Yesterday Alexa just stopped working on my Arc, not sure why. I have tried unplugging and restarting everything including the router. Also reinstalling Amazon Alexa, the Sonos app is not helpful in this process. It would not reload or setup. Back when it was working it has always had an annoying habit of hearing something that remotely sounds like Alexa and mutes the sound for a few seconds. In the age of super clever tech why on earth does it do this? And how can I get Alexa working again?
Answered
Alexa stopped working
Best answer by Corry P
Hi @AjTrek1
If a Moderator wants to comment on this I welcome their input.
I personally lost Alexa (as in, the microphone light went off and would not turn back on with a tap) on my Sonos One (Gen 2), but not on any other speakers that have it installed. When I tried it, another speaker responded, but I don’t know how long after the AWS issue this was, as I did not learn about that until much later. It’s possible that they would not have responded earlier.
Attempting to repair it in the app (there was an option to “fix it”) got me as far as granting permission on the Alexa website called up by the adding process, but that timed-out and failed multiple times. I rebooted the speaker and possible the smartphone (not knowing about AWS yet), and I think one or two more attempts later, it added, after a long wait at the part that timed-out on previous attempts.
Annoyingly, I had to change her voice back to a UK one, which took some fiddling in the Alexa app.
So, once I came back in to work and learned about AWS, it all made sense. I guess I only discovered the issue after it had already been resolved, or rebooting would not have made a difference. Either that, or I discovered the issue 15 minutes before it was fixed, and the reboot wasn’t what actually helped.
As for the report of “Sonos logged me out”, I think that may have been more of a “x number of times failed connection results in a token expiry” kind of programmed logic. This is just my personal assumption - I really don’t know, but to venture any further theory, I’d need to know exactly which app @sky5 is referring to - Sonos or Alexa, which account - Sonos or Alexa, and what exactly they mean by “logged out”, as, if they just mean that Alexa was no longer linked in the Sonos app, I would refer to that more as a subscription being invalidated/removed due to the server not responding, or perhaps giving an unexpected response (which is probably considered worse), at a guess, than us opting to log you out of your account with bizarre powers. Not that it would take those to log out - I have never heard of needing a password to log out of something.
Having said all this, we are aware that following this AWS outage, Alexa installs on Sonos are not always quite as easy to get back to a working state as we'd expect them to be after an event such as this, and we are investigating.
We do have the following advice for those struggling to get Alexa working again on one or more Sonos speakers:
- Workaround 1: Some users may see a "reauthenticate" prompt upon opening the Sonos app, or when selecting Amazon Alexa under room settings. If so, follow the on-screen prompts to attempt reauthentication.
- Workaround 2: Reboot all Sonos products in the household, then retry Amazon Alexa commands.
- Workaround 3: Remove Amazon Alexa from the Sonos app (and all speakers), and disable the Sonos skill in the Alexa app. Then, re-add Amazon Alexa and retry Amazon Alexa commands.
I hope this helps.
Edit: Corrected typo and grammar
I’ve had the same problem this morning on my Era 100. I had to reconnect Alexa with Sonos in the Sonos App. Now it’s working again.
Alexa was impacted by the world wide AWS outage.
Big chunks of Amazon stopped working, looks like most of it is back up again.
Alexa stopped working on our Beam yesterday and now we can’t add it back again.
There is a button in general settings, voice assistants, Amazon Alexa where it shows our other units that support Alexa, and you can supposedly add another product but it’s greyed out 😡
Alexa is working normally on other units we have (before Sonos support start bleating AWS).
Geoff
Where has Sonos Support been bleating AWS? Certainly not here on this community forum, they don’t visit here.
Have you called them? It seems like a local issue, rather than one endemic to all Sonos.
Where has Sonos Support been bleating AWS? Certainly not here on this community forum, they don’t visit here.
Have you called them? It seems like a local issue, rather than one endemic to all Sonos.
Calm down, that’s not what I said, have another read...tense is important.
Every time I tried to remove or fix Alexa the (Android) app crashed.
In the end I have installed Sonos Voice Command to get rid of Alexa, and disabled the Sonos skill in Alexa.
I have to say this must be a fallout of the ongoing AWS problems.
Noticed that Sonos Voice Command only worked once, so perhaps there is a problem in the Sonos ecosystem as well, after all it may be running on AWS.
I have a full days work to do so I moved an Echo into the room and I'll revisit this tonight and then tomorrow.
Might be worth one of raising a support ticket but I don't have time right now.
Same issue here.
I’ve tried unplugging and replugging the device, as well as disabling and re-adding the Alexa skill in the Alexa app. The skill successfully re-links to my Amazon account, but the setup process still fails to complete.
I don’t normally use Google Assistant, but I set it up as a test and it worked fine — which suggests this is likely related to the AWS outage yesterday.
https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status
Still ongoing issues affecting specific services and regions in US.
Same here with an Era 100.
The skill successfully re-links to my Amazon account, but the setup process still fails to complete.
I have tested again this evening and have been able to reconnect Alexa through the Sonos app, now working.
This worked for me: In your Sonos App, go to Settings, General Settings, Voice Assistants, Amazon Alexa. Each of your devices should show up. Click on them one at a time and hit “fix” and it should cycle you through adding Alexa back into the device.
Here’s the reason why Alexa stopped working…..
