Argh - broken optical cable, any bright ideas

[Herbie912]

Back in 2017, we fitted a Samsung qe55q7famtxxu mounted on a chimney with 'one connect' box in an alcove cupboard as part of house renovations. Fibre optic 'one connect' cable and digital optical cable for sound are sealed in behind the cabinets and through the rear of chimney

Recently removed the Sonos Playbar for some decorating. Put the playbar back and no sound.

I've tested the Playbar with a different TV, it works fine.
Ive connected the Playbar directly to the 'one connect' box and it works fine
Which suggests it must be the cable that is sealed in behind the cabinets

(One thing that is a bit strange is optical cable is lit at Playbar end, which implies a signal)

Any bright ideas on how to fix? Current options seem to be
1) Remove cabinet and replace the optical cabinet (not easy as cabinets sealed in)
2) Replace TV with one that has a digital out on the TV and wired directly to Playbar

‘One connect’ made sense when we used DVD player etc but now TV exclusively used for telestrial/streaming.

Argh!

[JoshSm]

Check the connectors are clean first.

Isn't the cable in a duct so you can pull it through? Or is it at least loose enough to use the old one as a drawstring? If not the an important lesson learned.

Personally I'd be removing the cabinet if it came to it.

[OldGermanHeaps]

The fire flu might have partially melted the optical cable. Seen that happen before.
Do you have cat5 going to the soundbar? They do toslink over cat5 adaptors
Have you tried a similar length optical cable temporarily ran outside the wall? When toslink sockets get dirty they dont play nice with longer cables but work with short ones.
I seen one occasion where a 15m toslink cable wouldnt work unless the tips were dipped in clear vicous gel before being inserted, I wish i aaked what the gel was, but it gave a better interface from the socket to the connector.
One connect is a stshow. We always recommend to cable for a normal tvin addition to cabling to the oneconnect box.

[Herbie912]

Yeah 'one connect' seemed like a neat idea that has actually turned out to be a royal pain.

JoshSm said:

Check the connectors are clean first.

Isn't the cable in a duct so you can pull it through? Or is it at least loose enough to use the old one as a drawstring? If not the an important lesson learned.

Personally I'd be removing the cabinet if it came to it.

Thanks JoshSm
Nope, definitely lesson learnt here . all part of a house rennovation and did not pay close enough attention to this.
I think connectors on both TV and Playbar are fine. They work fine independently - just not using the cable in place.
Will see if can clean end of cable ...

OldGermanHeaps said:

The fire flu might have partially melted the optical cable. Seen that happen before.
Do you have cat5 going to the soundbar? They do toslink over cat5 adaptors
Have you tried a similar length optical cable temporarily ran outside the wall? When toslink sockets get dirty they dont play nice with longer cables but work with short ones.
I seen one occasion where a 15m toslink cable wouldnt work unless the tips were dipped in clear vicous gel before being inserted, I wish i aaked what the gel was, but it gave a better interface from the socket to the connector.
One connect is a stshow. We always recommend to cable for a normal tvin addition to cabling to the oneconnect box.

Thanks OldGermanHeaps

Interesting point about cat5 - do have cat5 to one connect box but not sure if have it going to TV. Will check

Good shout on checking with a longer toslink cable.

Yep, 'One connect' seemed like a neat idea but now proving super painful..

[JoshSm]

TOSLink is dirt cheap, also difficult to break being plastic, so I'd be trying a directly routed one of those first before pulling stuff apart. It's quite possible for it to light up but not work.

Ends are large, exposed and soft so could need cleaning after decorating.

[JoshSm]

OldGermanHeaps said:

I seen one occasion where a 15m toslink cable wouldnt work unless the tips were dipped in clear vicous gel before being inserted

Hardly a surprise, that's too long. It's cheap stuff not meant for capacity or distance. 10 metres is really the limit, or less.

[OutInTheShed]

These days, it's not hard to make Toslink work over 100m.
There's a point where you have to give up cheap, bend-able, tough, plastic 'fibre' and move to glass which needs a little more respect, but there's loads of margin on the minimum spec, we had ali express stuff doing 20m at high data rates with no bother.
FTAOD, m = metres here, back last century 25 miles with a gigabit or two of data was impressive.