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Alexa will not stop playing or pause

  • 3 August 2019
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I have a Sonos Beam in my living room in a group with two Gen 1 Sonos One speakers and a Sonos Sub. I have had Alexa enabled since I initially setup this system.

All had been working well but suddenly, Alexa will not stop or pause playing by voice command. I can say "Alexa, play NPR" and it will respond properly. I can say "Alex Louder" and "Alex Lower" and the volume will adjust. But when I say "Alexa Stop" (which is what I've been saying since day one) or "Alexa Pause" it will simply make the command chime and keep playing.

Also, the Beam is working properly but in the Sonos app, I don't specifically see the Beam listed as a speaker. I think it might simply be labeled "Living Room?" I'm not sure if I should see the Beam specifically?

I tried to remove Alexa and reactivate it but I got completely confused and I'm not sure what I accomplished.

I'm now back to square one, with the same symptoms as described above.

I have an Echo Dot in another room that responds normally to Stop and Pause commands.
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Best answer by UKMedia 4 August 2019, 10:10

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94 replies

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I am having the same issue when using Alexa to play Spotify on my Sonos 1 Speakers.
I have six speakers.

"I can't skip to the next song"

Happens on playlists and albums. Will work for the first few minutes but then after a couple of songs have played, she can no longer skip to the next song.

This happens on individual speakers and on speaker groups.
I’ve got the exact same problem with my Sonos Beam, started about two weeks ago and driving me crazy.
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Have run into exactly the same problem.

I’m having the same issue on 2 of 3 of my Sonos speakers, Alexa won’t pause or stop my music. Any news on a fix for this?

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Exactly the same here on all my Sonos 1’s playing from Apple Music or radio stations, ‘pause’ and ‘stop’ commands do nothing. ‘Cancel’ however stops the music and ‘Resume’ also works.

Needs a fix ASAP...

Go to SONOS.com support page, choose fix an issue, Voice assistant issues, Alexa commands not working on Sonos. It involved disable sonos skill, deregister sonos speaker from 

amazon, remove voice command and sign out of Alexa app and re-set up of the speaker. I just tried it today and it works.

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Diagnostic:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/141?language=en_US



Thank you.

Yes, I'm still having the same problem. Any updates Sonos?

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Now “pause” and similar commands has stopped working in all my Sonos speakers yet again.  None of the steps in this thread help unfortunately.  So frustrating.  Anyone had any success with other solutions?

Same problem

Hi Sam-bam,

Thanks for the info above. I tried and no success.

What I did find this morning is it won't stop whilst playing a radio station from Tunein but it will if I switch to spotify and stop from there. Strange.

I will chat with Sonos later today and see what they say.

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Yes, raised a ticket with technical support and this is now resolved. Deactivated the skill after removing Alexa from the Sonos One. Reenabled both and it now workd

I’m having similar problem - playing a playlist from Apple Music on my Sonos One and it won’t respond to anything; tried pause, stop, set volume to 1, turn it down, turn it up... 

please confirm which technical support you raised this with? Sonos or Alexa? 
I will do the same and post any updates I get. 

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Best option first is to Disable the Sonos Skill and then Enable it again in the Alexa App. If the problem persists, please power down the Beam for 5 secs and then power back on.

If the second option works, I suggest that you open the settings web page for your router and reserve the IP address for your Sonos devices. (I normally reserve the range 192.168.0.200 and above for my Sonos devices.)
The workaround of "alexa cancel" to pause works for me 🙂

We are having this problem also. The wife listens to NPR, but when she tells it to stop, it does not. She’ll say “Stop NPR,” stop the station name, stop room, nothing works. I’ll say,  “ALEXA! Listen to your mother!!” But she is obstinate. 
 

I have submitted a diagnostic 1681780391

 

 

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The first thing to do is Disable then Enable the Sonos Skill within the Alexa App.  Can you confirm if the issue persists after you have tried this?

I also have this problem which only started about a week ago. I can stop anything played from the radio app but not Spotify.

However if if I say “Alexa Cancel” then this does work and stops the music.

