I had a similar issue. Since a week, Sonos stopped understanding basic commands like Play Joe Fm on Tune-In or Volume Up or Down. It did react on the Hey Google wake up but didn’t understand a thing after that.

Here is how I fixed it:

I browsed to:

https://myactivity.google.com

Make sure you are logged in with the correct google account.

On that page you see a list of all the commands you ever gave to your google assistant and browsing history.  To make it easier and only see assistant commands, you can press the Filter button and select Assistant.  It will then only show assistant commands.

The long history list seems to confuse Sonos.  So press the “thrash can” button next to Today and all the other dates.  I had to press many times because it keeps the history day by day and there is no delete all history button.

After that, select the main “My Activity” menu on that page and select “Activity Controls”

Uncheck the two boxes in Web & App Activity.  It pauses the recording of all your activity.

This fixed the problems and I could again have a meaningful conversation with my Sonos One.

For example a command like Volume 1 or Volume 2 did not work anymore at all.  Since I went through the above steps, these work again.

Despite the fact that I disabled “Include voice and audio recordings” in the “My Activity” section, it still seems to register all commands in the history.  So I may need to clear this in a month from now again.

It would be great if the Sonos team checks why this activity history is such a problem with the Sonos One. Because it isn’t a problem with other devices like Google’s own Home devices.

This is soooooo annoying!

I am having the same issue. My setup:

iPhone 11 pro

Netherlands

Language English USA

Sonos One

What helped:

Deleting all my Google history including the Google assistant of course.

The restarting the Sonos One and pressing the play button.

Problem is that sometimes it works and sometimes it just doesn’t.

I agree. Even after doing the history clear. It is still hard to have the Sonos understand the volume commands. It worked so well initially. Just got another update from Sonos but still same problem.

Hi, 

looks like I’m having the exact same issues with our new Sonos one as described above. 
 

A while ago we bought a beam and the voice control with google assistent (in dutch) works perfectly. We use google home with niko home control so we ask GA a lot. We wanted a microphone upstairs as well so we bought a Sonos one to place in the hallway. The Sonos one literally responded once to a command but after that she only responded to “hey google” and after that nothing happened anymore. In the history I can see “unknown message”. The beam however understands this commands perfectly fine. 
 

I tried some things mentioned on this forum (delete history, restarting, language,..) but nothing seems to help. 

Guess I just wait here for a solution! :(

I found something interesting. You have noticed that the Sonos is flawless in understanding Hey Google. After that doesn't understand a thing. It seems that the first few seconds after the confirmation tone, it does not seem to listen at all.

Lately, I wait about 3 seconds after the confimation tone to say the command. It appears to understand things much better using this method. Of course it is still a far cry from the real Google assistance experience. 

This trick doesn’t seem to work with mine, however the speaker finally managed to understand something and she started playing a toilet flushing sound as a response it’s sort of progression i guess... 

Same problem for me. I specifically bought the sonos because they’re been heavily advertising it as supporting google assistant, but honestly, it’s completely useless at this point. For two weeks I’ve been able to get Google to respond only once or twice correctly to what I was asking, and 100% of the time the responses are so delayed that it’s completely useless. I’m talking like 30-60 seconds from the time I say my request to the time the google assistant finally responds. And, like I said, 90-95% of the time those responses from google are ‘There was a glitch, please try again in a little while’ or ‘Something went wrong, please try again.’

Has Sonos acknowledged this problem at all? They really shouldn’t advertise a service on their product that’s this broken. Sadly, I’m likely going to be taking this piece of garbage back to the store for a refund, which is a shame as I really would enjoy it if not for this one specific problem. 

I have a google home mini and sonos one in the same room, when I turn off the mic on google home mini and use Sonos it misses nearly 50% of the commands.

In contrast, google home mini has no problem at all. 

In my activity history, the commands missed by sonos are mentioned as “Unknown voice command”.

It is shocking to see that a 15 euro speaker can do a better job and so many people are having the same problem since months.

I have completed all the troubleshooting steps in this forum and others without joy. 

Seems to me the only real solution at this point is to get a refund! 

Hello @Fski. I understand you are having some issues with using Google Assistant on Sonos. When you give Assistant a command,  does she respond or does she remain silent? 

