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Google Speaker Groups not working

MsLevis
Community Member

I'm also having similar problems-  Have mix of Google audio cast and google enabled speakers across the house- most of the time casting doesn't work - If I go into the home app the groups are disappearing and re-appearing alot- I'll select a group that worked the day before and only one speaker plays - it still shows all devices playing-  I can try it a few times- go in and out of the google home app and try to force it that way- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - all the firmware is up to date and it's just SOOOOO frustrating -  I even went and got a new google home speaker thinking maybe gen1 was causing an issue- nope still same problem-  COME ON GOOGLE!!!  

607 REPLIES 607

I was in touch with JBL customer service, and they said they sent out the update automatically. I didn't have to do anything (though admittedly, I had returned my original pair of JBLs when they didn't work, and only reordered a single one when JBL said they'd updated the firmware... so it's possible mine was already updated at the factory).

NikolaiM
Community Member

Not holding my breath but groups have been working flawlessly the last few days. I like a girlfriend who keeps going back to an abusive relationship. I can change him! 

NikolaiM
Community Member

For me it's one original Google home, one nest screen, and two nest audios. I have one group setup including all of them. Only one or two would ever work at a time when voice commanding the group to play something. More luck when doing it manually but still flaky. Was like this for the better part of 6 months+. All of a sudden, no issues for the last 4 days. We'll see

Aaaand not working again today lol. I'm moving soon and will have a new ISP and modem/router. We'll see if that helps. If not, I'm selling all speakers and going full Sonos. Might do that anyways as we already have some sonos devices and they just work

serum
Community Member

Issue still very present with the HK citations. hk promised an update mid april, but apparently they don't care about their customers either. So two years after the purchase you can toss them in the bin if you want to use them why you bought them. Do you think i will ever buy hk again?

 

Boogieman
Community Member

Problem with refund is that google allready collected your data and used it. The win is not so much on the hardware especially at sales where NEST 2 mini is like 20€ and a display 50€ (Nest audio 65€ still should see a decent profit though as it's just a simple speaker with small elements)

 

Data needs to be 100% reset + refund + payment for time spent fiddling with those issues that google should have fixed in the first place.

I can still send mine back, so I'll do that before the 50 day free return expires. Have a few weeks more and I don't see any improvements.

Boogieman
Community Member

I'll keep the JBL though but disconnect google and use it as a beach speaker as its ipx7 and rechargable (even a cradle) and works on Bluetooth, Google should learn how to make spekers from JBL as many want to have bathroom speakers 🤫 but when google dont allow them to mix in JBL im speaker groups, thats admitting JBL make better speakers functionality wise as it's the only way people MIGHT stop buying JBL and buy only google products 😌

 

First lure customer in to Google ecosystem.

Then make only "pure" Google work

And suddenly Google is like Apple ecosystem and customers have been locked in there with old purchases.

JaylanPHNX
Community Member

Speaker groups were working great for me, though after adding a lot of smart home devices, I started getting some skipping/stuttering when casting to all my devices. So I got a mesh router (Deco W6000), but that's only made things much worse. Like so many others, I can only cast to speakers that are connected to the same node, which is NOT how it's supposed to work with a mesh network. 

You  should create a seperate vlan and wifi ssid for your IoT devices. There is probably way to much mcast traffic that causes your speaker issues...

yojomapa
Community Member

Same here, very frustrating, this basically takes away your happiness every time you try to use it they way Google told we could use it. This is not functional with this problem.

 

Is there a way to claim a refund even if the return window has closed? I mean google is breaching basic promises here, why shouldn't we get a refund? I bought in the Google Store: 4 Nest Audio, 2 Nest Minis and 2 Nest Hubs, so as many I feel very frustrated and disappointed.

 

Just leaving a comment/rant here so my vote counts in the statistics, if all people raise their voices here we can get a collective solution and fast. This is taking too long to be solved. and I think many of us have had enough of it.

Boogieman
Community Member

To get great audio (base mids and treble), skip neat audio speaker pair.

Get one nest mini + one HK go play (if you can find it). Connect HK to mini via BT menu in home. Connect mini to home as usual.

