Google Home not Working with BBC sounds

[martinix]

Stopped recognising voice command for radio station. Command "play BBC Radio 4" Google responds "playing BBC Radio 1". Tried resetting and retraining voice. Consistent, repeatable error. Assume problem with Google servers needs fixing. 

[IoraRua]

I also have this issue. "When I say "play BBC Radio 4" Google responds "playing BBC Radio 1 on BBC Sounds" and plays Radio 1.

A workaround was to say "play BBC Radio F-O-U-R" and Google would respond "playing BBC Radio 4 on BBC Sounds" and play Radio 4, but today nothing is working. I say "play BBC Radio 4" and Google responds "playing Radio 4 on TuneIn" and plays a Spanish-language station. The spelling out of the station name hasn't been working for me today.

This happens on my Nest Hub, my Google Home speaker and on Android Auto.

[martinix]

Thank you! It does seem to behaving a bit better since I retrained the voice but the problem still occurs. I can think of another F-O-U-R letter word I've tried using to encourage Google to understand the difference between 'four' and 'one' but sadly Google doesn't seem to get the message!

[lusvin]

Hi @martinix,

Thank you for posting in the community. I'm sorry to hear that your Google Home device stopped recognizing voice commands for the BBC radio station. But don't worry; let me help you with this.

I would like to ask you some questions to gather more information about the concern you have and, in that way, look for a solution:

• What type of speaker do you have?
• What troubleshooting steps have you already tried?
• Do you have the same experience if you play another radio?
• Are there any error messages or notifications related to voice recognition?
• Do you pay for the BBC radio service, or is it free?
• If you pay for the radio service, is it linked in the Google Home app?
• Are you using the Google Home app or another one?

I will be waiting for your response. 

Best regards, 

Lusvin.

[IoraRua]

I am also experiencing this issue, so here are my answers to your questions:

• What type of speaker do you have? Nest Hub and Google Home speaker.
• What troubleshooting steps have you already tried? Restarting devices; removing and re-adding to Google Home app; retraining the voice model.
• Do you have the same experience if you play another radio? Another radio station? No, this issue occurs only with BBC Radio 4 - other BBC stations play without any issue.
• Are there any error messages or notifications related to voice recognition? No, Google either replies "streaming BBC Radio 1 from the BBC" and plays BBC Radio 1, which is a different radio station, or replies "streaming Radio 4 from TuneIn" and plays a Spanish-language station. If I say "play BBC Radio F-O-U-R" it will usually play the correct station, but not always.
• Do you pay for the BBC radio service, or is it free? BBC Radio is free.
• If you pay for the radio service, is it linked in the Google Home app? Not applicable.
• Are you using the Google Home app or another one? I am using the Google Home app but this issue also occurs when I ask Google to play BBC Radio 4 in the car via Android Auto.

BBC Radio 4 plays fine on the BBC Sounds app on my phone and other devices. I can also cast BBC Radio 4 from BBC Sounds to my devices.

I have been asking Google to play BBC Radio 4 every day since 2017 without issue - I am a native English speaker and nothing has changed in my Google Home setup or in my device settings.

[martinix]

• What type of speaker do you have?

Google Nest and Nest Mini

• What troubleshooting steps have you already tried?

Complete reset (multiple times) and retrain of voice

• Do you have the same experience if you play another radio?

I've tried other stations and they seem to work ok.

• Are there any error messages or notifications related to voice recognition?

No error messages or notifications received.

• Do you pay for the BBC radio service, or is it free?

Using with BBC Sounds app

• If you pay for the radio service, is it linked in the Google Home app?

n/a none paid.

• Are you using the Google Home app or another one?

Google Home App

[lusvin]

Hi @IoraRua,

Thank you for your response and the detailed information; this one is really helpful.

If your speaker or display doesn't play the radio station that you requested, try these steps:

• Ask for the station in a different way. For example, if the name didn't work, try the call sign or frequency.
• Add more specific information, such as 'on [radio service]', to your request.
• When you use the frequency, add the name of a nearby city.

Let's try to use this other kind of command to see if it works to play the correct radio. Keep me updated. 

Best regards,

Lusvin.

[lusvin]

Hi @IoraRua,

Thank you for your quick response. I'm sorry to hear that the concern persists. I appreciate all your efforts trying to solve this situation.

We will be glad to take all your comments and suggestions for the device to have a better experience and look for a solution.

So to help us gather more information about this inconvenience and work on a solution, please fill out this feedback form. If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Best regards, 

Lusvin.

[lusvin]

Hi @celticintuition,

Thank you for posting in the community and for the information. I’m sorry to hear that you are experiencing the same concern with the BBC radio on your mini-home devices and display. 

As mentioned in my previous response, the best course of action at this time is to submit the feedback form that I sent in my previous post. This will help Google's engineers become aware of the concern and prioritize a fix.

While we don't have a specific timeline for a resolution, your feedback is crucial in ensuring that this concern is addressed promptly. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,

Lusvin.

[celticintuition]

Spelling the number out worked...so far. Good workaround. Thanks. This is so annoying.

[IoraRua]

Thank you. Radio stations in Europe do not have call signs. Adding the FM frequency (which varies by region for BBC stations) for some reason opens a random video on YouTube on my Nest Hub.

I have tried adding "on BBC Sounds" to the command and it has played BBC Radio 4 as requested. This is a workaround but it is not a solution - users should not have to know to now specify the service when previously this was not necessary, and it is not necessary to specify it for other BBC stations. BBC Sounds is the BBC's own streaming service and has been the default for Google devices since 2018.

