Alexa responds but will not play music

Hey everyone I just fixed my issue. Originally I was told to delete the sonos and Alexa apps, reboot my sonos, etc but neither fixed the problem. Saw another post that said to disable the sonos skill in the Alexa app and reenable it. This worked! Hope this helps you guys too!!

Moderator Note: If the information listed here did not resolve your issue, try this topic: Resolving the Majority of Issues with Alexa on Sonos

Thank you very much. Worked like a charm.

Removing Sonos as a skill in Alexa solved the problem for me too. It’s worth noting though that the first time I tried a voice command after re-enabling the skill, it still didn’t work, I waited a couple of minutes and tried again...success! It must take a moment to link between the systems.

Good Luck!

Alexa responds to a 'play music command' but it does not actually play anything. The Sonos One works fine from the app. Alexa also will tell you the weather etc... just fine. When music is playing if you ask Alexa to turn off music it says 'I can only do that when music is playing' . Alexa connects to tunein and my amazon account but doesn't end up playing anything even though it says it is.

This fixed it for me- great work!

2 years this thread has been going and still the solutions are a success!  Thank you!  Just fought this issue for weeks!

Disabling and re-enabling worked for me too. Well, it sort of worked. If I ask Alexa to play music, it will default to the Echo Dot despite it being paired with the Play:5. If I specify where to play the music (in the living room), Alexa will send the output to the Play:5.

I thought/remember that by grouping the Dot and Play:5 through the Alexa app and setting the preferred speaker to the Play:5, Alexa default to the Play:5. This no longer works for me. Has this functionality changed?

Exact same problem which seemed to start after an update this week. Tried: power down and up of all Sonos components, reboot of router then another power down and up of Sonos components, deleting and rebuilding groups all to no avail. Anyway, the disable re-enable did the trick so back to normal. Thanks Novasupra.

Thanks for the fix NovaSupra - have been waiting 2 months for a fix from Alexa Customer Support with absolutely no progress. Wish I had come here and read this 2 months ago !

I tried disabling and enabling Sonos skills but it didn't work. I had setup a preferred speake but disabled it and Alexa does now play music from Spotify


Preferred Speaker settings shouldn't impact Spotify play back. Please see this guide for setting up Alexa Groups: https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/an-overview-and-explanation-of-the-new-support-for-alexa-grouping-6817788

Sorry for the long post but Alexa issues normally fall in to three categories:

1/ Duplicate device names - Alexa prefers that names for Devices, Groups and Scenes are unique,
1.1/ Please open up the Alexa App>Smart Home and make a note of any duplicate device names;
1.2/ You can then change them in the source app. e.g. Use the Sonos App to change the name of Sonos players. (I personally use the naming standard Room Name + Device type. e.g. Kitchen Sonos, Kitchen Echo Dot, Lounge Sonos, etc)
1.3/ Once you have changed any duplicate names then please In the Sonos app, select Settings>Room Settings and for each of the Sonos One's sign into 'Voice Services' and select 'Remove Amazon Alexa from this Room';
1.4/ In the Alexa app, select the Alexa Icon in the centre of the row of Icons at the bottom of the screen and ask ‘Alexa, Discover Devices’.
1.5/ Here is a link to my naming standards: https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/best-practices-for-naming-of-devices-6819283/index1.html

2/ Some form of Account Linking or Authorisation has not completed successfully. There are a number of causes for this and it's best to try these steps 1 at a time and test before moving on to the next step if the problem persists:
2.1/ Open the Alexa App>Skills>Your Skills>Sonos and 'Disable' followed by 'Enable';
2.2/ Ensure that you don't have multiple Amazon accounts logged into different Apps on your device, as this can confuse the Amazon Authorisation. If yes, then please log out of the other accounts and then complete step 2.1 again;
2.3/ If the problem still persists, please logout of all Amazon accounts then select the Alexa App>Skills>Your Skills>Sonos and 'Disable. Now power down all Sonos devices for 10 secs, allowing for any wired devices to boot before booting the remaining Sonos players. Now log back into the Alexa App>Skills>Sonos and 'Enable'

3/ If the problem persists then an entire reset of the Authorisation & Account Linking process is required:
3.1/ In the Alexa app, select Skills>Your Skills>Sonos and then 'Disable';
3.2 In the Alexa app, select ‘Devices>All Devices'. Now select each Sonos Device in turn and click the Trash Can in the top right of the screen;
3.3/ In the Sonos app, select Settings>Room Settings and for each of the Sonos One's sign into 'Voice Services' and select 'Remove Amazon Alexa from this Room';
3.4/ If you have any wired Sonos devices, please power down for 10 secs and then switch on and wait for it to boot;
3.5/ Now power down all other Sonos Players for 10 secs then switch them back on and wait for them to boot;
3.6/ In the Sonos app, Select Manage>Add a player or sub' and add the Sonos One's again. This will complete the set-up process again;
3.7/ In the Alexa app, select Skills>Your Skills and ensure the Sonos skill is 'Enabled', if not please 'Enable';
3.8/ In the Alexa app, select the Alexa Icon in the centre of the row of Icons at the bottom of the screen and ask ‘Alexa, Discover Devices’. Ensure that your Sonos One's are displayed correctly and not shown as 'Off Line'.
3.9/ Also check one last time that there are no devices with the same name. Remember, if there is a need to rename any then you'll need to carry out step 3.8 again.

Let us know how you get on.

I had the same issue "Alexa responds but will not play music" then i deleted the sonos skill from the Amazon Alexa App and then i enable the skill back in the amazon alexa app and it was able to discover all my sonos and now i can finally play music from all my music services on the sonos speakers using alexa. 😃

I’ve tried both (enabling and disabling the skill + emptying the queue) but can’t get it to work. Had it working for a week perhaps. I recently upgraded the iOS device with the Alexa app to iOS 12. Can this be related? (I realize everybody else in this thread was having problems before the iOS 12 release, but they managed to get Alexa working again).

Hey everyone I just fixed my issue. Originally I was told to delete the sonos and Alexa apps, reboot my sonos, etc but neither fixed the problem. Saw another post that said to disable the sonos skill in the Alexa app and reenable it. This worked! Hope this helps you guys too!!

Yes. It worked for me.

Jim T

I'm getting the same issue in the latest of the debacles that is the sonos one. I've had to reset my system so many times its infuriating - either because of the dreaded "hmmm you need to enable..." or this issue. I've followed the steps above to no avail. It seems as if Sonos simply aren't capable of getting the Sonos skill to work properly, because every update causes issues.

I'm so close to just sending the one back and going for something else entirely. How well does Google Home work with Sonos?

Hi im having the same issue. Does anyone have a step by step instruction on how to disable sonos in the alexa app. I have done different things on the alexa app and I still have the same problem.