 

Put mini away from HK as it will drench the mini mic when playing at max, not even screaming helps as its A LO T louder than any Google option and BASE..... LIGHTYEARS AHEAD. My bathroom about 6m2 feels like its filled with a sub and hifi speakers, INSANE. talking works up to 75% then you nees to scream for mini.to hear you but 75% is plenty loud 🙂

ChanceBacca
Community Member

When is the class action suit? I put multiple devices all over my home when this worked,now at least 5 of them are paperweights cause this is the only thing I bought them for. It's been about 5 years since they worked properly.

This is insane. The usual google policy of caring least about it's most loyal customers.

NikolaiM
Community Member

What I can't figure out is why it's only FUBAR for some, and working perfectly for others, who aren't likely a part of this thread. I mean, Google had sold MILLIONS of speakers so if this was an issue for everyone, I feel like we'd hear more about it. So the v question is, what's the differentiating factor? I think it must be router/network related. 

A few things I believe as i cant find any success in this thread not googling

1. Not everyone use groups

2. Not everyone use THIS forums (or any forum) or even find this thread

3. Many buyers will probably just never buy again, some return, some thinks it's ok to be able to ask about weather & news on one mini LOL

4. Some us Google speakers v1 that show less issues than new version. Example renaming devices or groups with LATEST app version. This worked on OLD google v1 devices but not NEW Nest v2 (have to rollback google home to rename :-S)

koczadly
Community Member

I've also had issues where a speaker group of 2 speakers is unavailable/not working, yet if I try a different group including those same 2 speakers everything works fine. Very weird behaviour.

Csmand
Community Member

I am having the exact same issue.  Is there a solution yet?

OmaCoder
Community Member

No. And google is unresponsive.
After you encounter an issue, you can do the following steps:

  1. "Hey Google, Send Feedback"
  2. (wait for speaker to acknowledge you and ask for your feedback), and then say exactly:
  3. "GHT3 Issues with speaker group"

Ipsio
Community Member

I used to love playing music on my home group so I'd have the music playing throughout the house. Now it's just a pain in the ass. Home group now only plays on my TV with Chromecast instead of everything. And 90% of the time I try to cast something my pixel 6 just searches for casting devices forever until I reset my router, my phone, and the Chromecast sometimes in that order sometimes just one or two it's so odd and annoying. My mom asked me the other day "what are those smart speakers you have? I want to get some." I said "honestly look into Alexa, the Google speakers suck and Google assistant is dumb as hell" shame. I have all Google products even the laptop. I use Google workspace for my business and swapping between personal and business profiles is really nice. But now I'm just being let down over and over. On my second pixel 6 as well as the first one bugged out and they didn't know what to do to fix it so they sent me another one. Same story with my pixel 5 and pixel 3 lmao. I think it's time I just jumped ship. Good luck everyone hope your speaker groups don't cause you too much stress. 

CameronS
Community Member

WTF is Google still advertising that customers can "Use the Google Home app to pair two speakers in the same room for stereo or different rooms to fill your whole home with sound."  They just sent me an advertising email making this claim and still claim it on this Web page. What a bunch of BS! 

Two nest audio in stereo actually works (and only those)...BUT, sound isn't very room filling 😄 Base is sub par for sure

Because unless you have a mesh wifi system or some other weird network issues, this works just fine. I replaced my mesh with a single router and I'm back to casting to all five speakers in my house. 

Uh, 'fraid not, says dozens of posts in this thread and hundreds across Reddit and the web.  But I'm glad it works for you.

Not true. I have no mesh. A single Aruba router and it still doesn't work at all. I've reinitialized and reset everything multiple times. I've got six Google Nest devices and everything works fine until around the end of last year. Then it all went to crap and it's never worked since. I didn't make a single change to my network between when it was working and now isn't working. The only difference is Google made an update to their devices.

