The bar's lit up, the TV picture is fine, and you're getting silence. Annoying, but the cause is usually boring: the cable's in the wrong jack, the TV is still talking to its own speakers, or a setting on one end is off. Work through these in order and most people are back to sound in a couple of minutes.
Check the easy stuff first
- Confirm both ends of the cable are on ARC/eARC jacks. On the JBL bar, the cable goes in the port labeled HDMI OUT (TV ARC), not HDMI IN. On the TV, it has to sit in the one HDMI port marked ARC or eARC. A regular HDMI input on the TV returns no audio at all.
- Set the TV's audio output to the soundbar. Dig into the TV's sound menu and switch Sound Output from TV Speakers to HDMI ARC / Receiver / Audio System. If it's still on the internal speakers, the bar never gets a signal.
- Put the JBL bar on its TV/HDMI source. Press Source on the bar or its remote until it reads TV (or HDMI), not Bluetooth or an aux input. A bar parked on Bluetooth will sit quiet while the TV plays.
Turn on HDMI-CEC, because ARC needs it
ARC relies on HDMI-CEC to hand audio back to the bar, and a lot of TVs ship with CEC off. The feature hides under a different name on every brand: Anynet+ on Samsung, SimpLink on LG, Bravia Sync on Sony, VIZIO CEC on Vizio, CEC on TCL and Hisense. Turn it on at the TV, and if the bar has a CEC toggle in its settings, switch that on too. Then trigger the audio link again from the TV's sound output menu.
Still silent? Power-cycle the whole chain
A stuck handshake clears with a cold reboot more often than you'd expect. Unplug the TV and the JBL bar from the wall, leave them both off for at least 30 seconds (the capacitors need a moment to drain), then power the TV first and the bar second. Give it a beat to re-establish ARC before you judge it.
If you get sound but it cuts out or only some apps work
This is usually a format problem, not a connection problem. Go into the TV's sound settings and find Digital Audio Out (sometimes "Digital Output Audio Format"). Set it to PCM as a test. If the dropouts stop on PCM, the bar was choking on a Dolby or DTS stream the TV was passing raw. For everyday use, Auto or Bitstream is fine on most JBL bars; only certain sources will misbehave, and PCM is your safe fallback.
A flaky cable causes the same symptom. Swap in a short certified Ultra High Speed cable on the eARC port before you assume the bar is bad.
Getting Dolby Atmos out of it
If you bought a Bar 1000, Bar 500, or another Atmos JBL specifically for height effects, the lossless version only travels over eARC, not plain ARC. Three things have to line up: the cable sits in the TV's eARC port, the TV's digital audio is on Bitstream / Pass-Through (Auto), and eARC is enabled in the TV's expert sound menu. Plain ARC will still give you sound, just the compressed flavor, so don't panic if Atmos won't light up on an ARC-only port.
One thing people try as a workaround: the optical cable. Optical works for basic stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1, but it physically can't carry Atmos. If you're routing through optical to dodge an ARC problem, you've capped your audio. Fix the HDMI link instead.
Factory reset, then decide if it's the hardware
If none of that lands, reset the bar. The button combo varies by model (many JBL Bar units use a press-and-hold of two buttons on the bar itself), so pull up your specific model's quick-start guide rather than guessing. After the reset, re-pair it to the TV from scratch.
When it's genuinely the hardware: if a second device into the same TV port plays fine but the bar stays dead across multiple ports, cables, and a reset, the bar's HDMI board is the likely failure. That's a service-or-replace call, especially if it's out of warranty.
FAQ
Picture works but the bar is silent. Wrong port, CEC off, or the TV still on its own speakers. Use the ARC/eARC port, enable CEC, set Sound Output to the soundbar.
Sound cuts in and out. Set the TV's Digital Audio Out to PCM to test, and swap to a certified Ultra High Speed cable. A format the bar can't hold or a marginal cable causes most cutouts.
No Atmos, only regular sound. Use the eARC port (not plain ARC), set digital audio to Bitstream/Pass-Through, and enable eARC. ARC and optical can't pass lossless Atmos.
Which TV port do I use? The single HDMI port labeled ARC or eARC. No other input returns audio to the bar.