"There was an error when linking your account. Please try again!" With Google Nest Home Devices.

[thomasb]

I am unable to link any of the google home devices to my account. As such I'm not sure if this should be in "accounts", or "googlenest", since it's google nest/home devices unable to join to my account...

This has been an ongoing issue since February of this year and I've contacted google support multiple times, have multiple tickets ,and each time they direct me to buy new hardware. This seems to me to clearly be an account issue, not a hardware/device issue, considering it impacts multiple google home minis, a google home, a google nest hub, and has the issue on a samsung phone, oneplus phone, a pixel 6 phone and a pixel 6 pro phone.

I have tried clearing the cache and storage of, as well as uninstalling and reisntalling the google home app on all of these phone as well as on both my account and my wife's account.

I have tried factory resetting the phone, and the nest devices, multiple times.
The steps to factory reset the devices were here: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7073477?hl=en&sjid=13785040806603540027-AP#zippy=%2Cgoo...
An example of the instructions to set up the devices new are here: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7029485?hl=en&sjid=13785040806603540027-AP

I have tried totally deleting the 'home' in the google home app and starting a new 'home', and joining the devices to that.

I DID find a work around, by using a third new google account and using that to set up the google home devices and then transferring it to my 'home', but then the initial issue persists. I am unable to use the google home devices to control the other smart devices, such as smart light switches and smart light bulbs. Though control of home devices works using the Home App, but not when using voice or using the google home devices or google assistant...

I figured that this may be a networking issue so I tried both over wifi and wifi hot spot on cellular. I also factory reset my router and got my ISP to exchange the modem over the summer. I also tried through my network and directly through the Bell modem. The hotspot was on Bell LTE.

I also monitored the DNS queries and don't see any packets refused or dropped that would be suspicious, and I think the google home devices are hard coded to use 8.8.8.8 anyway, so it should bypass my LDAP server anyway.

Anyone else have this issue and successfully get it resolved? I had one agent actually tell me it's an issue with my account and I should create a new account to resolve this, but if he was able to identify this issue then... shouldn't this be a back-end fix?

[Juni]

Hi thomasb,

Thanks for reaching out, and I apologize for the inconvenience you're experiencing. We'll work together to identify the cause of the problem and find a solution. Are you using a work email? Try using another email and observe if it makes a difference.

Regards,

Juni

[thomasb]

Hello there,

I am not using a work email, but the issue persists on both my wife's and my personal email. I set up a third email to test and it works when I do that, but for obvious reasons I'd like my primary account to manage the devices. I also have mentioned this in the original post, it's a wall of text so you probably just missed it:
" DID find a work around, by using a third new google account and using that to set up the google home devices and then transferring it to my 'home', but then the initial issue persists. I am unable to use the google home devices to control the other smart devices, such as smart light switches and smart light bulbs. Though control of home devices works using the Home App, but not when using voice or using the google home devices or google assistant..."

This also extends to using google assistant. If i remove my primary account, or set up another device with only the third account, I can control the devices using google assistant. This is what has me believe it to be a back-end account issue, which means this should be fixed from google's end. I tried to delete all my account activity and history to see if it makes a difference and it did not.