Stopping Google News Playback


I ask the Google Assistant (GA) on my Sonos One to ‘Hey, Google… Play the news’.  GA plays my news podcast playlist.  When I say “Hey Google….Stop” or “Hey Google… Stop playing the news” or anything closely related, it won’t stop.  Previously I was able to stop the playback by hitting the Next/Pause button, but now it only act as the ‘Next’ button, taking me to the next story.  I tried to change the playback to the weather - “Hey Google...what is the weather today?”  GA plays the weather, but after, starts the news playlist again.  The only way I can get the news to stop is by unplugging the device and plugging it back in.

Come on Sonos.  You’re better than this.  I consider you a ‘near luxury-class’ product which means you should always get it right.  I used to have the $20 Google Home speaker in the same room….on top of my Sonos.  I really don’t want to go back to those days.

 

The only thing I can think of that may be the issue, the Google Home in the next room or on my phone may be ‘hearing’ and confusing the Sonos One GA?  But I muted those mics, turned off my phone, and the problem still persisted.  I haven’t tried to ‘completely reboot, erase the speaker, add back, etc., but really hoping I don’t need to do that.


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13 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +8

Welcome to the club. The “Stop” command stopped working for me for about a month, then came back. I used “Pause” instead. SInce then it has worked erratically.

Sonos seems to be ignoring problems with Google Assistant. I haven’t seen a single problem fixed since the initial introduction. Sadly I think that the only solution is to go back to Alexa if you can’t take the erratic behavior and frequent issues with GA on Sonos.

Userlevel 1
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This is still happening to me. I had to unplug my Sonos One today because Google wouldn’t stop the news. Hitting the hardware buttons does work. “Stop” “Be Quiet” don’t work. 

I don’t have any other GA devices within the vicinity.

Userlevel 1
Badge

Welcome to the club. The “Stop” command stopped working for me for about a month, then came back. I used “Pause” instead. SInce then it has worked erratically.

“Pause” doesn’t work for me either. It just keeps playing.

The only solutions I could find are: [1] unplug [2] Start and stop music playback from the Sonos app. Seems to kill the news process.  

I’m having the same issue.  This is absolutely infuriating.

In my home office, if I just say “pause”, ASSistant tells me I have to repeat, telling it which device.  “Pause office” seems to do the trick.

However, in the bedroom “Pause” and “pause bedroom” both tell me that “something went wrong for the living room”.

Userlevel 5
Badge +16

Hi folks,

@AWyattLife and @BobRed0965 welcome to the Sonos Community. 
@Toph and @Doug Ames, thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences on this thread. We appreciate your feedback.

I understand that you're unable to stop/pause Google News Playback on your Sonos device. I appreciate for detailing your concern in your post and for letting us know about it. Let me help you figure out what's happening.

I have a few questions and will give some suggestions/troubleshooting steps that you can follow.

  • Any changes happened before this issue occurs? Have you been experiencing this issue since the first time you set it up?
  • Have you tried rebooting your network and Sonos devices? How does Google Assistant work after?
  • Do you have other Sonos devices with Google Assistance installed? If so, how does Google Assistant work on those devices?

To see if this clears up the issue, I would like to have you remove Google Assistant from your Sonos devices, and then re-add it back.

Does the issue still continue, or does it seem to improve? You can also run through our troubleshooting guide.

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

If you need help with any other information, feel free to reach out.

Userlevel 1
Badge

Hello, thank you for your attention to this issue. I have tried all of the troubleshooting that you have suggested, including resetting the system and uninstalling and reinstalling the assistant.  I submitted diagnostics twice.  I spent over one hour on the phone with a Sonos support person who didn’t even seem to get the problem because he kept asking me what service I was using for news playback. I literally just say “Hey google what’s the news?” And it just plays the local news. I never set it up. 
 

Eventually I had to leave the chat because nothing was working and I had to go to work. The agent wanted all my setup info like my modem make and model, Wi-Fi make and model, etc. Not sure how that stuff could affect the operation of google assistant news playback but I provided it - to no avail. They asked me to call back to continue the troubleshooting but honestly I don’t have time to waste on this. It was clear we were walking through a troubleshooting script but this is obviously a software issue. 
 

I am sorry I didn’t even keep the case number but maybe you can look it up? I just resubmitted diagnostics number 426219887. 
 

I found an inconvenient workaround which is to start music playback and stop it - that ends the news routine.

 

Chris 

Userlevel 1
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One more answer to your question - this has not been happening from the beginning. It happened before like when the Google Assistant was first enabled on Sonos. Then it went away but now it’s back and always happens on both my Sonos One speakers. I cannot pinpoint any reason or change other than some software update. My setup and system are the same as before when it was working.
 