AWS experienced a major outage in the early hours of 10/20/2025 in the US and other regions. Alexa was one of the services affected. Click the link for more information:
My Alexa integration with my Sonos speakers stopped working during the outage the other day and I’ve been unable to restore it since.
I went through the full nuclear reset process just now:
- uninstalled the Sonos skill from Alexa and unlinked my Sonos account
- unregistered my Sonos devices from my Amazon account
- uninstalled the Amazon Shopping and Alexa apps
- factory reset all of my speakers and set them up as a new System
- “Add a Voice Assistant” → “Alexa” → “Add Alexa” → “Sign in to Amazon”
- “There was a problem adding Alexa”
I use Alexa on my Sonos speakers every single day so this really sucks 😭
It is unfortunate that you did the full ‘nuclear’ factory reset, it would erase any logs that Sonos might have read to help figure out what the issue was that occurred. Still, I’d recommend that you call Sonos Support to discuss it. There could be new data explaining why your current attempts are failing.
When you speak directly to the Support staff, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.
Before doing all of that a call to Sonos support to make sure Amazon was fully functional in your area would have been a good idea.
Always a good idea to call in any trouble situation, before doing factory resets unless specifically recommended in the Sonos support documentation. They wipe important diagnostic data and rarely solve problems other than the ones Sonos recommends them for.
This worked for me: In your Sonos App, go to Settings, General Settings, Voice Assistants, Amazon Alexa. Each of your devices should show up. Click on them one at a time and hit “fix” and it should cycle you through adding Alexa back into the device.
Thank you! This was exactly what i came here looking for.
Update:
I tried again this morning and still repeatedly encountered “There was a problem adding Alexa”.
But then I opened the app this evening and noticed my account was unexpectedly logged out (Sonos must have done something on their end) so I immediately logged back in and was instantly successful in adding Alexa to my devices! Thank you for the fix!
I just tried again and no, I can't sign in to Amazon via the Sonos app to add the Alexa voice assistant.
I am in the North of the UK.
23 Oct 2025
It's ok, I'll let trying every other day.
Just be clear an earlier post indicated that they were logged out of Amazon and that Sonos must have done something on their end. Not saying that adjustments made to the app will not possibly affect streaming accounts…anything is possible.
However, I don’t want it to be thought that Sonos is “logging” people out of their streaming accounts. If that were true I’d be very concerned as that would be a violation of my privacy not to mention having access to my streaming account and/or device.
If a Moderator wants to comment on this I welcome their input.
This worked for me: In your Sonos App, go to Settings, General Settings, Voice Assistants, Amazon Alexa. Each of your devices should show up. Click on them one at a time and hit “fix” and it should cycle you through adding Alexa back into the device.
This worked for me too. Thanks!
I ran into a loop of Try Again on my phone and then the agent suggested using a different phone, so I did and it proceeded correctly.
All fixed.
+19Hi @AjTrek1
If a Moderator wants to comment on this I welcome their input.
I personally lost Alexa (as in, the microphone light went off and would not turn back on with a tap) on my Sonos One (Gen 2), but not on any other speakers that have it installed. When I tried it, another speaker responded, but I don’t know how long after the AWS issue this was, as I did not learn about that until much later. It’s possible that they would not have responded earlier.
Attempting to repair it in the app (there was an option to “fix it”) got me as far as granting permission on the Alexa website called up by the adding process, but that timed-out and failed multiple times. I rebooted the speaker and possible the smartphone (not knowing about AWS yet), and I think one or two more attempts later, it added, after a long wait at the part that timed-out on previous attempts.
Annoyingly, I had to change her voice back to a UK one, which took some fiddling in the Alexa app.
So, once I came back in to work and learned about AWS, it all made sense. I guess I only discovered the issue after it had already been resolved, or rebooting would not have made a difference. Either that, or I discovered the issue 15 minutes before it was fixed, and the reboot wasn’t what actually helped.
As for the report of “Sonos logged me out”, I think that may have been more of a “x number of times failed connection results in a token expiry” kind of programmed logic. This is just my personal assumption - I really don’t know, but to venture any further theory, I’d need to know exactly which app @sky5 is referring to - Sonos or Alexa, which account - Sonos or Alexa, and what exactly they mean by “logged out”, as, if they just mean that Alexa was no longer linked in the Sonos app, I would refer to that more as a subscription being invalidated/removed due to the server not responding, or perhaps giving an unexpected response (which is probably considered worse), at a guess, than us opting to log you out of your account with bizarre powers. Not that it would take those to log out - I have never heard of needing a password to log out of something.
Having said all this, we are aware that following this AWS outage, Alexa installs on Sonos are not always quite as easy to get back to a working state as we'd expect them to be after an event such as this, and we are investigating.
We do have the following advice for those struggling to get Alexa working again on one or more Sonos speakers:
- Workaround 1: Some users may see a "reauthenticate" prompt upon opening the Sonos app, or when selecting Amazon Alexa under room settings. If so, follow the on-screen prompts to attempt reauthentication.
- Workaround 2: Reboot all Sonos products in the household, then retry Amazon Alexa commands.
- Workaround 3: Remove Amazon Alexa from the Sonos app (and all speakers), and disable the Sonos skill in the Alexa app. Then, re-add Amazon Alexa and retry Amazon Alexa commands.
I hope this helps.
Edit: Corrected typo and grammar
Thanks for the reply. My main concern was that I didn’t want members thinking that “Sonos was logging people out of their streaming accounts” by as you say some “bizarre” power 😂.
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