini + 2× Era 100) and I watch movies.
However, for listening to music I use the Sonos system without turning on the Apple TV.

And that’s where things got disastrous.
When this option is enabled, only tracks encoded in Atmos play correctly.

When anything else in Lossless plays, the sound is practically nonexistent. It’s just complete silence, interrupted by brief bursts of music.

Can anyone confirm this behavior of a home theater setup after enabling this option?

Honestly, I wouldn’t be very surprised if Apple added a new option just so it exists, rather than making sure it works properly in many different usage scenarios.
Lately I have the impression that they keep doing this all the time.

Options

Comments

By elliot2012 on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 - 17:10

I haven’t noticed that but what I have noticed is that most things I now watch with audio description the surrounds are not used when the output is stereo PCM. In the Sonos app, it also says that the format is Dolby Atmos whatever content you are playing. You can turn this new Apple TV continuous audio setting off though if you wish.

By Angel Blessing on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 - 17:28

Ok, where in the world do you find this setting for the continuous audio i have looked and looked someone stated on reddit that you have to have an Earc port for this to show up but from what i just read that arc can and does show the continuous audio where is this found in the apple tv settings I have the apple tv 4k third gen.

By elliot2012 on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 - 17:34

If you go into settings, video and Audio, and then go down to Audio format, if you go into that and go down a little bit you should see the continuous audio connection think it’s turned on by default after the update, but you can turn it off

By Adrian Wyka on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 - 18:32

Exactly, it’s under the Atmos section. Interestingly, when we turn off Atmos, this option is greyed out. So it may indeed be related to the eARC connection.

Yes, I know I can turn it off, but :) then unfortunately the sound doesn’t work any better—it’s just as bad as it has been so far.

When switching between an Atmos source, multichannel, and stereo.