I experimented with an Alexa device on a different account that is not linked to Sonos. Everything there works fine so it is definitely a Sonos skill issue.

That is very odd. as I mentioned previously we are working with Amazon on this issue. We hope it can be resolved soon, but we cannot provide a time frame at this time. When we have more information to share, we will update this thread.

I have the same problem. alexa is not skiping songs.
very frustrating

@lylesback2 Have you tried disabling the Sonos skill and enabling it again in the Alexa app?

That actually did work, thank you!

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@Trisse123, thank you so much for your advice!!

Here is what I did for 2 hours this morning:

  • Switched off all Sonos devices
  • Disconnected all devices from internet Router (wired and wireless)
  • Factory reset Bridge, Connect and one of my One’s
  • Forgot all Sonos devices from https://alexa.amazon.co.uk/
  • Deleted Alexa and Sonos apps on iPhone
  • Restarted Router
  • Restarted Bridge and connected it to Router via ethernet
  • Downloaded Sonos mobile app
  • From the mobile app:
    • Set up a new system
    • Added the Bridge first
    • Added the Connect second ... with difficulties !!!
    • Registered the two products to Sonos account
    • Added the One
    • Registered the One to Sonos account
    • Skipped true play tuning
    • Added Alexa service to One
    • Downloaded Alexa app
  • In Alexa app:
    • Signed in
    • Deregistered all Sonos devices
    • Disabled then enabled Sonos skill

… and it didn’t work … “I have trouble understanding right now” …

Made myself a cup of tea, took a deep breath, removed the Sonos skill from my One, disabled and enabled the Sonos skill again, and finally Alexa was added to my One again.

Then I added Spotify to Sonos and Alexa again.

“Alexa, play music in Dining”: worked

“Alexa, stop in Dining”: worked    -    HOORAY!!

“Alexa, play Crooked Rain” … “Playing Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain from Spotify”: worked

“Alexa, stop”: worked   -   HOORAY again!!

Factory reset all other devices, added them one by one to the Sonos system, grouped them as they were before… It all works.

Thank you Trisse123!!

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Same problem, with my Sonos 1. Can’t find any command to stop/pause/cancel, so have to do so via the Sonos App

I’m having the same issue with a twist. At first I thought Alexa wasn’t skipping songs at all, but then I realized it’s just when I use Google Play that anything besides stop and start does not work. 

Alexa voice commands work flawlessly with my Sonos playlists. But I primarily use google play and ever since I did the latest system update voice commands for play previous, repeat or skip a song no longer works for Google Play. 

I tried all of the troubleshooting suggested and the issue persists. I’ll submit a diagnostic, but I thought I would post it in hope of anyone else having and/or solving this particular issue

 

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The team is looking into this, but I don't have any specific details on a resolution. As Disco Stu suggested above, "Play NPR" isn't able to stop, but playing a specific NPR station will. Here's why, "Play NPR" loads up the NPR skill, which isn't responding to the stop command from Alexa on Sonos. Playing a specific station, is playing it from TuneIn or your preferred radio source, such as iHeartRadio.

I'll let you know if we have any news on this issue.

I’m having the same problem.  Any updates? 

Userlevel 7
Hi Disco Stu

I'm gong to respond to your issue but not in the same order as you posted.

Also, the Beam is working properly but in the Sonos app, I don't specifically see the Beam listed as a speaker. I think it might simply be labeled "Living Room?" I'm not sure if I should see the Beam specifically?

Just exactly what are you seeing in the Sonos app for Living Room? Are there any question (?) marks present.

All had been working well but suddenly, Alexa will not stop or pause playing by voice command. I can say "Alexa, play NPR" and it will respond properly. I can say "Alex Louder" and "Alex Lower" and the volume will adjust. But when I say "Alexa Stop" (which is what I've been saying since day one) or "Alexa Pause" it will simply make the command chime and keep playing.

Have you tried voicing the stop or pause command by saying..."Alexa stop (name of service here)" or "Alexa pause (name of service here)".

Let us know. Cheers!