Trending Lyricist III

Alexa breaking groups (yet again)

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
July 7, 2019
32 replies
2634 views

I came back from holiday to find that once again Alexa breaks my Sonos groups (third or fourth time). I have 5 Sonos speakers grouped through Sonos (group created from ‘Living Room’ paired speakers). I also have the same speakers selected as preferred speakers under the Alexa group ‘Living Room’. However if I tell Alexa to ‘play music in the living room’ it only plays through one speaker (bizarrely one named ‘Dining room’ although it is part of the group) and if I go into the Sonos app the group is broken. If I just tell Alexa to ‘play music’ then it only plays through the Alexa device (so the preferred speaker setting is meaningless?)

So far I have checked for an update (there are none), renamed the living room speakers in case there is a conflict, disabled and reenabled the Sonos skill, rerun device discovery (after every change), set the living room speaker as the only preferred speaker (which then works through Alexa) but any Sonos group created is still broken by Alexa. Basically I’ve trawled the forums trying everything I can find to no avail.

I’m going to totally uninstall and reinstall Sonos to see if that works but I'm really getting fed up of having to constantly fix stuff because Alexa and Sonos want to ‘improve the user experience ‘ which adds nothing but breaks everything. I think the app developers just need to justify their salaries. I’m reasonably tech savvy but god forbid if I ever kick the bucket because there is no hope in hell that my wife will ever be able to use this stuff. I’ve now reached the point where I’ve given up on Sonos.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

J

John B

I don't set up the group in Sonos. I just have it set up in Alexa. Then I just say 'play music' to the controlling Echo Dot without specifying a room and Alexa forms the group in Sonos and plays the music.

This achieves what I want perfectly. It sounds as though you are looking for something similar.

I assume you have your Echo device as the controlling device for the group?

M

mvoslooAuthor

Trending Lyricist III

Hi John. Yes that is what I’m trying to do. I’ve had groups running successfully through Sonos and Alexa for a number of years but in the last week or so groups no longer work. I have an Echo Show and have a number of Sonos speakers set as the preferred speakers, but despite this if I say ‘play music’ it plays through the Echo Show and not the Sonos speakers. I also tried the same thing through an Echo Spot with the same result.

Up until a week or so ago I could say ‘Alexa play music in the Living Room’ and it would play music on my Sonos Living Room group created in Sonos, but not any more.

Basically no no matter what I do in Alexa or Sonos I can no longer play music in a group of speakers - only in a single Sonos speaker or the Alexa device.

J

John B

Hi. I am not sure if this is significant, but my Alexa group name is different from any of the Sonos speakers and my Dot. Is that so in your setup?

J

John B

Also, you said originally thst you had grouped the speakers in Sonos. I am ssying you should not have them grouped in Sonos and should not specify a location to Alexa. Is thst whst you are doing?

M

mvoslooAuthor

Trending Lyricist III

I’ve tried renaming the Sonos speakers to a different name and it didn’t work. If I have no groups created in Sonos but select the Sonos speakers as preferred speakers in Alexa then if I say ‘play music’ the music comes from the Alexa device or if I say ‘play music in the living room’ then the music only comes from one Sonos speaker (even if all of them are selected as preferred speakers in Alexa).

My conclusion is that preferred speakers is not working properly in Alexa. If I select just one Sonos speaker as a preferred speaker then ‘play music in the living room’ plays music on just that Sonos speaker but if I select multiple speakers then it plays on whichever speaker is first in the list.

I guess it’s time to disconnect everything and start from scratch

PS there is a positive - I’m hearing lots of interesting radio stations as when I say ‘play music’, Alexa picks some random station - and I’ve said ‘play music’ a lot today...

PPS deleting the skill, forgetting all Sonos devices and setting them again up from scratch made no difference. It still doesn’t work

Legnum Nick

Prodigy III

The groups need to be made in your Alexa app. My groups have worked fine for months set up like that.

When you say you have a living room group do you mean two matching speakers paired? Alexa shouldn't be able to unpair them?

J

John B

This still works perfectly for me. There is nothing generically wrong with the operation of 'preferred speakers '. Do you want to post screenshots of your Alexa group setup?

M

mvoslooAuthor

Trending Lyricist III

Yes I have groups set up in Alexa. Ignore my comment about paired speakers - it’s not the issue.

There may be no generic issue with ‘preferred speakers’ and indeed it’s been working fine for me for months but for reasons probably not even understood by Sonos/Alexa it stopped working. Unfortunately as with a lot of Sonos/Alexa issues not everyone experiences the same problems.

However, I sort of got it working again. I added my Sonos Beam (TV Speaker) as an additional Alexa controller (with the microphone turned off so that I can still use the Echo Show as the main Alexa device) and then set the Sonos Beam up as the preferred speaker. I then created a group in Sonos based around the Sonos Beam and it seems to work. I’ve only tried it out once so I’ll let you know tomorrow if it holds up - but as the TV speaker decouples from the rest of the Sonos group when I turn on the TV, this is by no means a permanent solution.

I have absolutely no idea why this works but then I have absolutely no idea why it stopped working in the first place.

J

John B

'I then created a group in Sonos'

Why? As I said before, I don't create groups in Sonos. I let Alexa create the group on the fly.

M

mvoslooAuthor

Trending Lyricist III

Hi John. Because it’s the only way it works. Without the Sonos group it only plays on the Sonos Beam (if I say ‘play music in the living room’) or on the Echo Show (if I say ‘play music’).

I fully understand that this isn’t how it should work but it is how it is working.

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community