Solved! Vizio sound bar stopped recognizing digital optic cable

[Not_techy]

I have a Vizio sound bar (model SB2920) that has been connected for multiple years to my Samsung smartTV using the digital optical cable. All was well until I thought I accidentally hit the bluetooth button on the Vizio remote and I lost sound through the sound bar. After doing a hard reset on the sound bar, I was able to re-establish sound output from the sound bar for regular TV watching (I use rabbit ear antenna). However, when I turned on Hulu, again there was no sound output. I tried another reboot of the sound bar. No luck. I tried changing speaker output on the TV from Dolby to PCM. I contacted Vizio tech support and after turning off the TV, cycling through blinking lights repeatedly, they had me switch the optical cable to RCA cable. They thought the sound bar was "misreading" the digital signal from the optical cable or there was an error in how it was being read, but had no real diagnosis. But, I'm genuinely interested to know why the digital optical cable all of sudden stopped working. The output from RCA cables is fine (no discernible difference vs. the optical cable), and Vizio tech suggested not shelling out money for a new digital optic cable since the sound from RCA cables is good. But it does strike me as odd that the digital optical cable stopped working. I welcome any ideas. Thanks!

P.S. Samsung TV software all up to date. Tried that too.

 

[helpstar]

Can you set any audio options in the Hulu app?

Which Samsung TV model is it

Was the optical cable still tightly connected?

uninstall and reinstall the Hulu app
update the VIZIO firmware if available

If you can, try the soundbar with a different audio source via optical cable and/or the optical cable with a different audio device

The Vizio soundbar or the TV or the cable could be defective as well.