Having trouble with Speaker groups? Read this first

[kelanfromgoogle]

Hi everyone, 

Thank you for continuing to notify us of the reliability issues you’re facing with your Speaker groups. I escalated these issues internally and the team is actively investigating a resolution. If you’re able, all feedback is appreciated! Please keep it coming by saying “OK Google, Send Feedback." Providing details, such as mentioning that the issue is with the "speaker group," is especially helpful.  As always, we appreciate your feedback and are working hard to alleviate the issues. 

Thank you for the patience,
Kelan

[kelanfromgoogle · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

Thank you for your continued patience while our team has been working to address the issues with Speaker group functionality. I want to give you all an update and confirm that a fix was identified which will address a specific problem where some devices, when acting as the group leader, cause an issue with audio not playing on other speakers that are part of the same group. However, you may experience that the main (or leader) device will still play the media as expected.

The following devices will cause this behavior when used as the group leader:

- Chromecast with Google TV (4K)
- Chromecast with Google TV (HD)
- Google Home (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Google Home/Nest Hub (first-generation)
- Google Home/Nest Mini (first-generation) (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Nest Audio (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Nest Hub (second-generation)
- Nest Hub Max
- Nest Mini (second-generation) (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Nest Wifi Point
- Pixel Tablet
- A small percentage of third-party speakers were also affected

Note: the issue must be fixed on the device that is the leader of the group in order for the other devices in the group to start playing consistently

The fixes are specific to each device type, and are dependent on upcoming scheduled update rollouts. We will update this post as the fixes begin rolling out for each device so you can test your own speaker groups.

There may be some devices that take longer to receive the update so if you’re still encountering issues, you can try these temporary workarounds:

Cast directly: if you’re trying to play audio in multiple rooms, cast the audio directly to the individual speakers.

Restart your devices: If you’re having trouble with your speaker group and are unsure which device is the group leader, try restarting all devices that are part of the speaker group. This can often resolve the issues.

As always, we deeply appreciate the feedback and your patience. If you are still running into issues with Speaker groups, please leave a comment below with clear descriptions of the behavior you're encountering. This feedback will help the team further investigate and mitigate anything else that might be causing this feature to not work as intended.

Thanks again, we're working diligently to get everything back to how it should be.

Kelan

[pontus]

I have issues with my speakers but google doesnt say anything. I havent found a thread about this. 

When i reset all the speakers and then make a new speaker group it works. 

Then after a hour it stops. Only one speaker plays the music while the rest makes a beep noice every 30-60 sec. 

I have 2 nest audio 

1 hk one

1 hk citation 200

1 hk citation soundbar. 

[RGB111]

I have the same problem. 

[Mishap]

Hi, I have a stand alone 'smart' speaker with Chromecast bulit in and two Chromecast devices, in three rooms. I created various audio groups to cater for different configurations of two or three rooms. 

The device that is closest to the router regularly drops off when cast to its group (regardless whether it is a two-device group or a three-device group). I swapped the devices around, but the issue persists with the location and not the device. 

The drop-outs are random, occuring up to one hour apart, but then also within 5 minutes from one another. It is not related to other traffic, i.e. it happens when the rest of the network is quiet with traffic. However, as the location that drops out is connected to the main HiFi in the house, when it drops out it creates a huge sound hole, very disturbing. 

I raised this as an issue with my broadband provider. They ran tests etc and found no issue with the internet connectivity (as expected). For now, they did not indicate that there may be an issue with the router itself. 

I see in various places that there are even worse issues with casting audio to Chromecast groups and wonder what, if anything, is being done by Google to diagnose those and fix them. 

Thanks!

[Krisz0r]

Mine worked for around 2 years nearly seamlessly when connected to a 2.4ghz bandwidth wifi network.

I haven't bought new speakers, but they're reasonably new. A Google home nest speaker. Probably 4 years old and a Sony at-h7000 Chromecast enabled sound bar.

I have updated to a wifi 6 capable router that combines 2.4ghz and 5ghz and in my opinion it's never worked well since. Even though it didn't effect any other devices in my home.

I've tried 3 different routers 

A netcomm

An Asus

A Netgear

All do the same thing.

