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2 Issues with Alexa and Sonos, Can you help?

  • 4 October 2017
  • 33 replies
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Hi,
I was able to set up my connection with Alexa and Sonos, and I can use Alexa to start playing music without any issues.
However, once the music starts, I have two issues: 1. I cannot stop the music. 2. the music stops playing after a single song.

For example, if I say "Alexa, play the Beatles in the living room", music will start up on the Sonos system. However, if I ask her to stop the music ("Alexa, stop the music in the living room," "Alexa, pause the music in the living room"), she dims the sound of the Sonos speakers, responds with "I can change the playback mode only when music is playing" and then raises the volume of the living room again.

When first requested to play music, Alexa responds with something like, "Shuffling popular songs by the Beatles in the Living Room." However, she stops playing after a single song, every time, no matter what the playlist. If I play the same playlist through the sonos app, it keeps playing.

I'm not sure what the issue is, since clearly she is connected (she can start playing music) but then she seems to forget that she is playing music, thus disabling the ability to stop music playback or continue listening past a single song.

In case it is helpful, here is a bit about the setup:
Alexa device is an Echo Dot, connected to Wifi
Sonos Living Room speakers include: Playbar, Sub, and 2 Play 1 speakers, connected to the Sonos Bridge wireless network.
No Echo devices are linked via line in to any Sonos devices.

I would appreciate some help in getting these two issues resolved. After waiting so long for Alexa integration, it's sad to see it launched but not really working. Thanks in advance for any constructive help you may have to offer.
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Best answer by MusicListenerSonos 4 October 2017, 23:04

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been having exact same problems as above. Came back to it a few days later after being initially frustrated. Its fixed for me and this is how:

1. You can not have any 2 devices the same name. I had office sonos and echo dot named same. Renamed to Office Dot in alexa app.
2. Forget the sonos office device.
3. reboot the dot.
4. rescan the devices in alexa and get office sonos back.
5. Alexa play 'song' from 'artist' in 'NAME OF YOUR SONOS'.
6. alexa says playing....above and it starts playing
7. tested by leaving out office and it plays on the dot I am speaking to
8. add in office and it starts on the sonos

hope this helps.
Having exactly the same issues— Amazon says it is a known problem so wondering what Sonos and Amazon are doing. No reply from update but 2 from Amazon—is it because it is Beta. Need to get it sorted whatever the issue!
lloyd21...useful suggestion, but can you control the echo after it starts playing on the Sonos...I find it will start, but generally will ignore all further commands.
Thank you for your advice. Unfortunately, it did not work for me. I did however set up Alexa with my father in laws home today with his Sonos system and Alexa Voice worked perfectly with his system. At least I know it's not me 🙂.
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I had exactly the same issues, and contacted SONOS support, The diagnostics showed some anomalies with my ethernet connection. I played around with it, and my Alexa functionality is now nearly perfect.

Basically, I had a wired ethernet connection into my Player speaker from my router, I also had an ethernet cable running OUT of the Playbar into my Sky TV box - I was effectively using the Playbar as a hub. I unplugged the OUT cable so my Sky box wasn't using the ethernet run through he Playbar. Instantly, all was working with Alexa and Sonos (except my bedroom Play 1, which worked fine after a power down cycle). When I plugged the Sky box back into the ethernet on the Playbar, there was no detrimental effect on the Alexa/Sonos functionality.

Very happy camper now. Hope this might help some of the others.
I finally figured out my issue yesterday. The issue was that I have multiple echos in my house and they were on 2 separate Amazon accounts. Even though I only set up the Sonos skill on the echo dot that is linked to one of my Amazon accounts, apparently there is still a conflict within the Echo/Sonos software environment that causes the music to stop at one song. Once I reset my Echo Dot and removed the 2nd account and put the Echo on the other Amazon account (where both Echos were now on the same account that I added the Sonos skill), the voice service is working exactly the way it was intended to. Hopefully, this helps somebody else out there.
I was successful disabling the Sonos Skill in the Alexa software, and then ehabling it again. These are two of the weakest clunkiest pieces of software I have ever used.