Alexa Sonos Roam

S
Userlevel 1

Alexa will not connect to my sonos roam correctly- it will respond but then not play news, flash briefing, or music. All of my sonos devices (roam, beam, and move) will not play spotify through alexa. I have called support twice, and already tried the following:

  • On sonos app: disconnect and reconnect devices
  • On alexa app: 
    • Disable sonos skill and enable again 
    • Disable spotify skill and enable again
    • Delete all sonos devices and add again
    • Deregister all sonos devices and register again

None of these things have resolved the issue. I was told to post on beta community but I don’t have any projects open so cannot post on that board.

One of the reasons I bought the roam was for handsfree use of Alexa and to play music with spotify- none of these things are working. 

59 replies

S
Userlevel 1

Yes- I’m able to play spotify through the spotify app and the sonos app, just nothing works with alexa

S

Same here - one of the main reason I bought Roam was to hear my flash briefing in the bathroom. Why is this not fixed yet?

F

Wow - I have several Sonos products in my home. I bought a Roam to use during a 4week vacation and shipped it ahead of time to my destination. Set it up yesterday and have the same problems; no news, flash briefings, etc. I found this thread and have to say that it is disappointing that there is no fix. The product is virtually useless to me now and rather not carry it around on my vacation if I can’t use it. What is going on here, Sonos?

R
Userlevel 6
Badge +2

Came here to report the same problem.  On my Roam when I say “Alexa, flash briefing” she says “Here’s your flash briefing” and then I only get silence.  Asking Alexa to play an album works.

 

B
Userlevel 2

Alexa will not connect to my sonos roam correctly- it will respond but then not play news, flash briefing, or music. All of my sonos devices (roam, beam, and move) will not play spotify through alexa. I have called support twice, and already tried the following:

  • On sonos app: disconnect and reconnect devices
  • On alexa app: 
    • Disable sonos skill and enable again 
    • Disable spotify skill and enable again
    • Delete all sonos devices and add again
    • Deregister all sonos devices and register again

None of these things have resolved the issue. I was told to post on beta community but I don’t have any projects open so cannot post on that board.

One of the reasons I bought the roam was for handsfree use of Alexa and to play music with spotify- none of these things are working. 

 

Same here. My other Sonos products are working with Alexa OK (well, as OK as Alexa ever gets...) but my brand new Roam is utterly useless with Alexa. Like you, she says she’s understood and is going to play something, but…. nothing. Radio, Spotify, everything is hopeless. Maybe connects one time in 10 attempts. And if I give a new instruction while she IS playing something, all that happens is that the volume drops right down for a minute or so, then the original content keeps playing. Spent 2 hours on the phone with support this morning. Couldn’t fix it. They sent me a long email of instructions. I did everything with great care. No good. This is rubbish!

G

Solved my problems eventually by disabling Sonos skill on alexa and then re-enabling.

Maybe that will work for you (but I wouldn’t bet on it - hold the cigar).

I’ve got lots of older sonos kit and I’m now struggling to set up the sonos 1 app to use it.

 

nothing is ever easy with Sonos!

 

S

Alexa and BBC Sounds. What is going on? Per the script: “Alexa, open BBC Sounds”. She then asks which radio station, show or podcast would you like to hear? You tell her, she confirms and says “Playing BBC Radio 6 Music” then nothing, silence. I’ve tried Disabling the Skill then re-Enabling it. Nothing, What a frustrating and useless App….

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @CovertDirt 

Thanks for reporting this - we were able to reproduce the issue ourselves. I’ve asked for it to be fully investigated.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
S

Same problem here. My Roam won’t play my flash briefing. But it will play music, tell me the weather,  and play podcasts just fine. My other Sonos device (Sonos One) plays my flash briefing. So not sure why the Roam won’t …..?

C
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

Thanks, I’m in Australia. Sonos confirmed three weeks ago this was a fault they could replicate. I asked a week after that if it was fixed (it wasn’t) and I asked a week after that, and now again this morning.

 

Asking Alexa on the Move “What’s my flash briefing?” has a response saying “Here’s your flash briefing” and then nothing. No error, no explanation just silence.

 

Asking again Alexa replies “you’re already up to date”.

 

so flash briefing is not working still. 
 

And yes unfortunately I’ve done all the standard enabling and disabling and resetting which sadly is a common requirement between the Sonos skill and the app and the Alexa integration.

 

 

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @CovertDirt 

Sorry - I’ve nothing more to share at this point, but we are working with Amazon on resolving this as quickly as we can.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
V

Same here with my brand new Roam. It plays music, but no news. When I ask to pause the music or whatever its playing, Alexa acknowledged, but no further action, it keeps playing whatever she’s playing.

R
Userlevel 6
Badge +2

Hi @Razorhog 

As mentioned by the original poster, @sbg89, we are aware of an issue whereby Alexa will not play the flash briefing on a Sonos Roam. We are working with Amazon on a fix for this, but as yet we have no time frame to share. There is no workaround that we know of.

 

Any other issue with Alexa on Sonos will normally be resolved by the steps that @JimB004 took:

update… I have managed to get it to work again, I de-registered Sonos Roam in Alexa app, then disabled skill, then on Sonos App, removed Alexa voice assistant. Then added Alexa again on the App, connected to Amazon and it is now working again

Full, detailed instructions can be found on our Alexa commands not working on Sonos help page (under Advanced Fixes).

