Alexa 'Scratch' Sound

As I mentioned above, this happened on two of my room setups on different dates and ONLY affected ONE room each time - Kitchen first, then lounge a week later. I found nothing worked other than DELETING the voice assistant and ADDING IT for the affected room group. Messing about with wake-up chimes/toggling stuff and the like didn’t get rid of the scratch, and in any case, disabling the wake-up chime then means you don’t actually know if ‘Alexa’ heard you..,until you say something else and get a response or not (which isn’t useful)

Hi ​@Andy Clune 

The above was posted as a workaround, not a solution or fix. It was discovered by someone who could replicate the issue, so we shared it here. This will be an issue that we are still investigating, but as it is an annoying noise, we shared that workaround that we have found.

I’m glad to hear that you found a method that worked for you though - thanks for sharing yours!

You can also tell if Alexa heard you on a speaker by the status light getting brighter, should you be able to see it at the time.

I hope this helps.

Many Thanks - it would be interesting to understand root cause … managing and supporting robust integrations across multiple software products through multiple upgrades is usually a full-on challenge!!!!

All The Best,

Andy

I’ve seen this reported by other Sonos users as well, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the Era 100 hardware is defective. In similar cases, the digital scratch/static sound appears specifically when Alexa wakes and has been resolved by removing Alexa from the Sonos app and then adding it again.

I’d try that before returning a three-week-old speaker. You can also check that the Sonos and Alexa apps are fully updated and try toggling the Alexa wake chime.

If removing and re-adding Alexa doesn’t help, I’d contact Sonos Support and provide a diagnostic rather than factory-resetting the speaker. Sonos’ official troubleshooting also recommends re-enabling the Sonos Alexa skill when voice-assistant problems persist.

Hopefully the Alexa reconfiguration fixes it without needing a replacement.

Agreed - the issue is reportedly some sort of integration compatibility issue since either Amazon or Sonos modified their API’s/connectivity protocol

Remove the voice assistant, re-add the voice assistant - problem solved

Wakeup chime toggling does not remove the scratch - it simply removes the chime prior to the scratch being heard…the scratch is a digital signal overrun/packet error or other undesirable  integration component between the two systems

Sonos is working on the issue

This problem started on all 5 of my Sonos speakers around 3 weeks ago. After reading the recommended fixes I eventually resolved the issue by removing and reinstalling Alexa. But very annoyingly I had to do this 5 times, each time for an individual speaker.

yep - same here on two separate room groups👍

I have an even quicker way if this helps?

Just say, “Alexa, turn off Start of Request Sound” on any impacted speaker.

You are getting confused between “Wake Word Chime” which is an Alexa setting INSIDE the Sonos app.. and “Start of Request Sound” which is an Alexa device setting INSIDE the Alexa app.

It’s the latter which causes the glitch sound. The former works fine.

The quickest way to fix is just say to an Alexa enabled Sonos speaker “Alexa, turn off Start of Request Sound”