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Intermittent Alexa Voice Assistant.. Sonos Voice Control all OK!

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Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
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@KiPe 

If you read the whole tread, you will see that the issue is identified and that Sonos is already working on it.
ALL Era100 devices using Alexa are affected by this and it’s not a hardware but a software issue. 
Just wait for the fix… 

Ralf
Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
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@Ken_Griffiths

I can tell you what Sonos support told me… they never heard of such a problem before and suggested to try a different wifi channel. Wuup wuup… diagosis showed nothing that could explain the problem. 
After I asked for it three times they promised to pass this on that someone can try to reproduce it. 
I wonder if there will be a feedback. 
Especially in this case I‘m disappointed, because generally I always had very good experiences with the support team. 

Ralf
Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

So you can be sure that all the comments over here got an ear. 😎

‘Ear’ or ‘Era’ ? 😀

😅👍🏻 Taking a problem with a smile of course is a smaller problem. 😎

Ralf
H
Userlevel 2

I have no chance to say the entire phrase because when i speak “Alexa what’s time” i have the same result randomly with the led that turn on and immediatly turn off after.

Have you tried removing/reinstalling the Alexa voice assistant and perhaps also removing/reinstalling the Sonos skill? I see a few users are reporting the issue here now, but it still maybe worth trying that, perhaps?

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the ideas. I did indeed perform a full factory reset on the ERA  and removed also manually all the remains of it in the Alexa app and disabled the skill. 

Also usually I do the commands slower in normal use but the light going out means to me it stops listening so for the demo I just tried to keep prompting it every time I see the light going off...

 

Also when using exact same software and location setup with a Sonos Roam it works perfectly so I would actually nearly rule out the software and wifi related debugging branches.

Maybe there is really some bad batch of ERA 100 around? (Which would also explain the relatively small number of users and others who have it fully working)

@all maybe it makes sense to share serial numbers here to allow Sonos to check if we all belong to some kind of group on the manufacturing side? Mine is

A100 2212CP F0-F6-C1-A0-F1-AA:G (found on the bottom)

And region is Germany as well

Cheers,

Matt

Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

@Famill 

I really can not share your experiences… for me besides this bug discussed here the voice control of Era100 worked well. 

Ralf
D
Userlevel 2

Thanks Ken for all the help so far. Everything above I have done with no luck.. very frustrating overall and all that is left is Sonos / Amazon support or I return the item. Thanks again.

Ken_Griffiths

I provided the evidence of this issue that I had gathered to support yesterday (Jose S.) who was extremely helpful. I was informed they would investigate the issue and escalate it, as necessary. Although I do not want to assume the outcome of their investigation here.

I gave Jose S. a link to this thread too. I was given a support reference asked/agreed to wait for the outcome. Not sure I could do any more than that.

However my own advice is, if you haven’t yet reported the issue to Support already, to obviously do that and give the Staff any diagnostic and video evidence in support. The more data they have, the more it may help the matter along.

Personally speaking though I don’t expect a fix this quickly, even if it’s a simple software issue (as many suspect), it might even be an Amazon related matter, for all I know.

I assume though that once the issue is pinpointed by Staff, it will be pushed forward to the developers (Amazon and/or Sonos) to fix. Presumably that fix will then need testing to make sure it does not cause any other system issues and assuming that the testing goes okay, it will get incorporated in a future world-wide update alongside any other prioritised fixes .. so perhaps not the next Sonos update, but maybe the one after that, or even the next one (depending on how the testing goes).

The important thing at the moment though, is to get the data into Sonos customer support, because without that, it may take even longer to get the matter prioritised as Sonos Staff do not always read these community threads, other than perhaps for forum moderation and it was clear in my Support call, that Customer Services do not routinely read every thread in this community, at least not until someone perhaps brings a thread/discussion to their attention. They clearly have enough to do already via chat/call-in support. 

H
Userlevel 2

Good point on the SVc so the there is hope they can fix it without a hardware replacement.

 

But just to get this understood correctly: the button on top disables in my opinion the voice control completely (you can also do this in the app) and doesn't put it into 'listening' mode. (Where I think the issue is somehow related to)

So for any action to take place you need 3 things:

1 hardware switch to green at the back

2 voice in listening (faint white led)

3 wake word 

Right?

Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

@Ken_Griffiths

I totally agree… but sometimes it seems to be a lottery how professional support staff works. In your case you were lucky… 
But that‘s the same overall where humans are working. 😉

And imho most users here agree that it takes its time and also their help to investigate this. But on the other hand users also expect professional work and communication on supports side. 

And I really can’t understand why the Sonos mods were answering most threads after new years day but seem to be avoiding any comments to this issue. 😉 

As I said before… sometimes if you are running into problems it just helps if someone from staff says „Yes, we heard you!“. 
It not just a matter of hard facts… it’s also one of how it feels. 
just my 2 cents 

Ralf
Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

@Hirsel

You have to HOLD your finger on the micro touch button while the micro/ LED is active. Then you can talk to Alexa while holding your finger on. After you release ist Alexa will answer. 
So this is an alternative for saying the keyword. But this only works for Alexa and not for SVC. 

Ralf
Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
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@Minsou 

Not the way as planned by design, but… it just works. 😉👍🏻

Ralf
C
Userlevel 2
Badge +1

Just to add I have a Sonos Roam as well, no such issues.

Ken_Griffiths

@Ken_Griffiths

Btw… does EN support still use diags from the community? Sadly german support stopped this about 2 years ago and diags only can be used for chat or phone support. :-(

I don’t expect the Sonos Staff to reply back to me @Schlumpf, but I still post the diagnostic reports after I encounter an issue, as it at least lets them perhaps see the causes. It may help the developers too.. and at least I can come back here and get the report references if they are ever required.

Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

@drbabbers 

Indeed bad timing… I just can tell you that before this occurred Alexa worked absolutely fine with the Era100. As I were you I would have waited some time to get this fixed by Amazon/Sonos. 
Maybe you will give it a second chance soon. 😉

Ralf
H
Userlevel 2

Can say the same! The combo with Alexa really did work and the sound is just such a huge upgrade compared to the Echo themselves (or the nightmare of connectivity issue we call Bluetooth)

Ken_Griffiths

Same problem here. I’ve just had a long session with Sonos chat, and this is the conclusion they sent me after looking at the diagnostics on my Era 100:

 

Thank you for you patience! After a further check it seems the issue you are experiencing is a known issues with the Era100 which is not responding to the voice commands. We are currently investigating this issue and out engineers are trying to find a resolution as fast as possible.

 

They said there will be a software update when the issue is resolved, but couldn’t give any idea of time. Great.

I’m fairly sure that’s the same for any company fix. Sonos have to identify the cause, fix it with software and then test it. No-one can predict if the testing will fail, or work etc. Then when it is fully tested, it will be released in a scheduled update alongside other bug fixes. There’s no saying if it will be in the next Sonos update, or a later one. All anyone can say is that Sonos are looking into the matter. I have the issue with two Era 100s and I’m just going to wait patiently. I love the little speaker and happy to wait for the issue to be resolved. We all hope that happens sooner, rather than later.🤞

Ken_Griffiths

Perhaps highlighting this to the media might help resolve it quicker. No one likes bad publicity 

I have the Era issue here and have given the data to Sonos. They acknowledged the issue and are working on a fix, I assume that's ‘perhaps’ with their partner Amazon in this instance. Not even a month has passed and I’m not sure that any media outlet would be interested in such trivia, particularly as the matter is being investigated/fixed, then most probably tested by Sonos for release. It’s not like this has been going on for months - I doubt it’s even reached the testing stage at this point. It’s more a case of just waiting patiently, I think.

Ken_Griffiths

I think you’ve landed on the crux of the issue here… Sonos aren’t providing fixes or improvements as quickly as you would expect. Whilst voice assistant isn’t the core feature of the speaker it’s still a large part of the product feature.

After 15 years and numerous products later, I purchased a WiiM Amp over xmas and I couldn’t be happier. Regular updates with improvements, fixes, stable app, zero network issues so far…

I think Sonos having released numerous products can’t keep the software development moving at the same speed. The bigger your product portfolio against a single code base, the bigger the regression risk.

I wouldn’t argue with the issues you raise, but either way I’m not going to dash-out to the media over a minor bug… I have waited many weeks in the past for Amazon, LG, Apple and Google to fix a variety of issues - These things can take weeks, rather than days, as there’s usually an order of priority. The bug probably needs writing up in detail and the proposed fix too, then post-coding, things need both testing/approval. If that testing fails then it might go round the mill again and eventually it presumably gets approved for release to the general public and included in an App/Firmware update alongside any other fixes and distributed worldwide… I tend to see (on average) that Sonos release an update about every 6 weeks, or so. My expectation is to therefore see an "acknowledged issue" fixed around 12-18 weeks later (give or take).

Note that some users who visit the community here, also complain about the Sonos App/device update frequency, saying they occur much too often… so I think my own expectation of around 3 months is quite reasonable, all things considered. If it happens sooner, then great!!!  

I’m just not seeing it ‘yet’, as an issue where I need to start banging a drum, or running to the media. My own view is to be a little more patient. I’m sure the Sonos Staff (who likely use these products themselves) want these ‘bug fixes’ resolved as much as we do.

Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

Would be nice if someone from Sonos community staff just says „Hello… we are aware of this now and reports it to the teams.“  😉

Ralf
Ken_Griffiths

Would be nice if someone from Sonos community staff just says „Hello… we are aware of this now and reports it to the teams.“  😉

I would hazard a guess that Sonos are perhaps still gathering any available data at this very early stage, to try discover where the issues may lie. It might perhaps be on the Amazon Alexa side of things for example and so they may need the data to pass onto them. It’s probably best to report the issue to Sonos via this link:

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact

… together with any diagnostic (and often helpful video) information too. 

Ken_Griffiths

FWIW. I have reported this issue to Jose S. at Sonos Customer Support too with my diagnostic information and made reference back to this thread. It’s clear the matter is still very much under investigation and ongoing. In my own case the issue is intermittent.

R
Userlevel 2
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Thanks for the update @Jasperdekruiff 👍

M
Userlevel 2
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The issue happened 3 months ago, any news about it ? 

The Alexa issue has been resolved

A

Hello, I also have same problem with my new Sonos One .. With my Sonos roam I don‘t have such problems.

 

Are there any news?

@aklos

Hi… not sure if you are running into the same problem as the other users here reporting about Era100. For me I can say it only happens on the Era100. All other devices inkluding Sonos One work fine with Alexa. 
So maybe there’s a different kind of problem with your Sonos One. Did you try all the standard troubleshooting steps like reconnecting Alexa to the One, reactivating the Sonos skill and first of all deleting the device from your Amazon account?

Will give it a try and let you know what happend. thank you

Schlumpf
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

Ok… perhaps I can tell some good news. 
Today I recognized that Alexa didn’t respond any longer at all. There was an Alexa app updates and a look into the app showed that the Era100 device couldn’t be found. Next was a look into Sonos app and there was a message to complete Alexa setup for Era100. 
So I did… and after all I can tell you „It just works!“ 😎

Seems that they got it fixed. 

Ralf
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