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Prominent Collaborator II
Feb 21, 2018 9:36 AM UTC
Answered

Outage - Alexa started BBC stations not playing

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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Ryan S
Ryan SAnswer
Retired Sonos Staff
Feb 22, 2018 7:25 PM UTC
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.
Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

63 replies

Paulw123
Virtuoso
Feb 24, 2018 10:22 AM UTC
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.
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Lyricist I
Mar 20, 2018 5:18 PM UTC
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?
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UKMedia
Mar 21, 2018 9:25 AM UTC
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
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Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
Keith N
Sonos Staff
Apr 3, 2018 6:41 PM UTC
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!
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Lyricist III
Sep 30, 2018 2:40 PM UTC
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.
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UKMedia
Sep 30, 2018 2:42 PM UTC
Hi Rich

No outage reported: http://status.sonos.com/
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Lyricist III
Sep 30, 2018 3:29 PM UTC
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?
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UKMedia
Sep 30, 2018 3:33 PM UTC
I suggest that you first Disable then Re-Enable the Sonos skill within the Alexa App. Please let us know how you get on.
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Lyricist III
Sep 30, 2018 3:55 PM UTC
Just disabled the Sonos skill and re-enabled it but the issue persists.
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UKMedia
Sep 30, 2018 4:01 PM UTC
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.
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Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)