Starting yesterday: Alexa cannot discover *any* sonos devices as speakers; but Sonos devices accept voice input

  • 20 January 2019
  • 13 replies
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I went to rename a Sonos One yesterday as it was moving physical rooms. Alexa could not discover it, much to my dismay after having a perfectly working system for the last several months.

At this point, I can easily set up any Sonos speaker, enable Alexa on it and use Alexa through my beams or ones just fine. HOWEVER, while all Alexa-enabled speakers show up as ALEXA DEVICES in the Alexa app (and on alexa.amazon.com) NONE of them will show up as SMART HOME DEVICES.

This means that while I can use Alexa through Sonos to control things, I can no longer, for example, turn off my TV using Alexa through the Beam to control the TV connected on the HDMI ARC port.




I've tried enough combinations of remedies from other posts without success that I resorted to my best attempt at a clean slate: a factory reset of the only Sonos device I plugged in after logging out and uninstalling both iOS apps, leading me t to set up new system from scratch. This was after removing *all* Alexa skills and devices (not just the Sonos ones). Symptoms persist. Error messages are non-existent or useless.

I notice an uptick since yesterday of similar posts:

* https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/alexa-can-t-discover-3-devices-6819618 - Not answered at this time
* https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/sonos-beam-and-alexa-not-playing-nice-6819582 - Answered but not fixed, and yes I've tried the steps listed.
* https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/alexa-not-discovering-speakers-6819608 - Not answered at this time
* https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/can-t-control-lg-tv-anymore-6819604/index1.html#post16305913 - may or may not actually be the same problem, but certainly sounds like a general pattern of Alexa losing the ability to interface with Sonos devices as Smart Home Devices.
* https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/alexa-app-not-discovering-any-sonos-speakers-6791553 - a year old post with a solution (sadly didn't work for me) posted 6 hours ago.

I think it's also worth noting that the off-the-shelf solutions presented in the largest sticky thread on this (https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/resolving-the-majority-of-issues-with-alexa-on-sonos-6798039) have been tried, and sadly do not help. In fact I notice there's a post on that thread (by jwelch649 an hour ago) complaining of an issue that sounds much like my own.

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13 replies

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FWIW, if anyone has insights, I'd be extremely happy to walk through suggestions and report detailed results. There are some great ones on this forum, just sadly none that have worked.
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For anyone keeping up, this issue appears to affect all of my sonos beams (and all devices linked to them obviously), and none of my standalone sonos ones.

The sonos ones respond as expected based on the troubleshooting guides I’ve seen here
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I have exactly the same issue since yesterday. It works one week ago when I installed everything, then I decided yesterday to remove the surround Sonos One and reset everything. Now I have the exact same issue. After hours trying every solutions, I sometimes success to install the 2 One (shown as kitchen in Alexa with a speaker icon and not as Anthony’s Sonos One). But never with the Beam so no TV controls possible.
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Welcome to the party! I’m sorry you’re having this issue too.

Unless someone has a new idea, there doesn’t seem to be too much we can do until we hear back from support. Have you reached out to them?
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Because we both resetting all the speakers, apps, ... i’m quite sure the problem comes from Alexa or Sonos server or something like that.
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No I didn’t call the support, I’m sure they will not have solutions.
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I have more faith for now. But ask me again after I call them tomorrow! Heh.
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Ok thank you. Maybe the issue comes from Alexa side. I will follow this thread. Hope google assistant will be available soon and will work better.
That is exactly what I am dealing with. Alexa works, but can't discover devices. When I ask Alexa to turn on Spotify or Sonos. She says I need to turn on the Sonos skill and discover devices. She can't find devices. I can use Spotify if I turn on manually. She just won't turn either on. Please let me know if you find a solution.
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I should have mentioned earlier, but sonos support seems aware: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/support. Given how widespread it is, I have some faith they'll get it fixed, so I'm sitting tight and enjoying music a little more manually.
Cool. Thanks for the info..
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I think we’re back is business. Myself and a few others are reporting success with discovery again.
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That’s works also for me. I don’t know what was the issue this weekend. I lost 3 or 4 hours to try all the solutions for nothing. Next time I will know that we have just to wait.