[celticintuition]

Exactly the same issue across my multiple mini homes and nest display. This has worked for years with no issues. Now every request for radio 4 plays radio 1. First started noticing it about a month ago. I've been round all the options for retraining my voice and removing my voice data and setting up again. Come on Google, pay attention, this effectively makes these devices useless for me.

[martinix]

My experience same too. Thanks for posting.

[lusvin]

Hi @martinix,

Thank you for the reply. If you already tried the troubleshooting steps that I sent to you in the previous post and the situation persists, please fill out this feedback form. If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Best regards,

Lusvin.

[martinix]

ok. will do.

[mildenhall]

I have the same issue. "Play BBC Radio 4" plays Radio1.

An alternative is "Play radio 4" which works for me.

[celticintuition]

That is working for me so far. Great answer, thanks. 🙏

[DavidSt]

Best answer yet "Play radio four" Thanks!!

[martinix]

It's all very confusing. Until recently everything was working fine with Google Home and BBC Sounds but recently Google Home appears suffering from major brain fade. It appears to be suffering from an electronic equivalent of a stroke. Yes, "Play Radio 4" does appear to work. Last year it didn't work and you had to phrase the command as "Play Radio 4" does appear to work. Sometimes "Play BBC Radio 4" responds with "Streaming BBC Radio 4 from the BBC" and sometimes it responds with "Streaming BBC Radio 1 from the BBC". Now I have a new problem the command "Play BBC World Service" used to respond with "Streaming BBC World Service from the BBC" but now responds with "Streaming KQED from TuneIn". This is really strange. I don't use TuneIn and I don't have TuneIn installed so how Google Home knows about TuneIn is a mystery to me! The only way I can access BBC World Service now is playing it from BBC Sounds on my phone and then casting it Google Home. I've tried all the usual resets for Google Home/Nest but the problem persists. I don't know why Google Home seems to have become so unreliable recently. Any ideas or suggestions for how to fix things appreciated. Thanks.

[celticintuition]

I've submitted a fault report to the BBC about this. At this stage it's hard to tell whether it's a BBC Sounds application issue with handling the voice API response from Google or whether it's a Google issue, but my gut feel is it's a Google side problem. I've not used the voice API as a developer (I'm a software engineer of 35+ years experience). If I get a response, I'll update here.

[celticintuition]

This is the case reference I got back from the BBC Sounds Team's reporting form if anyone else wants to chip in their experience to the BBC team.

REF: CAS-7954389-B3Z3B5 

Kind regards, Ian

[celticintuition]

I got a response this morning. What they suggested, worked once (I've not done many tests). Play BBC Radio 4 please, still plays Radio 1. Hope this helps.

"Thank you for contacting BBC Sounds Support.

I understand when you ask for BBC Radio 4 your Google Nest speaker plays Radio 1 or Radio 1 Dance instead.

I would like to help resolve this issue.

I’ve tested this on a Google speaker, but I couldn’t replicate this behaviour.

I used two commands; “Hey Google, listen to BBC Radio 4” and “Hey Google, BBC Radio 4“ and these work without any issues. Make sure you include ‘BBC’ into your request so Google knows to get it from BBC Sounds. Another command you can try is "Hey Google, Play Radio 4 on BBC”.

Test these commands and if they aren’t working, please check the firmware is up to date. If you need any help checking and updating the firmware, please have a look at Google's help-page I’ve linked below.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7365257 (Please note the BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites)

Then, reboot the device and internet router by unplugging them, leaving them off for two minutes then plugging them back in. This will refresh the connections and gets rid of any cached data that might be causing the problem.

If these steps don’t help, please contact Google directly for further advice. You can find their contact page linked below.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/gethelp

If they can’t help and ask you to get back to us, please use the webform link below. Let us know what Google say about this issue, what model your Google Nest speaker is, confirm you've tried the voice commands above and that you've checked the firmware is up to date and tell us which firmware version it is.

I hope this information is helpful and thanks again for getting in touch."

[celticintuition]

I have run a few tests at the behest of the BBC support chap that got back to me. I was able to recreate the issue and have updated them with the results.

The two versions of the request they suggested work so far, so I will use these. "Hey Google, BBC Radio 4" and "Hey Google, Listen to BBC Radio 4". 

[martinix]

Many thanks for the update. Have you tried and/or had any luck with the "BBC World Service"? I've tried both "Play BBC World Service" and "Play World Service" but Google responds saying "Playing KQED on TuneIn"

[celticintuition]

I'll give that a go tomorrow and see what's afoot.

[mildenhall]

This is not a cure but a work around....

(1) In the Google Home app make sure you have joined the "Public Preview" - it's the conical flash in the top right corner.

(2) Navigate to "home.google.com" in your favorite web browser and ensure you're logged in.

(3) Click on "Automations" (middle left) and "+ Add New" (bottom right hand corner.

(4) Paste this script into the Script Editor and hit "Save"

metadata:
  name: BBC World Service
  description: Play BBC World Service on the Lounge Nest
automations:
  - starters:
      - type: assistant.event.OkGoogle
         eventData: query
         is: Stream BBC World Service
  actions:
      - type: assistant.command.OkGoogle
        devices:
          - Lounge Nest - Lounge
          okGoogle: Play BBC World Service

So to get BBC World service say "Stream BBC World Service".

The Lounge Nest - Lounge is the name of one of my Nests - you'll need to change it to match your Nest's name.

[celticintuition]

Wow, thanks for posting this. I never knew I could configure it with a bit of YAML. Will give this a go.