Thank you for the response. 

P
Badge

My Move wasn't working with Flash briefing yesterday and i’m based in the UK. One part of Sonos said no time frame for a fix and another part spent the last two months telling me it was my system configuration at fault.

As this fault is introduced with Sonos software releases and only exists on their bluetooth products I think the “we’re working with Amazon” is misleading. Amazon’s attitude is going to be that Sonos complies with Amazon’s  software not that Amazon will change to suit Sonos. Easy fix. Remove the part of the last S2 release that caused the problem. My Move worked for the period before the May21 S2 release. 

K
Userlevel 1

I am in New York and have an Alexa enabled Arc and move and am experiencing the same issue, so not limited to just Bluetooth devices. Super frustrating as both had been working since September of last year just fine until sometime in May/June. Bought an Echo dot and it works as expected so agree that something in the last release broke all the news/flash briefing. This is a core feature of Alexa, how Sonos released something that broke this and won’t give a timeline to fix instead of rolling back is bizarre. 
 

Also I spent about 6 hours on the phone with Amazon and Sonos, finally Sonos escalated to an engineer after I did all the previous mentioned steps on this chain dozens of times. Only to have an engineer tell me, “no need for a phone call we know about this and no eta.” So why wasn’t I just told that from the start when I called Sonos? Why is Alexa still green and “operational” on their status site when their engineers agree it isn’t operational?

I agree, roll back the release. They didn’t test enough. 

S
Userlevel 1

When I ask my move to play spotify (“alexa play spotify”)- it says “to play spotify enable the skill and link your account”. I have done both things but still not working.

R

Did you get this working. I have a similar issue where Roam won’t read me the news or play my Audible book using Alexa. It says it’s going to, but nothing happens. Both these things worked fine on my Sonos Move (and my Amazon Echos). It just seems to be Roam that’s not happy. It does play music from my Amazon account though using Alexa - so it half works! 

F

I have the same problem with a Sonos Move, Alexa's flash briefing stopped working months ago and I tried the fixes mentioned with no luck. Super annoying, hope at some point they fix this...

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi everyone!

I’m a little late as I have been off for a couple of weeks, but the issue of Roam not playing flash briefings has been resolved.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
S

Same problem here. Still not fixed. Have followed all troubleshooting steps. Alexa works on other Sonos devices, just not Roam. @sonos, any ETA?

M
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi

This exact issue with Alexa in Mid 2022, I ask Alexa to play Apple Music, she announces Playing your station on Apple Music, but nothing happens right after, and it was working fine previously. The same, I’ve tried multiple things, reinstal the Alexa skill, factory reset to my Sonos Roam, reboot my network hardware, ad the voice Service multiple times, but unfortunately Alexa keeps having a bad behavior. The Echo 4 that I had befor worked better than this Sonos Roam, I don’t know how can I get it fixed, but it looks like a firmware issue on the device. As I read the rest of the comments here, it looks like it’s a común issue without any fix. Sooner or later I’ll be returning this and buy an other Amazon Echo or Alexa products of other brand, waiting for a portable Amazon Echo with Bluetooth capabilities launched someday     

Ken_Griffiths

Hi

This exact issue with Alexa in Mid 2022, I ask Alexa to play Apple Music, she announces Playing your station on Apple Music, but nothing happens right after, and it was working fine previously. The same, I’ve tried multiple things, reinstal the Alexa skill, factory reset to my Sonos Roam, reboot my network hardware, ad the voice Service multiple times, but unfortunately Alexa keeps having a bad behavior. The Echo 4 that I had befor worked better than this Sonos Roam, I don’t know how can I get it fixed, but it looks like a firmware issue on the device. As I read the rest of the comments here, it looks like it’s a común issue without any fix. Sooner or later I’ll be returning this and buy an other Amazon Echo or Alexa products of other brand, waiting for a portable Amazon Echo with Bluetooth capabilities launched someday     

It sounds like a ‘duplicate’ device issue, or a device/group with the same/similar name to the Roam. Perhaps check your Amazon device list and Alexa ‘enabled’ groups and check to see if that might be the issue and also consider deregistering each of your Sonos components from the device list before removing and re-adding the Assistant/Sonos skill.

C
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

​​​@Corry P  Hey, just a heads up:Another 5 days has gone by and the Alexa flash briefing skill is still not working only Sonos Move. Same issue remains. This is a long wait for a fix.

F

Wow - I have several Sonos products in my home. I bought a Roam to use during a 4week vacation and shipped it ahead of time to my destination. Set it up yesterday and have the same problems; no news, flash briefings, etc. I found this thread and have to say that it is disappointing that there is no fix. The product is virtually useless to me now and rather not carry it around on my vacation if I can’t use it. What is going on here, Sonos?

UPDATE - I got News/Flash Briefings to work about 4 days ago, but still wasted almost two weeks. First Sonos product where I have had trouble getting it to work correctly.

C
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

I have a sonos move, and as of this morning I’m getting this behaviour too: Alexa enabled Sonos Move just never plays flash briefing?
 

Alexa says here’s your flash briefing and then never plays.

 

So it’s not working for my Sonos Move.

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