Alexa loses control of Sonos for about 15 seconds after controlling another device.

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 12, 2017
13 replies
504 views

Hello all,

I've recently converted from Google Home and Chromecasts to Alexa and Sonos. I've been searching for someone that has my issue and I can't seem to find one entirely similar. I currently have a Playbar and Play:1 in two separate rooms and a single Echo Dot, which controls other devices in my home. I don't think I've ever gotten the Sonos skill to work completely correct.
Here are my current issues:
- Using Alexa to control Sonos and nothing else seems to work fine.
- I can say "Alexa, turn it up in the Living Room", which works and then say, "Alexa, turn off the patio lights", which works, then say, "Alexa, turn it down in the Living Room" to which I get "Living Room isn't responding."
- After about 15 seconds I can try the exact command again and get it to work.

This really only presents an issue with my Playbar as I can play/pause the TV, then possibly need to adjust the volume. To this point I have tried the following to resolve this issue:
- Forget Sonos devices in Alexa app, disable skill, re-enable skill and re-discover the devices
- Ensured all the Sonos speakers had unique names, which in my case they are the names of the rooms "Kitchen" and "Living Room"

Other bits of info:
- I can be controlling the "Kitchen" just fine and then accidentally give an incorrect command like "Alexa, turn up the kitchen" and I get a response of "Kitchen doesn't support that", I then attempt to correct myself by saying, "Alexa, turn it up in the Kitchen" and then begins the "Kitchen isn't responding" error.

Any suggestions about this issue would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know if more info is needed.

Control

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J

jWR3CKAuthor

Contributor I

If your speaker is named "Living Room Sonos", and have rediscovered devices, you should be able to say "turn it down in the Living Room Sonos". Here's a full break down of the verbiage by command.

From the sounds of this and to respect your time, I think we should probably take a look at this with you in real time. Our technicians can share a screen with you and can look at the Sonos controller along with the Alexa website to see what's going on with naming and control. Our contact information can be found here.

That is how I expected it to work, which is why I wanted to be sure the room names were left to the Sonos speakers to make it more natural to say. I will be reaching out to the support techs. Thank you all for your help.

J

jWR3CKAuthor

Contributor I

Figured I'd update here. Senior tech went through some things with me, suspected my network was the issue. I am not using SonosNet and have retried setting everything up (also added two more Play:1s haha). Here is my response back to Support:

Ok, I have connected my Playbar to the router directly and now all speakers are showing they are on SonosNet. I've also added 2 more Play:1's. I have refined my observation.

- I removed all devices and skills in the Alexa app so that I could only have the Sonos skill and devices active and nothing else
- I am still having the same issue, but here's what I've noticed

1) Play/Pause/Stop commands will ALWAYS work
2) Volume up and down will work until I switch try to control ANY other device
3) If I ask to change volume within 15 seconds of controlling a different device I will get "ROOM isn't responding"
4) If I try to play/pause in this window it still works
5) About 15 seconds after controlling another device, everything starts working again

To me it almost seems like Alexa is switching context to whatever other device I'm trying to control and relinquishing it's command from the Sonos skill entirely and then reconnects itself to the skill after 15 seconds. It's almost as if the play/pause commands are directly controlled by Alexa (much like a light) and the volume commands are going through some other process that is having a hiccup in that 15 second window. If I continue to try and change the volume within that window, the timer resets and I have to wait another 15 seconds.

My next step will be to open the ports on my router manually. If we think this is truly a network issue I will replace my router. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

UKMedia

There was an Alexa update (597464620) that was rolled out 2-3 days ago which introduced a number of issues. I suggest you talk to Amazon Alexa tech support to see if this is another new feature. 🙂

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

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