Playbar cannot be discovered by Alexa

  • 20 January 2019
  • 9 replies
  • 642 views

When I originally setup my Sonos with Alexa (Play1 and Playbar+sub) it all worked however I then discovered that because my smart bulbs were called the same name as my Playbar it caused a conflict on instructions. I then removed the Playbar from Alexa with the intention of readding it and giving it a different name.

I have renamed the Playbar (+sub) but they are now are not docoverable by Alexa. I have tried the following:

Disabling and enabling the skills
Resetting the router
Uninstalling and reinstalling both the Alexa and sonos apps
Performing a factory reset on the Playbar (it should be noted when I reconnect the Playbar I had to do this wired for some reason)



I only have the one sonos account and amazon account (both using the same email address)

The Play1 connects fine so I know it’s not my router, accounts or the skill.

I am now completely stumped any help would be appreciated

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9 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +20
Hi

Please see here my recommended Naming Standards: https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/best-practices-for-naming-of-devices-6819283/index1.html

Did you change the name of the Playbar in the Sonos App or Alexa? It must be the Sonos App... Does the Playbar work fine with the Sonos App? If Yes, can you work through these steps:

Sorry for the long post and some of these Ken suggested but it's worth going through this in a logical sequence :)

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 open the Alexa App on a Browser (https://alexa.amazon.co.uk or https://alexa.amazon.com)>Smart Home>Devices and select 'Forget All' followed by 'Discover'. NOTE: This will remove ALL Actions from ALL Alexa Routines! (Only the Browser version has this functionality.)

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 (Browser version), select 'Smart Home>Devices'. Now select 'Forget All' at the bottom of the screen;
3.3/ In the Sonos app (Android or iOS), 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 Smart Home>Devices>Discover. 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 select 'Discover' again.

Let us know how you get on.
Tried all of these and it hasn’t worked, I’ve now also lost my Play1 which was assigned to the kitchen.

My thinking is that the problem is at the sonos end as all other devices discover without issue also when I factory reset all my sonos devices my plarbar would not reconnect wirelessly, I had to connect it via a wired connection, then it could connect wirelessly
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
As the problem has become worse after booting the other Sonos devices, this may be down to duplicate IP Addresses. Can you please power down the following devices for 5 secs, allowing each to complete its boot cycle before proceeding to the next device:

- Router
- Any Network wired switch
- Any wired Sonos devices
- All other Sonos devices
- All other attached network devices

If this fixes the problem, I suggest you open the Settings page on your Router and reserve IP addresses for your Sonos devices - I personally use the range 192.168.0.240 and above for my Sonos devices.
This hasn’t worked either, starting to get extremely frustrated with sonos. Been working on this for about 5 hours
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
This hasn’t worked either, starting to get extremely frustrated with sonos. Been working on this for about 5 hours

I think the best thing is to submit a diagnostic and post the number in this thread or use FB or Twitter to contact Sonos Tech Support.
murtagh,

I would remove the Sonos Skill in the Alexa App... then goto https://alexa.anazon.com and login. Goto smart-home—>devices—> scroll the list of devices to the bottom and choose option to forget all. Then logout. Note if you have other smart home devices like lights or plugs etc. It will also remove those and you would have to set them up again... if you prefer you can go through the device list and remove each Sonos device one at a time. I would however also definitely still remove the light that was conflicting earlier with your Sonos PlayBar room name .. delete it and discover it later, after you have double-checked its name in the app that you use to setup those lights.

Goto your Amazon Account online and ensure all Sonos devices are no longer appearing in the section entitled 'Manage Content & Devices' ..if any are still there, then remove each Sonos device manually and logout of Amazon.

Now goto the Alexa App on your mobile controller and ensure it is logged into your Amazon Account. Add the Sonos Skill and discover devices and set up any Amazon Groups (if necessary).. make sure your light/room names are not conflicting with your Sonos speakers... it’s best if they are all uniquely named. Don’t just change things in the Alexa App, you need to change room and device names of devices in their own native App

Having discovered the devices, now check the devices section in the Alexa App for your Sonos PlayBar Room Name ...for example 'Living Room'. Make sure it is uniquely named.. if not change it in the Sonos App etc. (Or change lights/rooms in their own app) and rediscover/scan so that Alexa picks up the change you’ve made.

Next check 'settings/music' in the Alexa App and ensure your streaming music service is installed and set as the default service.

Then test things with 'Alexa, play some music on Living Room' ... obviously use whatever your PlayBar unique Room Name is assigned to your device.

See if that works.
murtagh,

Oh and one other important thing to check is that you do not also have any Alexa 'Group Names' that may also conflict with your Sonos Room Names .. it’s best to keep all these things as unique as possible.
Badge +1
For what it's worth, I'm seeing something similar (https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/starting-yesterday-alexa-cannot-discover-any-sonos-devices-as-speakers-but-sonos-devices-accept-voice-input-6819621) and none of the above remedies are working for me either.

I've removed and reset literally everything, carefully, and I can assure you alexa and the sonos devices are able to make network connections as I can ask Alexa to discover devices through the very devices it fails to discover.
Badge +1
It looks like Sonos has managed to fix the issue I was having, and a few other people are reporting that discover is working again. You might want to retry it now.