Alexa breaking groups (yet again)

This should be simple. An Echo device as the sole Alexa controller device. Speakers you want to duck as the selected speakers. The speakers that you want to group and play set as the 'preferred speakers'. Name the group differently from any speaker. Don't do any grouping in Sonos app. Speak to the controller device and don't name a room for play.

Why do you have only one speaker as preferred speaker?

mvoslooAuthor

Trending Lyricist III

It should be simple but it isn’t. I only have one preferred speaker because if I select more than one it still only plays music on one speaker. This is the problem.

if Alexa played music on all of the speakers I select as ‘preferred speakers’ I wouldn’t have a problem. But it doesn’t.

UKMedia

It should be simple but it isn’t. I only have one preferred speaker because if I select more than one it still only plays music on one speaker. This is the problem.

if Alexa played music on all of the speakers I select as ‘preferred speakers’ I wouldn’t have a problem. But it doesn’t.

As John B has said, this is working differently from our experience. As you have made so many changes, can you please carry out these steps and let us know if the situation changes (I know that you've undertaken most of these commands before but I'm not sure of the order):

Ensure that your Sonos Room Names are unique in the Sonos App and change if required, then ask 'Alexa, Discover Devices;
Delete your Alexa Group called Living Room;
Open the Alexa App>Device>All Devices and ensure that no devices are shown as 'Off-Line';
Create a New Alexa Group called 'living room';
Add 'Mark's Echo Dot' as the Echo Controlling Device;
Add any Sonos speakers you want to duck when a command is heard to the Alexa Group;
Add any Sonos Speakers you want Grouped together for Multi-Room Audio in the Preferred Speakers section;
Ask 'Alexa, Play Ed Sheeran' (I'm wondering if asking for 'Music', rather than a Specific Artist or Playlist is also an issue)

What are the results?

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

Good advice, @UKMedia. I would sdd 'ensure none of your speakers is grouped in the Sonos app initially '

I also wondered about the 'play music' command but tried it on my system and the preferred speakers did group. I still agree thst it would be better to test with a specific artist.

mvoslooAuthor

Trending Lyricist III

I actually think I’ve got it working but unfortunately I can’t remember the exact sequence of what I did to make it work. From what I recall I added all the Sonos speakers to preferred speakers, ungrouped the Sonos group then removed the Beam as a preferred speaker. It now works if I say ‘play music’ (I’m reluctant to test ‘play music in the living room’ in case it all falls apart again)!

I could have left the Beam as a preferred speaker but it seemed ‘safer’ to remove it and it also needs to be at a much higher volume for the TV so blasts your ears off as a music speaker.

The key to get this working seemed to be adding the Beam as an Alexa control device (although the mic is off so it doesn’t respond to commands) - prior to that nothing I did made any difference.

I have a similar setup for the kitchen so now the challenge is to see if that also works.

However, the issue still exists that this is the third time this year that I have had Sonos/Alexa problems with groups and it’s becoming pretty frustrating having to fix these issues

And I do understand that Alexa is often the issue not Sonos but it is the Sonos product that stops working.

Legnum Nick

Prodigy III

I have groups of Sonos speakers set up on the Alexa app. eg. "everywhere" and "downstairs". So when I say "Alexa, play radio 2 on everywhere" she sets the group up and starts playing.

I have a living room group, with my play 1s, philips hue, tv, dot. I have kitchen with my connect amp and dot. They have the preferred speaker set up. So if I give Alexa a command in the living room, only the living room sonos ducks. But then I have other groups set up as groups of speakers in the Alexa app, so I can tell any dot to start playing something on any group and Alexa performs the grouping tasks within Sonos.

Does that make sense?

mvoslooAuthor

Trending Lyricist III

*UPDATE*

As suspected trying to set up the kitchen broke everything.

I have done a reinstall as suggested by @UKMedia including forgetting all the Sonos speakers and reinstalling the skill for both Kitchen and Living Room. I also selected all Sonos speakers as preferred speakers.

After doing this saying ‘play music’ worked. But (there’s always a but), saying ‘play music in the living room’ (old habits die hard ) broke it with music only coming from one speaker (dining room speaker).

So I renamed the Alexa Living Room group to Lounge. Now when I say ‘play music on the living room’ Alexa is quite happy but there is no music playing. If you then say ‘play music’ Alexa says that ‘music is streaming on another device do you want to stream to dining room instead’ (dining room is the first Sonos speaker alphabetically so I assume this is why it chooses this one). If you say yes it then plays music to all the preferred speakers ie works as intended.

I looked for other devices called living room trying to work out where Alexa thought it was streaming to but there is only a Nest Thermostat with that name (I did rename it but that made no difference). I have a sneaky suspicion that the Dining Room speaker in a previous incarnation might have been called Living Room and this still shows up if you run a new speaker install on it (I’ve had to do that a couple of times over the years).

So the short version is that it works if I say ‘play music’ but gets confused if I say ‘play music in the living room’

@mvosloo . I think you have now ended up pretty much where the rest of us are and I am glad it now seems to be working for you.
I am totally unconvinced about the significance of adding the Beam with mic off, but whatever......

Edit: forum glitches have delayef some posts. I posted this without having seen your latest.