Skip to main content
Answered

Sorry, looks like Sonos is not available right now

D
Forum|alt.badge.img+8

In the last week my Sonos One stereo pair running Google Assistant has started giving me this message frequently when I request to play, pause, resume or stop something. Sometimes it’s stuck on this error - I can ask it repeatedly and keep getting the same response. That’s very annoying when it’s playing a stream and I’m telling it to STOP!!!

Google Assistant itself is not affected as far as commands not involving Sonos streaming - it only affects media streams starting or stopping.

The Sonos app is unaffected. Even when GA is refusing to start or stop a music stream repeatedly because “Sonos is not available”, the Sonos app has no problem doing it, and correctly shows the streaming status of the speaker.

I can also ask my nearby Echo Dot to play or stop music on Sonos, and it works fine.

So which side is at fault here, Google or Sonos?

At one point I tried unplugging and replugging the primary Sonos One speaker of the pair. When it came back up, it would only flash red when I said a “Hey Google” command. Checking the Sonos app, my GA voice assistant had disappeared. I had to set it up again from scratch. After which it worked fine for a while before it began telling me again that Sonos is unavailable.

Best answer by Xander P

Hi everyone, thanks for reaching out to Sonos Support regarding this issue.

Following up on Rowena’s previous advice, it can also be helpful to make sure that there aren’t any duplicate entries for your speakers in the Google Assistant system - especially if, as a few of you have mentioned, you find that you need to repeat every command once or twice for Google to understand it.

To check for and remove any duplicate devices from the Google Home app, tap the Profile icon in the top right, and choose Assistant Settings, and then Devices - if you see the same Sonos speaker listed twice, this could be what is causing your issues with Google Assistant.

If this didn’t help, you’re always welcome to get in touch with our Support Team for more in-depth troubleshooting - they have access to more tools and will be able to perform live troubleshooting with you.

View original
Did you find what you were looking for?
This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

17 replies

Rowena B.
Forum|alt.badge.img+16
  • Rowena B.
  • Retired Sonos Staff
  • 1500 replies
  • January 3, 2021

Hi @Doug Ames, 

Thanks for reaching out to the Sonos community and for letting us know about your concern. Let me share some information with you.

You can use many commands with your Google Assistant, play music, ask for the weather, or control smart home devices. You may check out the list of commands in this article Control Sonos with the Google Assistant.

To check why Google Assistant unable to start or stop music, let me suggest the following steps and see if it works.

  1. Check if your Sonos system is up to date.
  2. Sign out from your Google accounts on your device controller and browsers.
  3. Giving a specific command, like "OK Google, play The Beatles in the bedroom" will direct your Google Assistant to play through the bedroom speaker.
  4. If the microphone is enabled, but Google Assistant still does not hear your room name or command correctly, check to see what Google Assistant heard: myactivity.google.com and check the corresponding activity if you will see an “unknown voice command” in the activity.
  5. Remove and re-add the Google Assistant on the Sonos app.
  6. Separate stereo pair and observe Google Assistant response on both speakers.
  7. Create a stereo pair and observe Google Assistant response if there’ll be improvements.
  8. Hardwire one of your speakers to your router and check if Google Assistant will work.

After doing all the steps and the issue is not fixed, I'd recommend reaching out to our phone support team to look into your system and find out the cause with your full network setup including the make and model of each device, and to do some tests on the Sonos app to isolate the issue

Please let us know if you have any other questions or run into any issues, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question.
L

This is almost definitely a recent software bug in either Sonos or Google Assistant. I’ve never had this issue before, and it’s now happening on every Google Assistant-enabled device throughout my house: when I say “Hey Google” and ask it play/pause/etc., about half the time it works, and half the time it says “Sorry, Sonos is unavailable right now.”

