Solved! Need help diagnosing a TV/Home Theater audio problem

[Pennsylvania Mike]

Hello everyone. I'm in desperate need of help trying to find a solution to the audio problem I'm having with a Bravadia TV and a DENON 7.1 home theater receiver before both are taken out back and beaten with a shovel. Just some basic info- the TV is about 5 years old, with approximately 15 hours of use (and it's out of warranty of course). Same with the DENON. Both are up to date on their flu shots.

**If I watch a movie with the Blu Ray player, I'm a happy camper. Awesome picture, no problems with audio. Same with the game system. No problems at all.

So here it is- I'll try to be brief. I went from my cable box, into the HT, then into the TV. Picture is fine, but no audio from either the TV or HT. I run the HDMI into the TV directly, again, no sound. So I go back to the box, HT, TV setup. Nothing. Out of frustration, I unplug the HDMI from the TV. Audio! Not from the TV, but from the HT. I thought great, now I'll connect the HDMI to the TV so I'll have picture from the TV, audio from the HT. As soon as I plug the HDMI into the TV, the audio dies from the HT and I still have no audio from the TV. I try another cable. Nothing.

Troubleshooting time. I reset the TV back to factory. I still have no audio, and this is going straight from the box to the TV. I run a self-diagnostic audio test on the TV. It switches to TV speakers, AUDIO! Then as soon as the test ends, so does the audio. I have everything at factory specs, but it does both internal and external speakers anyway, which I'm sure is normal. So we have established the audio circuit isn't bad because we get audio in the self-test.

Why does the audio die from both sources if the HDMI is plugged into the TV from the HT? Why would it also kill the audio from the HT?

PS- When the TV does its self-test, it uses the audio it has stored, not the audio from an external source, i.e. the cable box.

So the tl;dr version- I can listen to the audio on the HT, or I can watch the picture on the TV, but no matter what I do, I cannot get any audio if the HDMI cable is plugged into the TV. As soon as I take it out, audio is fine from the HT.

Thank you for any help you can give me,

Mike

 

[helpstar]

update the TV´s and HT´s firmware, eventually the cable box as well

Which exact models are you using (Bravia..., Denon...)?

 

[americanaudiophile]

1. Turn off ARC in the TV.
2. Check the input menu of the receiver. Make sure that HDMI is selected as your audio source for that input. Sometimes the AVR loses a setting.

The interesting thing is that you get no audio from the cable box when it is connected directly to the TV. If a cold reboot of the box doesn't help then get a new box from the cable provider.