Nest Hub no longer playing audio when casting to a group

[toprock]

I have a couple of different devices sharing the same Cast group 

- 2x Google Home Mini

- 1x Nest Mini

- 1x Chromecast Audio 

- 1x JBL Link 300 

- 2x Nest Hub 

Some days back casting to the group called "alle" started on all devices except Nest Hub. 

I deleted the group and recreated from scratch but no luck.

It doesnt matter whether trying cast from Youtube Music via Android or using Assistant voice to play TuneIn Radio to that group. 

I once had a message that was something like "Firmware cannot be checked" or so and i assumed that the JBL might have an issue but this is playing fine and removing it from the group is not helping either.

Any help is appreciated!

[Princesss]

Hi toprock,

Thanks for reaching out.

I’m sorry to hear that you’re having an issue with your Google Nest speakers. Certain devices are limited to a single group at a time. For impacted devices, you’ll need to move them to your preferred speaker group in the Google Home app or dynamically add them to a group during media playback.

The following devices can only belong to one speaker group in the Google Home app at a time. If you try to add one of these devices to a second speaker group in the app, you’ll get an error message.

• Google Nest Mini (2nd gen)
• Google Nest Audio
• Chromecast with Google TV (4K)
• Chromecast with Google TV (HD)
• Google Nest Hub (2nd gen)
• Google Nest Hub Max
• Google Nest Wifi point
• Pixel Tablet (Hub Mode)

To know more about it, you can check this link. 

Hope this answers your question.

Best,

Princess

[toprock]

Hi princess,

Thank you for the hint but I'm actually using only older devices that seem to support multiple groups. Nevertheless I deleted all groups and recreated a default group added all devices I have but still the nest hubs are not playing while the rest is. 

Also factory reset one of the nest hubs but still no luck.

[Princesss]

Hello there,

Thanks for responding. 

Are those speakers set up in a new home structure? Also, could you tell us the distance between the speakers from each other and from the router?

Best,

Princess

[toprock]

Hi,

speakers are setup since about 2 years without any change to it and it just stopped working about 3 weeks ago without any change. Distance is on average 5m between the devices. WiFi Access Points are not more then 12m in distance as i´m using a mesh network with two access points.

Once manually selecting also the Nest Hubs the playback fine but cannot be selected with the group.

[Zappos]

Exactly the same for me.

[tezzman · Accepted solution]

Might be related to the poor implementation of https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Google-now-limits-speakers-to-one-speak.... Let us know if it's solved in the coming time.

[Zappos]

I'm really struggling with this too. I have a whole range of devices including ones that can now only be in one group. Things like "Play {music} on {group name}" stopped working. I'm aware of the one group issue (which is insane by the way) so deleted my old groups. Created just a single group with a different name, added in a few speakers and displays including the Nest Hub (gen2) and Nest Max but when ever I say "play {music} on {new group}" it plays on all the devices in the group OTHER than the two mentioned above.  I even reset both devices and added back in to the new group. Same problem. This is mad. This has been working for years without problem. This is very, very frustrating......

[PBDUB]

I'm also having the same issue. I have 1 group with 2 devices. 1 Nest Hub, and a Lenovo Smart Clock Essential. 

. When I play to the group only the clock plays. The hub shows it is playing but has no sound.  When I use Google Home app, it shows the hub was not included and is unchecked  I can add the Nest hub and it will start playing.. Then after 5 to 10 minutes both stop playing. The hub shows it is still playing but it is not

[Zappos]

2 devices! Lucky you :-). You could switch to Alexa for little cost!  I have 15 Google speakers/displays of various specs around the house along with a heap of other Google products. I'm royally screwed by this change as I relied upon multiple groups for all my audio needs. Would cost me a mint to change, although I am seriously thinking about it. Mind you, Alexa only permits a device to be in one group but at least the three I have work well which is more than can be said for Google products at the moment and the ever decreasing functionality they provide.

[Truls]

Same problem. …

I had a perfectly working system for years, different groups, upstairs/ downstairs / all / outside/ etc. Absolute super. 
boooom. All stopped working. 
Problems started with the licensing issues with Google and ….. some years ago. 
Very sorry to see a good solution die in this way. 

[ski22]

I have the same problem that started about the same time, all my devices play in the group except one Nest Hub, even factory reset it thinking maybe that was the problem and got rid of all audio groups except my main audio group. Nothing, it refuses to participate in the group audio.

Was working fine for years until recently...does Google ever beta test changes before forcing them out?

[MrKistic]

Going to add a me too here. My Nest Hub v1 has exactly the same issues. I've had it running for years with a Chromecast Audio and Nest minis of various ages with no problem at all. Then suddenly the same issue. No changes with any of my infrastructure, nothing moved, just one day the Hub is refusing to take part in my speaker group. Note singular group, even though they're older devices and should be exempt from any changes I only have one speaker group anyway. I can sometimes get it to work by adding it to 'Now Playing' in the Home app but even that is intermittent. And if I am able to get it added and playing it seems to introduce dropouts and/or jitters at times which don't happen when the Hub is not playing.

The only thing I've been able to discover is that the Nest Hub seems to be updating its IP address a lot. It has a static IP reserved in my DHCP server so it doesn't actually change but it is making a lot of requests. Given there also seems to be playback sync issues with it, is there a chance Google has introduced some networking issue in an update that could be causing this? I'd be happy to log more info on the device if there was some way to do it.

And just to confirm that there is definitely a networking issue, I'm playing audio on the speaker group including the Nest Hub now (after adding it to Now Playing in the Home app). When I open the settings for this Nest Hub in the Home app the audio playback immediately gets jittery across all speakers. This is repeatable, every time I access the Nest Hub in the Home app (so it's loading data from the device across the WiFi) the audio breaks up briefly. This only happens with the Nest Hub, not with any other device in the speaker group. If I play audio on all devices except the Nest Hub, I can open the settings on any of the audio devices with no issues at all.

I hope that helps and it would be nice to see Google make some effort to resolve this. I've seen a lot of discussion on this recently with no answer as to what's going on. For people who've invested in this solution it's not really good enough to just ignore it.