T
  • Travart
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • January 20, 2021

The same has been happening on my Sonus One for months. In particular with YouTube Music. If you ask it to play a song you get 'Sorry Sonus isn't available right now'. You then be specific and say ' play 'x' song by 'x' band on 'You Tube Music' and then again it says ' sorry, Sonus isn't available right now. So we bought the little google mini and they work perfectly. Same wifi, same placement, same YT account, same house. The minis are great . So I'm the only one that uses the Sonus One now as I have to use my android to get a song to play as I need to use the Sonus app. It's a shame really that the google integration is so clunky

R
  • rohit01
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • January 29, 2021

It’s happening consistently since a week. Did everything as suggested by Rowena in the previous reply. No luck.

It used to work like magic, now the basic functionality of playing songs with assistant does not work.

Rowena B.
Forum|alt.badge.img+16
  • Rowena B.
  • Retired Sonos Staff
  • 1500 replies
  • January 30, 2021

Hi folks.Thanks for reaching out to the Sonos community and for and for letting us know about your concern. To help you resolve the issue with Google Assistant, I would recommend contacting our phone support for more in-depth troubleshooting steps. It would be great if you can provide our team with your full network setup including the make and model to check for hardware compatibility. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns, we'll be glad to assist you.  

Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question.
P
  • PhillyPizz
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • January 31, 2021

Hi - I’ve been experiencing this exact problem, almost since I got these speakers. I just got them working right now and wanted to chime in with what I noticed and what seemed to work.

-I removed from Assistant entirely and from Sonos App and re-added and made sure the rooms are correct (turns out one of my speakers was in a different room in Sonos than I had in Google Home, so that probably was an issue)

-I looked into what happened when I used the audio direction in Spotify directly and also noticed that Spotify identifies the speakers by the room they are in, not by the names I’ve assigned in Google Home. Something worth noting because that affects how you give direction to assistant

-What finally worked was removing the Sonos access from the Spotify account page (Login to your Spotify account from the web, click on Apps on the left side, and Remove Sonos access from here and re-link it after you’ve double re-added it in the other two apps {Assistant and Sonos})

 

Pending issue: Although its now doing Start/Stop style commands via the Assistant, it seems like it loses the ability to know which speaker to respond from (so the assistant is responding from both speakers). I’m afraid to modify them anymore lest I go backwards with this, but wanted to share this as I totally get how frustrating this is.

J

Hi All,

I have the exact same issues for months now on my Sonos One speaker. Updated to the latest versions of the app and firmware. Removed the Google Assistant entirely from Sonos, Spotify. Removed Sonos from Spotify and so on.

Then re-added all but the issue remains. It seems from this thread that Sonos is not taking this issue seriously. For me I think it started after upgrading to the Sonos app to the new version but not sure.

All other Google assistant functions work fine except connecting to Sonos when streaming music.

Any feedback would be Appreciated. 

Xander P
Forum|alt.badge.img+15
  • Xander P
  • Retired Sonos Staff
  • 553 replies
  • Answer
  • February 17, 2021

Hi everyone, thanks for reaching out to Sonos Support regarding this issue.

Following up on Rowena’s previous advice, it can also be helpful to make sure that there aren’t any duplicate entries for your speakers in the Google Assistant system - especially if, as a few of you have mentioned, you find that you need to repeat every command once or twice for Google to understand it.

To check for and remove any duplicate devices from the Google Home app, tap the Profile icon in the top right, and choose Assistant Settings, and then Devices - if you see the same Sonos speaker listed twice, this could be what is causing your issues with Google Assistant.

If this didn’t help, you’re always welcome to get in touch with our Support Team for more in-depth troubleshooting - they have access to more tools and will be able to perform live troubleshooting with you.

M
1 person likes this
  • M
    Mwp87
D

Me:  Hey google… play anysong from spotify…

sonos: sonos one is not available right now…

 

done resetting, uninstalling, installing a lot of times already. None good happens.

i am from the philippines & sonos sucks for weeks now. Any help from sonos is 

appreciated. Otherwise, do something good for us sonos owners!

 

T

Okay so I figured it out. You need to open Google home on your phone. Settings - works with Google - Three dots on the top right - Sonos app - reconnect account

J
C
M
5 people like this
  • J
    Jeanraph
  • C
    cankess
  • M
    mielpeeters
  • G
    GregorQ
  • Y
    youraniceperson
C
  • cankess
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • August 7, 2021
Themonsteryoucreated wrote:

Okay so I figured it out. You need to open Google home on your phone. Settings - works with Google - Three dots on the top right - Sonos app - reconnect account

Fantastic!! It works. Thank you very much!