LandonC
Community Member

I am having all of these issues, no amount of resetting, updating, uninstalling/reinstalling the app on my phone seems to make any difference now. I used to be able to just delete the group, restart and then recreate the same group and it would fix it for a couple weeks or so but that no longer seems to be working, I'm quite irritated with this.

tswielder
Community Member

I wish I had found this info sooner. My group started malfunctioning a few months ago, and I couldn't tell what was causing it. Reading up info on this forum helped me understand why this started happening. I didn't even move speakers or change anything. It started out of blue. This morning, I noticed that my groups were gone from Google Home app (not shown anymore for some reason). I unplugged and replugged all my speakers like someone mentioned, but that didn't fix anything. My groups are still missing. When I select to create groups, my Google Home shows "No device found on this Wi-Fi network" even though my speakers are shown/listed in the app and are working fine. Group function seems to be extremely messed up now. I wonder if there will be a class action lawsuit.

Many people all over the world suffer from the same issue caused by the flaws in the Google simultaneous streaming facilities in (cloud and end-point) software. The trouble started way before the court decision. Check the Sonos / Google battle on speaker groups.

Google finally needed to remove features (but failed to inform us respectfully):

  • The ability to simultaneously control the volume of multiple speakers with a single command
  • The ability to adjust speaker group volume in the Google Home mobile app using your phone's physical volume controls

Since about two months adding another speaker in an active audio stream, using the HOME app, to a device in another room, is working again (in the Netherlands, it worked intermittent in the months before). The group volume slide however is still missing. I did not test the Grouping function (with one name for an entire group), only adding devices on the fly during a streaming session.

serum
Community Member

Today my Harman Kardon Citation MKII's FINALLY received the chromecast update. I had a support case with Google over this, and they claimed that any 3rd party speaker needs to at least needs to be on cast version 1.52.272222. It's due to the fact that Google was too arrogant to suddenly change the SDK completely so even a large player like Harman Kardon (who owns JBL) wasn't aware of this situation. 

 

And please. Just pay the royalties to Sonos so that the group volume can be changed in a way that makes sense to the customers. It's not that you have to look out for the last penny.. Cheeky!!!!!!!!!!

SimonTemprell
Community Member

I have the same problems.  It is so frustrating!  Everything works fine and then, suddenly, it goes haywire and I spend hours re-booting everything and tryng to figure out why the app refuses to work.  No speaker groups, rooms multiplying, speakers mysteriously disappearing.  Nothing makes me more angry than a day spent trying to fix my Google speakers!!!

 

Boogieman
Community Member

I downloaded an old APK V 2.32.15 due to a tip here somewhere. Haven't had any issues since.

Though im only using Nest 2 versions. They do not work properly on latest app version but google v1 does apparently LMAO.

GOOGLE really need to get their **bleep** together. This is truly horrible customer support (lack thereof) as its been an issue more than a year since around the version where they were to cheap to pay Sonos for the speaker groups patent. 

But they have no problems charginf users crazy sums lf money for some fake sleep tracking LOL.

I do not like Apple at all, but at this stage im getting second thoughts. Luckily theres other ecosystems lile Xiaomi as well that i chose long ago, just wanted to test Google as they should be best 🙂 and Samsung (too small support on stuff though)

Also dont forget to set to "do not auto update" in play store.

Otherwise issue will come back next "google bug fix" (that probably makes things even worse lol)

treeder6
Community Member

This is such bull**bleep**. I bought these for all the rooms in my house and loved it. It used to work perfectly. There should definitely be some sort of compensation or money back because these don't work as seamless anymore. I will try deleting and re-adding all my devices, but I doubt it will work. It's such a bummer because this was the only affordable option for whole house audio. Which is the only reason I bought them. 

NikolaiM
Community Member

I honestly don't understand why there haven't been any articles about this issue. Everyone I know with multiple google speakers says groups are broken

RiverCityGuy
Community Member

I have 5 speakers and a hub. I am not able to stream music to all devices by voice command, but I can enable the quiet speakers using Google Home once I have 1 speaker working. I am thinking Google's database for these devices is corrupted. 

I am currently able (not sure how long it will last) able to get my Nest Max (with screen) to play the radio and then using the touch screen able to get another one or two speakers to stream the radio too. (I have 3 google devices downstairs so that’s all I need to be working at the same time at most) However, if I use voice command to do the same thing I get the sorry something went wrong message. I’ve also noticed that if I’ve only had one speaker streaming the radio for example and then want to switch to Spotify and have two speakers working I have to say google stop before I give the Spotify command. If I miss out the step saying stop, I cannot change which speakers the sound is coming out of even manually by touching the screen. 