I would like to have you submit a diagnostic of your system and reply back with the confirmation number. This will allow is to see how your system is functioning, and help provide a resolution.

Sadly having the exact same issues. Removing the entire history doesn’t seem to make any difference. Google Home speaker flawlessly picks up every response, while my two €200 Sonos One’s are having difficulties understanding anything that’s said after ‘Hey Google’ (and having no problems catching ‘Hey Google’…)

Hello @mjanssen. Welcome to the community. Please Submit a diagnostic from your system, and reply back with that confirmation number. 

I’m jumping on this thread, as I also have huge problems with Google Assistant on Sonos One.

My experience is as follows:

When saying “OK Google” the Sonos One always responds with the ready beep. Never any problem here.

When speaking one of three things happen:

1. The light blinks (processing) for a few seconds, and then goes dim without any response.
2. The light stays on even though I stop speaking. After 3-5 seconds it goes dim without any response.
3. About 10 % of the time, the light blinks (processing) and I get a proper response.

I have tried speaking the same commands to Google Assistant on my phone, without any problems.

I bought the Sonos One late October 2019, and at that point it worked perfectly. It seems like the service deteriorated about a month later to the current unuseable condition. 

I have submitted a diagnostic with ID 1461227675

Hello everyone. @DonSahl, welcome to the community, and thank you for submitting that diagnostic. 

Thanks for the update. Our team is investigating and working with Google on implementing a fix. It seems like this is only prominent on Sonos One Generation Two’s. If you have a Generation One, or a Beam, then Assistant should work from those devices. Alternatively, you can add Alexa to your speakers to use voice control, as it is unaffected. We will update this thread when we have more information to share. Let me know if you have any questions. 

Thanks for the reply @Richard F. 

I just submitted the diagnostics with the following ID: 848074575. Hope Sonos is able to figure out what's up :)

Also, during daytime I seem to have a lot more problems getting the assistant working than during nighttime. I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence, but just letting you know :)

I have the same problem @Richard F. And have just submitted diagnostics for it #530986622

Hi All

Just a thought but if any of you have booted your router whilst trying to resolve this issue, you may now have duplicate IP addresses.  

As a general comment, when trying to resolve Sonos issues with either Alexa or Google and you feel the need to reboot the Router, it is ALWAYS advisable to reboot ALL connected devices within the home.

For those of you reading this that aren't totally clear on how this works, I’ll try and explain below:

• Each time a new device connects to your Wi-Fi or is plugged into an Ethernet cable, a device (normally your Router) allocates it a unique network (IP) address;
• Normally this address is in the format of 192.168.0.1 (This specific address is normally reserved for the Router) and then the next device to connect is allocated the next number - 192.168.0.2 and so on;
• The issue occurs when the Router is rebooted, as the Router then loses any knowledge of the addresses previously allocated and so will start from 192.168.0.2 again;
• Any devices within your network that have not been rebooted at the same time will continue to use the IP address that they were allocated before the Router was Rebooted;
• So, an example scenario of a household with 20 connected devices, including 5 Sonos devices would mean that the next device to connect would be allocated 192.168.0.22 and all is stable. However, as soon as the Router is rebooted and the previously allocated addresses are lost, the Router will then allocate 192.168.0.2 to the next device – meaning that there are now two devices with the same IP address within the Network.  If the Sonos devices are then rebooted, these will also be allocated addresses that had previously been allocated before the Router was rebooted and so the problem gets worse;
• For standalone devices, this can often go unnoticed by the user but for devices that need to communicate with each other (Sonos, Alexa and GA devices) this will cause a lot of seemingly unrelated performance and functional issues;

The ONLY way to resolve this issue is to reboot your network in this order:

• Router
• Any wired Network devices or switches;
• Any other wired devices;
• All other Wi-Fi devices (Turning Wi-Fi off and on again on each device would also work)

The way that you can reduce the effect of this problem is to reserve an IP address within your Router Set-Up for all permanent devices. This ensures that a device is never just allocated the next IP address that the Router ‘thinks’ is free.  I personally use the range 192.168.0.175 – 192.168.0.244 for my devices that are connected to my network on a regular basis.  This removes the requirement to reboot these devices whenever the Router is rebooted, as they will always be allocated the exact same address and the Router will NEVER allocate this address to another device.