M
  • mielpeeters
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • October 6, 2021
Themonsteryoucreated wrote:

Okay so I figured it out. You need to open Google home on your phone. Settings - works with Google - Three dots on the top right - Sonos app - reconnect account

THIS WORKS!!!
too bad Sonos themselves couldn’t figure it out...

M
  • Mwp87
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • December 26, 2021
Xander P wrote:

Hi everyone, thanks for reaching out to Sonos Support regarding this issue.

Following up on Rowena’s previous advice, it can also be helpful to make sure that there aren’t any duplicate entries for your speakers in the Google Assistant system - especially if, as a few of you have mentioned, you find that you need to repeat every command once or twice for Google to understand it.

To check for and remove any duplicate devices from the Google Home app, tap the Profile icon in the top right, and choose Assistant Settings, and then Devices - if you see the same Sonos speaker listed twice, this could be what is causing your issues with Google Assistant.

If this didn’t help, you’re always welcome to get in touch with our Support Team for more in-depth troubleshooting - they have access to more tools and will be able to perform live troubleshooting with you.

Thanks for this, solved my issue. 

G

I FIXED MY ISSUE - Google Assistant - You have not set up your account with this media service provider yet

I removed my family Spotify accounts from Sonos app, I also removed the voice service from the app, I also Removed the Link from Google Home. 

I closed all apps

Opened Sonos App

I then relinked the voice assistant

I then relinked Spotify account with Spotify Name (had a different name to my Spotify name previous)

I have not relinked the rest of the family’s accounts to Sonos App - Please check this and above @Sonos

I then relinked the Spotify account in Google Home

 

Works 100% = Happy Bunny

Ken_Griffiths
1 person likes this
  • Ken_Griffiths
    Ken_Griffiths
G
  • GregorQ
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • April 21, 2022
Themonsteryoucreated wrote:

Okay so I figured it out. You need to open Google home on your phone. Settings - works with Google - Three dots on the top right - Sonos app - reconnect account

This worked for me! Sonos support should highlight this somewhere as so many people have the same issue and it was very hard to find a solution.

A
  • Anonymous
  • 0 replies
  • October 29, 2022
Xander P wrote:

Hi everyone, thanks for reaching out to Sonos Support regarding this issue.

Following up on Rowena’s previous advice, it can also be helpful to make sure that there aren’t any duplicate entries for your speakers in the Google Assistant system - especially if, as a few of you have mentioned, you find that you need to repeat every command once or twice for Google to understand it.

To check for and remove any duplicate devices from the Google Home app, tap the Profile icon in the top right, and choose Assistant Settings, and then Devices - if you see the same Sonos speaker listed twice, this could be what is causing your issues with Google Assistant.

If this didn’t help, you’re always welcome to get in touch with our Support Team for more in-depth troubleshooting - they have access to more tools and will be able to perform live troubleshooting with you.

 

Thank you, this has worked for me! I tried so many different things but this is the solution :)

U
  • Uhale
  • Lyricist III
  • 7 replies
  • July 25, 2023

SOLVED for me: Ok, crazy the incompatibility persists. I had this problem. I added Sonos system to Google home, added Google assistant to Sonos Arc via Sonos app. If I used GA via Sonos Arc microphone, it worked to control volume or skip songs, for example.  But, these commands would not work via phone microphone or other Google smart speaker to control the Sonos when Arc microphone was turned off (which I had to do because it was so bad). The situation for me was to remove Google assistant from the Sonos Arc via the Sonos app--that's it! Then all commands work via phone or other smart speaker (except Sonos). So I think we must choose between voice control via Sonos microphone or other GA control microphones. 

Terms & ConditionsCookie settings

Cookie policy

We use cookies to enhance and personalize your experience. If you accept you agree to our full cookie policy. Learn more about our cookies.

 
Cookie settings