• Speakers are visible in home
• They play fine out of Spotify separately 
• When I first hard reset them all I can create a group 
• Then a day later one drops out of the group and the group disappears from home.
• Then when I try to make the group again it's like it's still there in the cloud frozen with the speakers in it and it won't let me put the speakers back in a group again.

Resultant in I can't see the speaker group which I call "master" to play across all devices.

It's the only feature people use in Google home. Would be good to get it working again.

[Krisz0r]

I sorted my problem out.

What I've found is that new routers try to combine the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandwidths together under the same name. Technically they are bridged and for that reason it didn't compute to me that this would be the issue. By chance I've worked out what was happening.

The 5GHz bandwidth is a bit **bleep** and patchy and has a lower reception range from the router but provides higher throughput speed. The 2.4GHz bandwidth is stable and operates at a perfectly acceptable speed.

The router was leashing the 5GHz network to one device that was really close to the router and the 2.4GHz network to another device which was further away and wouldn't have the option of 5GHz.
Even though technically its all the same network, in effect it has been the reason I've had problems ever since I updated my router.

To understand how I got it so wrong, I just hard reset my router to see what the default settings are and they are, one SSID for both networks, you literally have to tick a box that says "seperate 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks". So naturally you think that we're living in the future and the router will sort this out for you from now on... WRONG

Anyway, I renamed the 5ghz bandwidth to "blahblahblah5ghz" and left the 2ghz network as my original network name and everything is working seamlessly.

Such a simple thing that has gone on for months and took 10 minutes to fix once I'd worked out.

Good luck!

[RussdaFuss]

I think this is not an acceptable solution for most users. Switching off or separating the 5 GHz network by assigning different SSIDs for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks is not state of the art and negates all the advantages of this technology.
Band steering, crossband repeating and seamless roaming can therefore no longer be used. This is like wifi in 2010!

[Krisz0r]

Yeah don't get me wrong its pretty pathetic.
Google need to do so much work on the speaker groups part of the google home.
But at least I worked out why my stuff wasn't working.
It was literally doing my head in.

[RussdaFuss]

Yes you are right. In any case, this doesn't seem to be a problem with Sonos and Alexa products.

[ired]

I have separated SSIDs for 2,4 and 5gh, I never liked the idea of band steering and I have all the google speakers setup in the 5gh network but the problem remains...

My group called "Living room speakers" is consisted from a Home max, a Home mini, and a Nest hub 2nd gen, I have set as default speaker the "living room speakers" on all speakers, the music plays just fine on the google speakers but not in the Nest hub...

[marcolopes]

I tried all that to debug this annoying problem that goes on for YEARS, and that's not the problem... nothing to do with 2 or 5ghz WiFi: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Strange-popping-sound-in-my-nest-mini/t...

[rickjforbes]

It's not your network setup, it's just a coincidence. Speaker groups stopped working in early 2023 when Google updated software, and so far they have not committed a fix despite still advertising the feature to prospective purchaser (which adds further insult)
I have all google devices, including the Google Nest Wi-Fi kit and I am experiencing the issues and have been for over 18 months. Google's support reply and will walk you through various troubleshooting steps, but you will not have success, since the underlying code that used to make these things work has been broken and is not sufficient priority for them to fix.

[Mishap]

An update from my side...

During my marathon 'support' session with my provider, they said that something is wrong with the radius (server?) and that they will do a hard reset (factory settings) of my router. Luckily I kept the original SSID and pwd so this reset was not a major issue for me.

I have to say that dropouts stopped after that... but ... A week later they were back again.

So, I did another factory reset yesterday and after that I did not experience any dropouts for the rest of the day. 

I will see what happens next weekend (when I may have time to tinker).

I do not want to jump to conclusions, but if this fix may help in other routers, then there's something wrong with a way that group casting works (clogs routing tables?). If it only helps me (and BT/EE hubs) then it is the hub that is wrong (by design?) because my previous generation hub worked absolutely fine. 

