Sonos One doesn’t stop playing music

  • 18 February 2018
  • 12 replies
  • 2750 views

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Could anyone be of help, I would be grateful.

Have two Sonos one’s in stereo and the in past few days when I ask Alexa to stop playing one speaker fails to stop. Everything was working O.K until this last update of Alexa. Have tried turning off the mic for awhile but it does not work. Tried also resetting the stereo, no solution and the problem is there when I group the speakers, but seems Ok when the speakers are used independently.

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12 replies

Shaun

I would separate out the two speakers and clear any queues and switch them off for a minute or two. Then restart them one at a time and set them up again as a new stereo pair in the same room using the Sonos App.

Just as a simple example, I tend to have the one speaker perhaps called Kitchen and I then join it to Kitchen-2... setting them to a finished Room name of 'Kitchen'. Choosing one speaker for the left channel in the course of the stereo setup.

Then the important next step, is to go into the Alexa App and clear any old detected Sonos speakers in the Devices section of the App. Just remove any Sonos devices that you no longer use/require. Then ask Alexa to recan for Devices... in my example Alexa would find the one device only called 'Kitchen' and then it should all work fine.

Perhaps clearing out your old Alexa (Sonos) devices in the smarthome section of the Alexa app is what you perhaps need to do and then re-scan for things after they have been paired.

Likewise if you later choose to un-pair the speakers, you would need to update (rescan) the Alexa devices again, after removing any old Sonos devices no longer in use.
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Thanks Ken. The problem sorted with your help. Got myself into a mess somewhat. Anyway both Sono’s are now functioning correctly......thank you.
Really glad it’s sorted Shaun, that’s the main thing. I love the voice control of my Sonos speakers. I don’t know how I have managed without it. There is certainly no going back for me.
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The problem returns. Alexa responds to questions, weather etc, anything outside of music commands. Alex will not respond to any music commands, ie. stop, skip track etc.
Possibly a few network interference issues...

Are you running the speakers on your own WiFi network or are you running them on SonosNet (where one Sonos device is connected via cable to your router).

SonosNet is usually the best way to run things.

Anyhow try a different 2.4ghz WiFi channel on your router and ensure it is a completely different channel to your SonosNet Channel, that’s whether or not you are running on SonosNet.

Ideally if you can scan the airwaves using some software like inSSIDer and see what WiFi channels are being used by your neighbours ... then choose channels that are as far away as you can.

In my case my neighbours are using channel 6 ... so I have set my router to channel 11 and my SonosNet channel to 1 and I get a lot less issues with interference.

I have also moved my Sonos speakers away from other wireless devices such as our DECT wireless house phones.

It maybe worth taking a look at those things and see if you can improve your WiFi reception.

Note some routers these days have their channels set to auto ... that means they could possibly change their wifi channel on update/reboot etc. So my suggestion is to change that to a fixed channel, so that it remains the same.

I tend to scan the WiFi waves around the house every few months, just to make sure the neighbours have not altered their channels so that they interfere with my setup... if so, I just shift a few things (channels) around.

It’s a good idea after changing things to give the Sonos devices about 10-20 minutes or so to allow things to settle down and work correctly.

If you do run your system on SonosNet, or decide to do so in the future, it’s best to then go into the advanced settings of the Sonos controller and remove/reset your routers WiFi credentials from the wireless setup section. These credentials are no longer needed when your switch to SonosNet.

I hope the above makes sense to you and that if you try these things it may help to improve your connectivity so that the voice instructions work perfectly each time.

Finally, here are a useful list of all the Alexa voice commands and wording which work with Sonos, make sure also that you are using the correct phrases to control your system by voice.

https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4343?_ga=2.177647270.2064157704.1507302379-1233958171.1507302379
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Hi Ken. Thanks. The problem has only happened since the last Alexa update. Alexa works fine other than music commands. Answers questions, streams music OK.
Then if your happy it’s not WiFi interference, perhaps try removing and restoring the Sonos Skill in the Alexa App and redetect your devices.

I’m in the U.K. too ...and I’m not encountering any issues with the voice commands and I am using the latest Sonos Controllef App and the latest Alexa App on the iOS platform.
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Hi Ken

Followed your advice, disabled Sonos skill and re-enabled and everthing is back up and working. I am lost why, because I have had trouble free experience up to a few ago. Still, hope everything is sorted and thank you for your time.
Remember the voice control is still in beta and I think there’s a chance the developers (Sonos and Amazon) are perhaps still trying a few things out on the server side.

I would expect one or two hiccups until the development is complete.

I personally love it when it is working ... which is more often than not. There was an issue quite recently where the voice control was only playing one track and then the music stopped for no reason, but I understand that is now resolved.

I’m sure things will eventually settle down.
astonishing complacency here. How so? Customer pays for product in response to ad campaign. Product doesn't work as led to expect. Customer supposed to tolerate this. Unacceptable.
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Since this thread the same thing has happened again when I updated Alexa. The problem sorted by totally removing the Sonos skill app and downloading and enabling the skill. By just disabling the skill produce no solution. There was another update a few days ago, my thoughts were, here we go. But to my astonishment, everything reminded functional. The Sonos one’s are terrific, especially in stereo, which I have my Sonos one’s, so I wait until the next update by Sonos or Alexa to see if indeed the problem is sorted.
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Hé Shaun, good morning fron Canada, we are having issues with alexa and our ones since the last update....in our case if we ask alexa what is playing we get no music is playing...if we ask for one particular song the music keeps playing afterward, no clue how it choose the next songs. On our ios device the alexa interface also gives us blank screen after going to settings,music and then nothing. I spoke with amazon customer service that told me that getting infos on the music playing is no longer supported on sonos speakers......Sonos tech support are telling me that only some users are affected , i’m a lucky one! All this long rambling to tell you that my intuition is that is an alexa related issue. You can try reaching out to Sonos via twitter (amazon tech support in Canada is not great...) to let them know anf have them take a look. Hope you can resolve your issue! Stay well!