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Google assistant music play back issues

  • 1 September 2019
  • 67 replies
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Userlevel 1
Help!
Google assistant works fine on my Sonos system for everything except music playback.

Assistant music playback works fine on all other devices in the house, just not Sonos.

Weather, general web enquiries all work fine, but here’s an example of the music problem:


”hey google, play Mumford and sons”

”Alright, playing Mumford and sons on YouTube music”
”sorry, I don’t know how to help with that”.

or

”hey google, play bbc radio 4 on tunein radio”

”ok, playing BBC radio 4 on tunein”
”sorry, I don’t know how to help with that yet”.

Already tried:
  • Removing and re-adding assistant
  • Removing and re-adding YouTube music
  • powering off and on Sonos speakers
  • powering off and on house router
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Best answer by jack_vancouver 13 September 2019, 20:13

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67 replies

Userlevel 2
I’m having the exact same issue.

Google Assistant queries like, “What’s the temperature?” work fine.

Google Assistant queries like, “Play The Rolling Stones on Spotify” do not work, but result in a response with the Assistant seeming to understand things “Playing This Is The Rolling Stones playlist on Spotify. Sorry I don’t know how to help with that.”

This is awful.
Userlevel 2
I’m having this exact issue with Spotify and TuneIn.
Mine is doing the exact same thing! Just today worked yesterday, tried re installing and same deal
Userlevel 1
Yes, sure mine was working before.
Unsure if it’s a Sonos issue, an Assistant problem, or YouTube music issue?

Sonos have tried all their troubleshooting tips and no joy.

A rep is due to call me back.

Let me me know if you find a solution?
thx
Userlevel 2
I'm still having this issue too. I did everything glaciercat outlined.

Is there a way to mark this question as not answered?
Userlevel 1

Same here: still unresolved, I’m getting a nice mail every couple of weeks saying “they are on it”. Autotext probably, as nothing is happening.

 

This sucks so much.

 

 

I'm having the same issues and tried a multitude of previously mentioned options, even unlinking, removing and returning to factory settings and starting from scratch.  All settings seem correct and this is my first Sonos which I got for this google integration.  Thinking of returning for a google max.

Same here

Userlevel 1
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All I know is what a Sonos rep has told me, which is that they are aware of this issue and are communicating to Google about it as it affects more users. My recommendation would be to go through all the troubleshooting phone calls to help get this noticed by Sonos/Google to drive a quicker resolution.
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

One of many issues but a fix doesn't seem to be top of they're priorities. I would urge anyone thinking of getting into Sonos for Google assistant to think again. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +26
Hi everyone, there were some playback issues over the long weekend, but I believe for now they should be resolved.

If you're still having trouble, I'd suggest that you contact the team live to troubleshoot, after you've already done the basics.
Userlevel 2
Re: The reply from Ryan: This problem existed for me before the weekend, and still exists. The device is basically broken.
Userlevel 1
Email just received from Sonos, cancelling my service call tomorrow because they know they can't fix it:


Hi Jack,

I was reviewing your case prior to our call tomorrow and it looks like you are one of a handful of customers suffering from a bug that is affecting specific accounts with Google Voice Assistant and Sonos.

The unfortunate news it that currently the only work around is to use a different gmail account to get Google Voice working on the system but we have opened up the bug with Google and are providing them information around the affected customers as we encounter them. I'm unsure of an ETA of the fix yet, but we will keep on top of this with them to ensure we obtain one because we know that using another Google account is not an ideal solution.

This means that there isn't anything we can really do for this with our call tomorrow, but I've added information from your ticket to our bug report and will keep your ticket in my court as we keep on this issue. Soon as I hear an update from the Google team, and if there is anything they want us to have our users try I'll reach back out to you.