It does not happen on my Google home devices. Seems to be just on the Sonos. 

Userlevel 5
Badge +8

The problem recognizing “Stop” only occurred consistently for the period of about a month that I mentioned. Since then it occasionally happens at random, but no more so than the other times that Google Assistant develops random quirks. I don’t think that’s a Sonos problem in general - it happens on the Google Home units too - suddenly GA will stop recognizing a phrase that has worked consistently for a year, and then a few days later it will be back. Algorithm tweaking by Google I think.

Userlevel 1
Badge

With respect I disagree with Doug. I have 3 google home devices and 2 Sonos devices. This problem has only ever occurred with my Sonos devices. 

Userlevel 5
Badge +16

Hi folks,

@Doug Ames, thank you for sharing your observation about Google Assistant and it's behavior. We will take note of that.

@Toph, thank you for reaching back to us and providing us the details of what's happening. I also appreciate you taking the time to contact our chat support team and I completely understand how you feel about this.

Let me suggest the following steps to see if this would work for you.

  • Can you tell me how far are your 2 Sonos Ones from your router? Have you tried moving them closer? How does Google Assistant work after?
  • Have you tried connecting your Sonos One to your router?
  • When you play music from other music services, were you able to stop or pause the music?
  • You mentioned that you were able to stop the News Playback when you start playing music? Have you tried stopping the music and play News? Were you able to stop the News playback?

About your network, we need to know your network devices to understand your setup including modem, routers, and any wireless access points, and to know if the make and model of your router has a known fix with Sonos. There are incompatible routers experiencing issues with Sonos devices. We need to know all these to better assist you.

To provide you the best option on this, I recommend contacting our Sonos Customer Care with your full network setup including the make and model for each device.

We're here to answer any further questions you have. You're always welcome here in the Community.

I ask the Google Assistant (GA) on my Sonos One to ‘Hey, Google… Play the news’.  GA plays my news podcast playlist.  When I say “Hey Google….Stop” or “Hey Google… Stop playing the news” or anything closely related, it won’t stop.  Previously I was able to stop the playback by hitting the Next/Pause button, but now it only act as the ‘Next’ button, taking me to the next story.  I tried to change the playback to the weather - “Hey Google...what is the weather today?”  GA plays the weather, but after, starts the news playlist again.  The only way I can get the news to stop is by unplugging the device and plugging it back in.

Come on Sonos.  You’re better than this.  I consider you a ‘near luxury-class’ product which means you should always get it right.  I used to have the $20 Google Home speaker in the same room….on top of my Sonos.  I really don’t want to go back to those days.

 

The only thing I can think of that may be the issue, the Google Home in the next room or on my phone may be ‘hearing’ and confusing the Sonos One GA?  But I muted those mics, turned off my phone, and the problem still persisted.  I haven’t tried to ‘completely reboot, erase the speaker, add back, etc., but really hoping I don’t need to do that.

Have you found any proper solution? It’s worked as temporary. now again facing the same issue.

Userlevel 1
Badge

I gave up trying after an hour on the phone with support. The diagnostic process was crazy - after sensible things like removing and re-adding Google Assistant from the speaker to no effect, it moved to things that seemed like grasping at straws: what’s the brand of my modem, what’s the wifi setup, etc. Same things Rowena asked me to repeat above. They make no sense. Why would my Wifi router setup affect only the stopping of news playback and literally no other function of Google Assistant on my Sonos? Everything else works without any issue.

It’s clear that support is running through a generalized diagnostic script and not listening to the real issue. So, I’m not wasting my time. They should be able to replicate the issue if so many of us are experiencing it. 

The problem remains intermittent. When it occurs, I just start music and then stop it. That seems to work to stop the news playback.

Userlevel 5
Badge +16

Hi @Toph, thanks for sharing your feedback. We’re sorry your experience didn’t match your expectations. 

I understand that everything else works with your network but Sonos. When setting up Sonos devices, it should meet the Sonos system requirements, registered to the one network, and should be within the same subnet. 

We asked for the make and model of your network devices for us to look up the information and to check compatibility with Sonos. There are unsupported network setup and devices that may cause issues with Sonos. This is why we need to understand your network setup for us to provide you the best option that will work with your Sonos.

We referred you to contact our Sonos Customer Care support to perform in-depth troubleshooting and isolate the issue. Our phone support has the tools to check what's going on in your system and to remotely access your device to address the issue. 

Please feel free to reach out in the future if you have any other questions.