On the old hub I could select which device connects to which WiFi band. On this one, it seems it's a random process. Of course I could switch the 5GHz band off, but that defeats the objective of having a modern router 

[Krisz0r]

This 100percent sounds like you're on the right track. Thanks for the feedback 👍👍

I'm going to try a heap more stuff over the next weekend and see if I can fix it.

I was reading on Reddit you can try loading an old version of Google home (apparently 1.9apk) through an emulator and deleting the speaker group, which as we know disappears for some reason but it still actually there in the cloud 🙄

It's making me so sad that it's not working haha

[Mishap]

Hi, Thanks for that. I think your issues with groups being messed up is probably something to do with Google Home. I had something similar but the situation stabilised once I removed all devices and added them back in and created new groups. 

The audio drop-outs are a separate issue, I have a feeling. 

Not nice that the only reason why people collect multiple Chromecasts is to create and cast to groups and yet it does not work reliably. It seems to me that I'd be better off deploying cables around the place instead of suffering the Google's WiFi incompetences. 

[Mishap]

As feared, the dropouts returned. This time I reset the router (again) and switched the 5GHz WiFi band off. So all devices were then on the single band.

My "home" got mightily messed up with that. I had to reboot all Chromecast and audio cast devices and reassemble the groups.

Unfortunately the dropouts returned within a couple of hours of streaming.

[Krisz0r]

Put all your stuff on the 2.4ghz band and don't use the 5ghz band at all.

It sounds a lot like you have the same issue I had.

[rickjforbes]

Guys, I am sorry you have spent time fiddling with your network. Google agents are often happy to try and deflect the issue with their products onto others and of course, occasionally there may be something that is causing or exacerbating an issue. However unfortunately the agents either don't know or will not tell you the truth that Google are not prioritising fixing this feature after it broke in early 2023
Simply use your favourite search engine to find Google SONOS patent issue to discover the underlying reason for this specific issue.

I can tell you it is extremely unlikely to be your network setup, it's just a coincidence. Speaker groups stopped working in early 2023 when Google updated software, and so far they have not committed a fix despite still advertising the feature to prospective purchaser (which adds further insult)
I have all google devices, including the Google Nest Wi-Fi kit and I am experiencing the issues and have been for over 18 months. Google's support reply and will walk you through various troubleshooting steps, but you will not have success, since the underlying code that used to make these things work has been broken and is not sufficient priority for them to fix.

[marcolopes]

I really believed that this (and the POPPING NOISE when streaming any type of AUDIO https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Strange-popping-sound-in-my-nest-mini/t...) problems were introduced when Google was "sued" by SONOS for using proprietary "streaming" code on the Google devices, and google "engineers" had to remove that code (or else!)

But, since late 2023, a decision was made in favor of Google, and the firmware was updated: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/google-wins-sonos-patent-case-immediately-ships-speaker-soft...

Was the firmware reversed to affect the STREAMING and GROUPS code? If it was, shouldn't all these issues be resolved NOW?

[rickjforbes]

I had an interaction with a rep a couple of weeks back who said it was fixed.

The difference was I could create a group (previous solution was... hilariously...to use the speakers individually.. because that works..yeah thanks mate)

However it didn't and doesn't work for voice command or when a group is set as the default playback audio device the settings.

The last software was released in February and my v number matched it so I queried why I was trying this again with no software release. The agent mentioned something about checking whether it was released in UK..and then went off the grid.

Three follow up emails later..no answer (and still no function) I got another agent stepping in ranting that I had not tried their solution. Dreadful. They didn't sign off their name in some attempt to hide.

Case ID 2-0369000036400 if any support are looking and don't believe me.

