Automations fail to execute all actions

[SteveE-NC]

Hi. I have a few simple automations that perform pretty simple tasks. These automations were working fine for months or years but have started failing. Sometimes an automation will fail to complete one or more actions in the automation. Sometimes, the entire automation failed to execute. When I run the automations manually, they generally work. When they're triggered by time, not so consistent. 

I've tried recreating the automations. I've tried using custom actions vs the built-in actions. I've used a mix of built-in and custom actions. After I make changes, they may work for a few days. Then, begin to miss actions again. 

I believe that I am currently running the new/updated Google Home experience. I do not think that Gemini is active for me yet. 

I'm not sure how to go about debugging what is going on beyond what I have already tried. Individually, I can execute any of the actions with voice prompt. Just not consistently working in routines. 

One specific example:

At a set time, I 

Change the color on a specific light

Change the brightness on that light

Turn that light on

At a later time, I

Turn off that light

Change the brightness of that light

Change the color of that light. 

It's a Works with Google devices. Command work fine verbally of manually in the GH app. 

Again, these two automations worked fine for many months but now fail some actions. Most often, the change color fails in the automation. Sometimes the turn on or turn off actions don't complete. Other times, the change brightness fails. 

Anyone here have thoughts? These aren't critical but they're quite simple automations and I can understand why they worked for months and suddenly seem to fail. 

I have other GH oddities. Assistant seems to go bonkers sometimes and instead of executing a simple verbal command to turn on a light (one with a very specific name that doesn't sound like anything else) will cause Assistant to turn on multiple lights. Often not even in the same room as defined in GH. 

I hate to make the generalization, but Assistant seems to have become quite inconsistent in its reliability. I don't know what has changed. It's not me. Same Assistant enabled speakers, same commands, same automations. How do I get to the bottom of this? 

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

What would happen if you turned the light on first?

Or just add one action at at time and let a time schedule trigger it.

P.S. you can still use the old version of automation (they're call "Routines") in Assistant Settings.

On your Android phone search "Open Assistant Routines"

[SteveE-NC]

Thanks for the thoughts! I have played some more with the actions but it's still behaving oddly. 

The intent of the automation is to manage a light during the night so that my wife or I can see if we're up during the night without disturbing the other one. 

Right now, my early morning Turn Off automation seems to be working ok. At least for the past few days. My Turn On automation is still behaving badly. There are only 3 actions. Turn the light on is the last of 3 and the light on action is consistently happening first. I even tried putting manual "pause 5 seconds" actions between the light actions and the light still turns on first even though that is the last action in the list. It's tolerable in it's current state but it's super annoying that it worked fine for the past year and started behaving strangely in the last month. 

If this was the only Automation issue, I could live with it. But, my automations that control music (Pandora to Sonos speakers) have gone bonkers and I have a simple wake-up automation that has also started to misbehave. 

None of these are elaborate. They're all very simple with 3-5 actions and they have just stopped working reliably after a year or more being totally stable. 

I could break the simple 3 actions automations into 3 separate automations with different time triggers but that seems like an extreme workaround for something that should just work. 

For the Pandora/Sonos issue, after debugging and running many test scenarios, Gemini told me that it's a know bug with Google Assistant where actions targeted at Pandora and Sonos speakers fail if the action references a custom Pandora station rather than a public station. I've submitted feedback to a Google but I'm not holding my breath on how quickly they'll reply. And a fix, well, I'm not optimistic that I'll see a fix in the foreseeable future. 😒

[sam35]

I experience similar problem. I have many custom automation scripts activated by Ok Google to check some sensor status and broadcast it. 

It stopped working since few weeks. The automations are not reacting if the nest speakers are listening but they work fine if my phone responds to Ok Google. 

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

@sam35  this is still working for me to check the status of all my sensors in seconds

No automation required...

https://youtube.com/shorts/Q-WMPLnGp4U?feature=share