I am not trying to pick a fight here - but I am not wrong - your soundbar seems to be an exception to the normal rule of connections, and I am glad I put in the time to look up your issue and try to help (NOT), only to be told by a new member I don't know anything about ARC.
You should check...
"Video from all devices goes from soundbar to HDMI 1 on TV and audio comes back because HDMI 1 is ARC"
"With soundbar plugged into HDMI 2 I get no sound so I use optical cable."
The video and audio are both contained in any HDMI connection coming from your devices. Your sound bar should be...
From your previous posts:
"I connected blu-ray player, cable box, and streaming media player to the soundbar and connected the soundbar to the 1080p TV."
"Now, I tried connecting the blu-ray to the soundbar and the soundbar to HDMI 2 on the TV. It's much better"
"So HDMI 1 on the TV is bad...