OK, I exaggerated, this is not a solution to all problems, but for me it did solve several problems, and it resolves several problems discussed on this board. It's not my solution - I read the suggestion in a thread - but I cannot find that thread to give the author proper credit.



The solution is ... make sure you have absolutely no devices with the same name. For example, I had an Echo in the bathroom called "Bathroom". I unplugged it and replaced it with a Sonos One called "Bathroom". The fact that I had two devices named "Bathroom", even though one was offline (in fact unplugged) really confused the Sonos/Alexa environment.



The earlier thread I mentioned recommended that I go to the Sonos app (I used the one on my Windows PC, but I assume any of the Sonos apps would work), and rename all your Sonos devices to end in the word "Sonos". So, for my example, "Bathroom" became "Bathroom Sonos". Once I did this, many of my problems went away. In particular, it seems to have solved these problems: need for speaking VERY loud for Sonos to hear me, system stopping after playing 1 song, system ignoring a request like "Alexa, volume down in "bathroom".



Thank you, thank you, thank you to the unknown person who recommended this.