Richard

[lejg510]

I started off that way (all on 2.4 Ghz)  I would suggest, but have not yet tried assigning Fixed IPs for all Google Home Devices.  This should not be necessary but based on what I have read in this group Google seems to have lost any ability to deal with any complexity in network routing.  I am just guessing that fixed IPs could help  but that takes lots of work.  I have had similar experiences with Wise devices needing fixed IPs.  Groups simply DO NOT WORK when cited as the Default Music Speaker.  This should be a major embarrassment  for Google but based on their inability to fix this it seems that they are truly incapable or not interested.  I have had a google home (first gen) for years and it works (kind of) by itself - aside from not knowing how to follow commands to use Tunein vs Global Player (even when specified in the command). Just recently I added a google home mini desiring to group them and have multi room radio / music.  At first this worked sporadically but it has never been consistent.  Now it seems to NEVER work even though the group is specified as the Default Music Speaker.  It seems that I always must go to the Google Home app, find the stream and deliberately manually select the group name using the cast icon.  0 automation and 0 attention to default settings.  This is not a problem with Amazon Alexa devices.    While on this rant, I would like to say that Google should be ashamed of their Google Nest "Hub" v2.  It does not deserve to be called a "Hub"  rather it is simply a display (and a very poor one at that).  A Hub would have actual radios in it for Wifi (which must be adjustable to work as access point or router, radios for Z-wave and Zigbee.  A proper Hub with Display would start off by having Chromecast functionality and the Google Home App capability as built in capabilities.   It should also have access to a Play store to allow installation of apps like TuneIn since Google never seems to be able to follow any instructions or scripts to use Tunein or Global player even when the user specifies it.    All in all the things Google is calling hubs are a very poor substitute for a simple display with no expansion capability A simple android tablet has better functionality.  Fortunately the hub was returned thanks to Amazon returns. 

[Mishap]

After a month of avoiding to cast to groups, to avoid being annoyed and having seen some posts that suggested that there were fixes, I tried again yesterday.

I was not glued to the lounge (where dropouts occur) all the time, but for a very long time that I was casting, I did not notice any. 

Things might have improved, but it is hard to tell as no one updated me that there was any deliberate act of (trying to) fix(ing) things.

I do not use voice commands, I just manually cast music from a tablet to a speaker group.

I will continue to periodically update the situation.

Thanks!

[Mishap]

So, I had another day available to cast to my group. I have not noticed any dropouts in the lounge for the duration. However... some strange things happened.

As described, I usually cast from a tablet to a group. Specifically, from a google Chrome tab playing a radio stream to an audio group. On both days, after a while, I heard the tablet playing the music, whilst the group continued to work as from the initial casting. The tablet simply dropped that stream and played it on its own. The stream continued to play. I would then stop the tablet's play and the stream continued. 
Then yesterday as I was playing the stream for almost the whole day, towards the evening, one of the Chromecasts started to play really distorted music - that is not the device that experienced dropouts in the past. The other two devices played fine. 

So, strange things continue to happen, but my two last attempts of streaming to a group did not result in those random drop-outs. 
Thanks!

[h20534]

I have noticed that having  Nest Hub v2 in any speaker group seems to give it a lot of issues. There is a decent chance that if I cast music to a speaker group that includes my Nest Hub v2, every speaker other than the Nest Hub v2 will cast fine. I usually cast music via the Spotify app running on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, but I remember this happening last summer when I had a Pixel 7 Pro also.

[Krisz0r]

Its definitely annoying!

I'm at a friends place who's an apple person and their speaker groups are working perfectly on Google home where as me with my Google products and Google Pixel phone is having major problems.

We both have the exact same router 🥴

[RussdaFuss]

Google Tech Support has been aware of the issues with speaker groups and Nest Hubs no longer playing music in the group for months. I have been in contact with various levels of support since September 2023 and have written a variety of posts on various topics.
It would almost be a biblical miracle if Google should now respond to the problems and actually offer a solution! I'm excited... even if my expectations are rather low.

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Can-t-find-quot-group-quot-Be-sure-the-...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Google-home-first-gen-pineapple-keeps-d...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Music-shuts-off-randomly/td-p/569487

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Tunein-Radio-pauses-for-no-reason/td-p/...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Unable-to-manage-groups/td-p/565306

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Google-Home-Speaker-Groups-No-Longer-Wo...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Stops-playing-from-global-player-random...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Speaker-groups-still-not-working-despit...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/where-did-it-all-go-wrong-google/td-p/5...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Speaker-groups-completely-broken/td-p/5...

[Amishruss]

I've posted a couple too. My issue has been "escalated" multiple times too. I've recorded videos of the issue. Nothing has fixed it, and now gotten worse.