NikolaiM
Community Member

I moved recently and just got around to setting up a bunch of Google speakers that previously had issues in my old place. Deleted my old home and started with as new Eero mesh router. Plugged in a hub screen and a home and grouped them, all good. Added a mini, all good. Added another mini, all good. Added a nest audio, all good! Added another nest audio... NOPE. Wouldn't play in the group. I'm over this BS. I'm selling all of it and going Sonos. 

Boogieman
Community Member

Im using google home 2.32.1.5 (since latest version doesn't work "at all" with the nest v.2).

Im running

Bathroom: Nest Mini as google listening device with HK go&play paired over BT as main speaker. This works fine to control, even buttons on HK works to pause play skip change volume even if its stone age (no WiFi or google support) and just acts as a "slave" to the mini.

Living room: Samsung biggest 750 Atmos sound bar system.

Chromecast in TV since paring LG to google Home simply don't work even if changing country to UK or other country that "allows google home" (LOL Why not allowed in Sweden? Silly). Tv.or.chromecast not included in any group as i heard issues when chromescast is in a group.

Kitchen: Nest display+ JBL speaker (came in a google package box so for sure google certified even has the symbol).

Made a speaker group "All" with all speakers except chromecast and Tv.

If i tell google to play music x on "all" it replies that it will, but it does NOT, only on last used speaker.

In home app the group is also not active.

If i instead click "All" in home app, it plays on all speakers....So for sure somethimg ia iffy between voice commands and Home app/server. 

What? No freggin idea but Google have homework to do if they want to get new customers. Have many friends asking if they should get gooogle and for now I say "Not unless you work as a technician at google and like to spend a lot of time fiddling with workarounds that might or might mot work"

Bedroom 2 nest displays 

 

Boogieman
Community Member

Adjusting delay on the above HK Go & Play vs the other speakers (that play in synch) is impossible. Seems like the delay adjustment doesn't work or doesn't work correct when speaker is paired over BT to a mini. Google should add a function to make this easier as well for example loop a sound saying 1,2,3 so you have something easy to adjust by or EVEN BETTER why not use built in mics and have speakers listen for audio on one speaker at a time if you for example set up one speaker central that hears all speakers (temporary to adjust ie move a mini into hallway) then propose a timing for each speaker and allow test listen + sliders with +/- for small adjustments (not only drag bars like now)

Boogieman
Community Member

About delay, I realize that i made it all wrong and google setting is really confusing.

The display says for example

Boombox - 5ms

But it is actually not MINUS 5ms, you are ADDING a delay.

So if i have one speaker out.of synch by a delay due to BT, you need to adjust ALL THE OTHERS by delaying them to the "same delay".

This is REALLY not clear especially as there is a minus which made me believe google adjusted this in the backgrouns by actually delaying all other speakers. Thinking about it of course this would never work as you would need same delay on all speakers but one.

 

So now i retried and delayed all other speakers with the same delay about 75ms and now the echo is VERY small. (I first compared one speaker next to the bt speaker and when value found added to the rest)

 

Also i saw that there is a +/- on top of drag bar so i remembered wrong in last post or maybe from other version of app.

Boogieman
Community Member

Getting everything in synch will be a process.

1. Volume level. When playing on group you need to adjust the separate speakers one by ine individually untill you have a "similar level" of volume (impossible on small vs big speakers but at least for the big ones like soundbar+ hk go play + jbl speaker)

2. I notice now that the google jbl doesn't really synch with nests, so for sure need to adjust everything separately (lowering volume on non involved speakers in group) one by one. 

But it will be worth it because:

Echo disappear allmost entirely

BASS gets A LOT better as all elements push and pull att the same time. Having base elements out of synch actually lowers the base, so synch is key for a solid base.

Now i juat need to find a good tune to wynch with. Found a beep + 1 2 3 on Spotify but was pretty long between the tests so any tip is welcome 🙂