wont skip track

I have done a bit of experimenting, using an Echo Dot for commands to a Sonos Preferred Speaker, rather than an Alexa-enabled Sonos speaker.  But I think the conclusions are likely to be the same.

I think something may have gone haywire in the interaction between Alexa and the Sonos queue.

Basically,the voice command ‘skip track’ will skip when the play has been initiated from the app, but not if initiated by an Alexa command.  So it works if I use the app to play from my phone or NAS where there is no option to initiate from Alexa.  It also works if I use the app to initiate play of an album, station or playlist from Amazon Music, but not if I start any of those using Alexa.

I wonder if the interaction with the Sonos queue is involved here?  If I start the playing of a specific album using Alexa, i would have expected Sonos to display the tracks of that album in the queue, allowing the ‘skip’ button to work.  In fact, the queue is not active, and not only does the verbal command to ‘skip track’ not work, you cannot skip using the button in the app.

Something here looks amiss to me.

Edit: there are circumstances where I would expect the Sonos queue to be ‘not in use’, and yet ‘skip track’ to work, for example when playing an Amazon Music ‘Station’. But again, what currently determines whether or not ‘skip track’ works is whether play was initiated through the Sonos app or Alexa. 

I am still open to the possibility that this is something specific to a small number of user setups, not a generic problem, so it would be interesting to hear from users not experiencing this issue.

This is great news, I’ll check it first thing in the morning as it’s now late here in the UK. I had lots of communication from support but just wasn’t prepared to go through the steps requested, such a long process. Sorry I just don’t have the time for that.

I do hope this fix is the one 

Hi Jeff, 

i have sent diagnostics with code: 356520088

Country: Italy

current time (In Italy): 09:25 PM 17/04/2020

i have follow this step:

“alexa, play a playlist XY on apple music” → ok alexa understand the command

“ok, i play the playlist XY” → ok alexa start the playlist

start first song

“alexa, skip this song” → ok alexa understan the command

“Sorry, i can’t do it right now” → 😔 (this in loop)

WTF!

hi

Is there no fix to this? i am not technical at all, ive no idea really what im doing, but i do know my echo dot was working well with sonos, i changed my wifi to a new provider and re connected and suddenly it wasnt connecting to my sonos playbar.  i somehow managed to do this but upon asking alexa to play my music through sonos, it wont skip and plays the same song over and over.   it works fine on my alexa, skips any track….   just not my sonosplaybar.  i see its a sonos problem….. like i said im not technical at all, all i can do is reboot everything, which ive done and still not working. very frustrating. 

Not entirely no but u buy something bases on what it can do. If it can't do it. It goes back. Why settle for something that doesn't work. 

i think i got the answer worked for me at least on 2 sonos moves 

1. activate you speakers like you would normally thru the sonos app. name them differently with room names , do not screw with the names of them in the alexa app yet.
2. dissable and and re enable the sonos skill in the alexa app.
3. tap the power button once for a second while on the dock to get to turn off the speakers, just a tap not the 5 second push to totally power off the speakers
4. close out of both apps running in the background on your devices. 
5. wait over night , allow time for 2 companies apps to sync with other a little bit . when you wake up the speakers should be powered on and named correctly in alexa app to the room names you gave them in the sonos app. i don’t recommend changing the names of them at all in the alexa app might have to do the whole process again.

I am still having issues. Without changing anything, I tried starting a playlist and skipping a song and got the same response from Alexa saying she cannot skip. Then I removed the Sonos skill from the Alexa app, deleted my speakers and re-enabled the app. The process is now asking me to “pick a system I want to control” It looks like it has separated all my speakers into 2 different systems. See screen shot below. After choosing one of the systems, Alexa will ONLY find the devices in that systems and not the others.

Morning All,

My sonos 1 in last last few days will not skip to the next track when using Alexa. Works okay if I stream music from my iPhone and ask Alexa to go to next song.

I couldn’t find anything to help and spent the last hour working through the issue.

This is not a sonos issue but an Alexa problem.

I went to the skills section on the Alexa app, disabled the skill. Turned the Sonos off and back on. Re-enabled the skill “sonos” on Alexa. Didn't work the first time but definitely working again. Worked on second attempt.

As I write this, I ensured it is still working!!!

@Smilja I do not have any kind of range extenders. Network is a full stack of Ubiquiti Unifi with USG Pro 4 and 2 UniFi switches. I submitted a diagnostic, the number is 1367450227. I suspect this is not going to show all of the Sonos devices that I have because I only see the ones I selected during the process of re-installing the skill in the Alexa app.

When playback is being initiated by voice the route goes ‘ONE/Beam → Amazon Server → Sonos Server → ONE/Beam’. Presumably the skip command is not being passed on to the Sonos server for some reason.

Alexa + Sonos: How it Works

and someone should understand that the wait has lasted for months

Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been waiting.  It matters how long it takes to debug, fix, test, and release.  All without disrupting upcoming releases that have been in the works for many months and are far more important to Sonos’ bottom line (because by all indications, the next release most probably coincides with new hardware being launched).