[RussdaFuss]

Hello Kelan,
Is there anything new regarding troubleshooting music playback on speaker group? Is it already clear whether there will be an update in the foreseeable future that fixes the numerous errors and problems with playback on speaker groups and the problems with playback on Nest Hub devices?
Thank you for a brief update on the current situation!

[Amishruss]

I have been having speaker group issues since last summer. "Higher level support" has been useless. And now my speakers, and only my two speakers, refuse to connect at all. I have lost faith in Google, after over 20 years of being a big Google supporter, jumping into Google beta services that launch, working with their app development for issues, and seeing what they have become and a complete LACK of any resolutions to many issues and consistently making the WORST decisions regarding products and services, I have zero faith that Google cares about their consumers anymore. These Nest speakers are essentially the final straw for me.

[Krisz0r]

If you know how to change the settings in your router (which not everyone does) you could try my above solution.

I guarantee 99 percent of speaker group problems within Google home are googles **bleep**ty legacy models with no firmware updates whatsoever to keep up with newer wifi technology.

Very poor from them.

[Amishruss]

Nope. I have the networks separated with different names for 5ghz and 2.4ghz. 

[flybob]

Sending feedback via voice does nothing. I've sent hundreds of error reports that way and not one issue has ever been corrected. No one monitors or listens to those reports. No one cares about fixing the many, many problems with Google assistant on Google home speakers. 

[morf]

Good morning.

When I ask to Google Assistant using Nest Hub and/or Nest Mini and/or Google Home mini to play music using spotify on a group of device (where I have the 3 devices mentioned above + two chromecast audio) --> Google answers it has a problem and I can't have music on my speaker group.

If I use directly spotify app I can stream music on group of devices! So using spotify group of speakers work fine!!!

So to me the problem is not my WIFI/Router, or Spotify or single google devices...problem is Google Assistant!

Already done a reset of everything (all devices)...already deleted and recreated other group devices.

[flybob]

The problem is on Google's server side. They know about it but don't care. 

[morf]

It Is not possible. Google is a super IT companies...I can t believe they don t care about customers...

[morf]

I have just one final question, considering that google assistant and audio spakers are having huge problems for 6-8 months: Is google able to fix it? Is there any roadmap?

I just need yes or no! If no I'm going to sell everything and pass to Alexa...

[RussdaFuss]

Yes, this phenomenon seems to be widespread and also known to Google. In any case, this process has already been described in other posts (... see the numerous threads that I have already referred to here). Yes, your observation seems to be accurate. The connection problem appears to be server-side. This is also the reason why measures such as deleting and re-creating speaker groups are completely pointless. The errors cannot be corrected by the user.

[Thor9Stinson]

Been having an issue for a while. I have a hub and mini. Figured this is a good place to describe my issues to help find the root of it

Both work for an amount of time then seemingly stop connecting to my network. The hub shows the WiFi setup QR code and the mini just says "something went wrong" or " there was a glitch. In Google home they show offline.

My phone always works to controly smart devices and all other smart devices seem stable. I have GE Cync Smart bulbs and Samsung TVs. 

I have factory reset both devices a few times and they work for a bit then go back to non functional. If I unplug them for a minute then plug them back in, they reset and work for an amount of time again.

[kelanfromgoogle]

Hey all,

I appreciate the continued reports about Speaker groups not working as intended. We haven't forgotten and the team is still working to address the issues impacting Speaker groups. They've identified some potential root causes but are still working on a fix. In the meantime - please continue to leave comments here with clear descriptions of the behavior you're experiencing with Speaker groups. This feedback will help the team further investigate and mitigate anything else that might be causing this feature to not work as intended.

Thank you,
Kelan

[h20534]

Thank you for the update, Kelan. Can you share what some of the root causes they found were? It might help us in testing for you. Just last night, I went to cast music to a speaker group that included 4 nest minis, 1 Lenovo Smartclock 2, and a Nest Hub 2nd Gen. Everything but the Nest Hub 2nd Gen casted successfully - the Nest Hub 2nd Gen failed to join the group and cast music. If I casted music just to the Nest Hub 2nd Gen directly by itself, it worked fine.