Passthrough audio not working.

[SJ86]

So I received my Sky puck yesterday and have (tried to) set it up with my Denon AVR-550BT receiver and LG OLED55B9PLA TV.

Audio works great when viewing content with the receiver plugged in, the 5.1 audio is all fine. As I don't always want the audio booming whilst watching telly I'd like to be able to use passthrough.

When I turn the receiver off, the Sky picture comes back up after a few seconds but there is no audio. The normal volume controls do not appear when using the LG remote, it just displays a mute symbol.

Then, when I switch the receiver back on there is then no audio at all whilst viewing through that. I found that to get audio back on when using the receiver I need to go to Settings > Audio, then flick to a different audio setting from auto, it'll appear, then I can go back to audio. Bit of a faff, to say the least.

Does anyone know how I can get this to work seamlessly, with and without my Denon receiver? I assume it can do!

[CoffeeDrinker]

@SJ86 The flicking to a different audio source and back to restore audio on your AVR suggests a HDMI handshaking issue between devices (switching sources switches HDMI inputs). It might be worth checking that both your TV and AVR are up to date firmware wise, such firmware updates often including HDMI handshaking fixes (my own Denon X3500H had several such firmware updates in quick succession after I bought it in 2019, often fixing random HDCP errors when switching between source devices).

[SJ86]

Thank you for your reply.

I can't seem to find a way to update the firmware on the receiver... The option is greyed out on the menu, there's no ethernet port on the rear, and I can't seem to find any firmware downloads on the Denon website to do it via USB. Their help files are fairly useless! 😫

[CoffeeDrinker]

I'm getting the same result as yourself. The manual for your AVR on Denon's site says firmware updates should be done by downloading the file onto a USB drive, connecting the drive to the USB port on your AVR and then updating the firmware through the setup menu.

Not only am I wholly unable to find any downloadable firmware update file for your AVR, it seems Denon have removed ALL downloadable firmware update files for all of their product line (current and older) in preference for machine self updating via a network connection. Which is fine unless your AVR doesn't have any network functionality, such as your model. 

There are a number of threads on Reddit & other forums with people complaining that Denon have withdrawn downloadable firmware update files. Some of these threads date back 4 years or so, implying this isn't a recent action by Denon. I've tried unearthing older download links that people have listed, all of which point to pages that no longer exist on Denon's support sites.

It may be worth contacting Denon directly to see if they can supply you with an update file for your AVR, assuming an updated firmware file ever existed for the model.

[SJ86]

I see! That is very strange, and pretty bad of them to remove all the downloadable firmware update files. Its impossible to view help files on their website too.

I'll drop them a message and see if they can assist me.

Many thanks for your time and help, I really appreciate it! I'll write up on here if I managed to suceed, in case anyone else has the same problem.

[CoffeeDrinker]

One thought; as your AVR is 'locked' to 5.1 maximum, it might be worth setting your Sky Puck sound output over HDMI to Dolby Digital (not Dolby Digital Plus or passthrough). Dolby Digital is an older 5.1 codec from the 90s, so might be more readily compatible with your AVR. If so, it might be decodable 'first time' rather than having to toggle between sources in order to restore sound. 

[SJ86]

It's working now!

Sorry, it seems to be my mistake, or that of the LG TV at least. When I switched off the AVR, my TV kept it's audio as HDMI ARC rather than switching to it's internal speaker. If I manually switch it back, I get audio. Tad annoying that it doesn't do it automatically, but at least it works :).

Thank you for your time and assistance!

[CoffeeDrinker]

Glad to hear its working!