Cascading problems with Google Home and my speakers.

[azz710]

Folks, I have well over a dozen Google connected devices, including original Google Homes, Google Home Minis, Google Nest minis, an original Home Hub, a few chromecasts, including an obsolete Chromecast audio, etc.

My brother visits often, so I added him as a user to most of the devices.  For years, literally, I have periodically been losing personalization on a device at a time. The output voice reverts, it tells me I can't add stuff to my shopping list and to go to the Home app and set it up, and all that nonsense, but when I reboot the device, all goes back to normal until the bug hits the next time. That mostly affects Nest minis, but I've had it happen on other devices as well.

Then, the other day, my gen 1 Home Hub lost its customization, and rebooting didn't help. This morning, that happened to one of my original Home Minis, I messed around with both of them for a while, then decided simply to remove the Home Hub from the Home app, factory reset it and add it back. But when I deleted the device, that started a cascade involving my brother. First, I assume it had removed my brother from my Home Hub before it deleted it, and then it went nuts and deleted all of the devices that my brother had been authorized to control, including the other one that had permanently lost its personalization. As the Home app had stopped allowing me to modify my speaker groups, another known problem, I figured I would just go ahead and reset and re-add all of the affected devices.

Now, I had come up with unique names for all of my speakers, following my plan and not Google's, so when each device was added, I changed the device name. With some of the devices, the name changed properly. With others, it reverts back to the Google default. An example is that Google wants to name my Home Hub to Kitchen Display, and I want to call it Kitchen Home Hub. 

I have seen similar problems pop up on forums, but in most cases the expert answer has been an explanation as to how to change the device name, which I already know how to do, and the one user that I've come across so far that had success uninstalled the current version of Home, installed an earlier version from an APK he found on some archive site, renamed his devices, uninstalled the old app and reinstall the current version again.

Does anyone have any other ideas? Many thanks in advance.

Jeff Broido

[Muddi]

Hello azz710,

Thanks for sharing details about the issue here. I know how challenging it is when you're experiencing issues with your Google Home and Nest speakers. A few questions: what is the make and model of your phone? What is the version? Does the same thing happen when you access the Google Home app on a different phone?

Let's go ahead and create a new home structure on the Google Home app. Once done, move all your devices from the old structure to the new one. Let's see if you will still have the same issue. Follow the steps below or visit this link for more steps:

Create a home

1. Open the Google Home app.
2. At the top, tap Add.
3. Tap Create new home.
4. Follow the steps.

Move a device to a different home

1. Open the Google Home app.
2. Open the home the device is in.
3. Touch and hold your device's tile.
4. Tap Setting > Device information > Home.
5. Tap the home you want to move the device to > Next > Move device.
6. If asked, tap the room you want to move the device to > Next.

Let me know how it goes.

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi]

Hi there,

It's me again. I want to make sure you're all good — how did the steps go?
 

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi]

Hey azz710,

We haven’t heard back, so I'll be locking this thread if we won't hear from you in 24 hours. Feel free to create a new one if you have more questions or have other concerns in the future.
 

Cheers,

Muddi