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Prominent Collaborator II
February 21, 2018
Answered

Outage - Alexa started BBC stations not playing

  • February 21, 2018
  • 63 replies
  • 7096 views
As of today I can't get BBC Radios 2 or 4 to play on my Sonos Ones. It says it's playing eg BBC Radio 4 from TuneIn but it doesn't. Anyone else getting this?
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Best answer by Ryan S
Hi everyone, as dasym posted from the support team, there is currently an issue we're investigating with BBC stations started using Alexa on Sonos. If you use the Sonos app to play those stations, they'll work fine. I'll let you all know here in this thread when the issue has been resolved.

For now, I'm going to mark this post as the answer to this thread so that it remains sticky at top, it doesn't mean that we've determined the issue to be resolved at this time. I'll also be making this thread the main post for this issue, so I'll be changing the title. We're still working on it.

Thanks for reporting everyone.

63 replies

Paulw123
Virtuoso
February 24, 2018
It wouldn't play BBC radio stations through google home either using Tunein, so I would guess a BBC/tunein/voice problem.
Of course the google home can play direct BBC streams outside of tunein, so no problem there.
Lyricist I
March 20, 2018
This is not working for BBC Radio 2, 3, 4 or 5 in Isle of Man but works for BBC radio 1. Alexa says “BBC radio x playing on.....” but then silence except for BBC radio 1 which plays fine. Please can you resolve?
UKMedia
March 21, 2018
Yes! Its working again here in the UK too! Phew! Anyone know exactly what was fixed and by whom - Sonos, Amazon Tunein or BBC?
It's still under investigation, but it has to do with the radio streams that Alexa picks when told to play the stations on Sonos. I believe there are some changes going out slowly right now to systems around the world and as they reach your system, you're able to get the right stations. I'll let you all know when we get the final ok that we're clear around the world.


Hi Ryan

This is fixed in most situations but not all. These are the tests I've undertaken:

1- Ask Lounge Sonos (Sonos One) to play Radio 4 or BBC Radio 4 - Success
2- Ask Echo Dot to play Radio 4 (or BBC Radio 4) - Success
3- Ask Echo Dot to play Radio 4 (or BBC Radio 4) on Lounge Sonos - Success
4- Ask Echo Dot to play Radio 4 (or BBC Radio 4) on Bedroom Sonos (Play:5 - Gen 1) - Fail

I've rebooted the Play:5 but no difference and interestingly test 4 works on my other Play:5. This is the player with the weakess wi-fi signal in my set-up but it will output Radio 4 when grouped with the Sonos One on tests 1-3!

Diag submitted #831104699
Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
Keith N
Sonos Staff
April 3, 2018
Hello everyone. Thanks for the updates and details about BBC playback. According to the previously mentioned issue, that should be resolved. If you are still having problems getting radio playback through Amazon Echo, please give our support technicians a call to troubleshoot this in real time. They may need to collect more information to get to the bottom of this.

Thanks!
Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.
Lyricist III
September 30, 2018
Hello all. BBC radio stations are again not working for me on both my Echo based devices and Sonos devices. They do not work whether I use voice or the Sonos app. I’m located in the US. Is anyone else having this issue too? I can play other radio stations just fine but BBC ones do not work. It is exactly the same issue that was described earlier in this thread.

On the echo based devices it just says something like BBC Radio 2 is not available right now.

Rich.
UKMedia
September 30, 2018
Hi Rich

No outage reported: http://status.sonos.com/
Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
Lyricist III
September 30, 2018
Very odd. How can I be having the exact same issue as reported by others in this thread from a few months ago - but only me? Is anyone else having this issue?
UKMedia
September 30, 2018
I suggest that you first Disable then Re-Enable the Sonos skill within the Alexa App. Please let us know how you get on.
Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
Lyricist III
September 30, 2018
Just disabled the Sonos skill and re-enabled it but the issue persists.
UKMedia
September 30, 2018
Okay. The next thing to do is to power down the following devices for 5 secs, allowing each to complete their boot sequence before moving to the next.

- Router
- Any network switch
- Any wired Sonos device
- Any other Sonos device.

Let us know how you get on.
Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)