Thank you,
Brandon G
Sonos Escalations Team
This actually did the trick for me. Thank you. All I did was the first step which was removing google assistant from my sonos app. Then re-added it back and set it up again and that seemed to work for me and Spotify. Appreciate it
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Confirming I'm still having this issue after several weeks despite taking the following self-troubleshooting steps. Posting here for posterity. Contacting the support team is my next step.
  1. Restart the Sonos app; restart the Spotify app
  2. Unplug/recycle power on Sonos One
  3. Restart my phone
  4. Reauthorize Spotify account under Sonos app under Settings>My Music Services
  5. Remove and reconnect Spotify account under Sonos>Settings>My Music Services
  6. Unlink Sonos One and Sonos account from my Google Home under "Device settings" and "Manage accounts"
  7. Unlink my Assistant from all devices under "Manage accounts" *this was a drastic measure😓
  8. Set Sonos One up through the Sonos app
  9. Select "Add Voice Assistant" through the Sonos app under Settings>Room Settings>[Room Name]>Voice Services to set back up with Google Home/Assistant. Ensure it's configured to the right Home and Room - add Music Service(s)
And after all that, still get the same error message: "Sorry, I don't know how to help with that" in response to any "Play music" command.
Will update with where support leads me next...
Userlevel 1
@Ryan S Tried again this evening. No difference. Removed and re-added Google Assistant. No difference. Frustrating...
Any update on that yet?
Google assistant music playback worked fine till September, and now all I get is the dreaded "Sorry I can't help with that yet" message.

A lot of back and forth with Sonos support with no resolution.

As a customer of 11 years this is the first time that I have been disappointed with Sonos. Don't want that to become a trend, especially with increasing competition from Amazon smart speakers etc.

Sonos, get on it and get it fixed!
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yep, having the same issue here. For Google Music and TuneIn.

I start thinking that it's not just "a few Google email accounts" anymore...
Any update on that yet?
Google assistant music playback worked fine till September, and now all I get is the dreaded "Sorry I can't help with that yet" message.

A lot of back and forth with Sonos support with no resolution.

As a customer of 11 years this is the first time that I have been disappointed with Sonos. Don't want that to become a trend, especially with increasing competition from Amazon smart speakers etc.

Sonos, get on it and get it fixed!

This was my way of solving ‘Google Assistant on Sonos’ issues. See link ..,

https://en.community.sonos.com/google-assistant-and-sonos-229109/sonos-not-working-on-google-assistant-6829259#post16363804
Userlevel 2
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Hi everyone, there were some playback issues over the long weekend, but I believe for now they should be resolved.

If you're still having trouble, I'd suggest that you contact the team live to troubleshoot, after you've already done the basics.

This issue is not fixed... It hasn't been working for many people for many weeks.

(SOLVED) Update from my end: After contacting Sonos support they told me that my system had "no access to cloud services”, based on my supplie diagnostics. Unfortunately they couldnt tell me anything else, nor help me troubleshoot further as a reslt of this.

After digging around in my router settings, and contacthing my ISP (recently moved, and got a new fiber agreement), I found that I was not assigned any public IPv4 address. I only had an internnal IPv4 due to address shortage. I made them remedy this, and got one assigned.

After this was fixed, all my issues were fixed. Google assistant now working flawlessly on Sonos One, and all GA can play Spotify / TuneIn on all sonos speakers. '

What I find strange is that the GA service on Sonos One and getting GA to play on sonos worked “sometimes” witouth a public address. If this is indeed a requirement (apparently is, when Google services tries to access my local sonos network from the cloud) I would expect it to NEVER work when no public address is available.. But somehow it worked for a few minutes every time I set it up, and sometimes once or twice the day after.. 

 

TLDR: Apparently you need a public IPv4 address for GA to communicate with Sonos, even though Sonos itself and GA itself does not require such. 


Any update on that yet?
Google assistant music playback worked fine till September, and now all I get is the dreaded "Sorry I can't help with that yet" message.

A lot of back and forth with Sonos support with no resolution.

As a customer of 11 years this is the first time that I have been disappointed with Sonos. Don't want that to become a trend, especially with increasing competition from Amazon smart speakers etc.

Sonos, get on it and get it fixed!
This was my way of solving ‘Google Assistant on Sonos’ issues. See link ..,

https://en.community.sonos.com/google-assistant-and-sonos-229109/sonos-not-working-on-google-assistant-6829259#post16363804


I have done as you suggested making sure I followed down to all little details twice. It hasn't helped.
Userlevel 1
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Specifying the service name also does not solve this for me. Same behavior on Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn and regardless of what the default music service is set to.
So since Tuesday and my call with Sonos support , the work around we sorted now doesn't work anymore , also using my wife's account doesn't work anymore. It's actually ridiculous. I've never known anything to work so badly as this system. I've made contact again via email. If I manage to fix it again I will post on here . Especially if anything new comes up.
Userlevel 1
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From the troubleshooting I did with tier-2 support, this problem seems to be related to specific Google accounts, and there is an ongoing open issue with Google about this.

Also posted about here: https://en.community.sonos.com/google-assistant-and-sonos-229109/sonos-not-working-on-google-assistant-6829259