@UKMedia I’m not entirely convinced that the router connection could be causing this issue. I have had no issues playing music trough the Sonos app, only having issues with the Google Assistant. @DonSahl stated the exact same issue as I have, where the assistant worked fine and all the sudden did not pick up 2/3 commands, but always catching ‘Hey Google’ or ‘Ok Google’.

The only reason I mentioned it was, it fixed a similar situation that I had with Alexa and so thought it may be worth trying. 

Hey @Richard F. - got any updates for us regarding this issue?

Nice to see that this thread is still going strong and that, even better, Sonos staff are now involved (thanks @Richard F. ) 

I originally posted, some months ago, that pausing Voice & Audio Activity controls solved the problems with GA. It did, but only for about 2/3 months then, around Xmas time, I encountered all the problems mentioned here and tried all the solutions (I even changed my router) but nothing solved the issue. At best, GA would respond to the first command of the day but after that, nothing.

I’ve had to change the voice assistant for Sonos to Alexa which works flawlessly. However for me, that’s not a solution. I have Andriod phones and tablets and a couple of other Google Assistant enabled portable speakers. I held off buying any new Sonos speakers until GA was included. So I now have some gear that responds to Google Assistant and Sonos that will only work with Alexa - hardly the fully integrated system I was hoping for. So I really hope Sonos do sort this out and I can go back to using GA throughout. I have to say that it does now seem there’s a chance of this happening which, when I originally posted here, didn’t seem that likely. Fingers crossed :)

Hey, guys just want to make this thread stronger.

Having the same issue with GA as you guys. My Sonos One is 2 days old and I am very disappointed. GA understands only the Hey Google and after that in the history I can see Unknown Voice Command.

This is the primary reason that I have bought Sonos. I hope Sonos are on to it.

Hello everyone. I know how frustrating this can be for you. We are still working on this issue with Google. We will update this thread when we have more information to share. Thank you for your patience. 

I’ve also had plenty of trouble with this problem recurring several times over the last several months. Everything will be working fine, then gradually GA on Sonos starts not getting commands (1 minute delay, then “there was a glitch/something went wrong”. Gets worse and worse.

It’s a popular theory that it might be due to a local IP address conflict, but it isn’t. Scratch that explanation from the list.

The first time this happened I tried rebooting the router and the Sonos speakers - no good. I tried disconnecting anything else on the network that has anything to do with Google (Google Home speakers, Android phones and tablets) - no good. I tried unpairing the stereo pair and turning off the 2nd speaker - no good. I tried connecting to ethernet instead of WiFi - no good. I tried connecting to a different router on a different LAN - that cured the problem, but it came right back when I reconnected the Sonos to my regular LAN. Finally one day there was a general power failure, and when power came back the entire LAN rebooted in random order, probably changing the Sonos LAN IP address and many others - and the problem was cured, for about a month before it started again.

It is totally understandable why one would think that this could be an IP address conflict. It was practically the first thing I thought, and I checked thoroughly. But there is no IP address conflict.

I did send logs to Sonos, and they responded that there was “something strange”, but they stopped looking into it when my problem was initially cured.

What I have found that cures it is to assign a different LAN IP address to the Sonos speakers. That cures the problem right away. So now when this problem happens, I flip them back and forth between two dedicated IP addresses (i.e., .71/.72 and .73/.74). That cures the issue for a while. I don’t reboot the router if possible, because that’s a disruption to all the devices on the network, and it doesn’t automatically change existing IP addresses. Instead I use dhcpsrv on my Windows machine to re-assign just the Sonos speakers when they are unplugged/re-plugged.

I have not tried the “clear Google activity” method, but I will give it a test next time. It doesn’t seem likely to me because as I noted above I can cure the problem temporarily by moving my Sonos speaker to a different LAN, and the problem comes right back when it returns to the original LAN.

I might believe that it’s a unique issue between my Netgear router and the Sonos speakers, but in that case I doubt it would be a widespread issue with other people, unless you all have Netgear routers?