Google Speaker Groups not working

[MsLevis]

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!!!  

[canuckistanian]

Within 2 days, it was back to one speaker in a group playing. Garbage google. 

[AsteroidS]

screw this! i have 9 speakers in group. when i play music, it stops immediately after seconds. this is crazy!

[canuckistanian]

Even with a single SSID, performance was poor, casting to a few groups worked about 75% of the time. Asking a mini, or hub in the group that is currently playing does nothing except reduce the groups volumes, or it tells me nothing is playing on my [nvidia] shield. 

I can stand in front of the nest hub, and watch the correct words for my request on the screen only to have some moni elsewhere on the same floor of the house respond and get it wrong. Sorry, this is turning onto a general venting.

[canuckistanian]

Yup, within 2 days of thinking all is well with one remedial SSID dedicated for audio devices, I can't cast to any group in my house and have it play on more than one of speaker after much hampster-wheeling. 

Google - making every prior product break bit by bit (pun intended) with garbage development. 

[bedreaded]

I'm having the same issue.  

I've got a two story abode with a bit of square footage so I purchased initially a 4 piece Goofle W-Fi Mesh system that worked fairly well. In this household We were Amazon Echo (11 speakers) for two years before switching to Google because of poor Amazon speaker performance.  We had a lightning strike that blew a few devices in the home and two of the Wi-Fi points, so I replaced them with a Google Nest points.  BIG MISTAKE.  after three months of hell with groups not working, music dropping out, the Sonos lawsuit win, and SLOW-AS-HELL connectivity, I decided to double down and replace all of the Wi-fi with three more Nest points. The Mesh is now strong with great connectivity, but I still have days where one point will suddenly disappear.  Further yet, none of the groups are working, so I have no multi-speaker music working.  I may just reconnect my Amazon Echo speakers and dump Google Nest. 

What a poor experience!

[droidmaster]

Have a similar issue. 

Recently, I got a new Nest Audio and Nest Hub (gen 2) and added to my home. In total, I now have 3 Nest Audios, One Nest Hub (Gen 2) and a Philips TABP405B Soundbar with Google Assistant. Two of these nest audios are a stereo pair.

My earlier group setup worked fine. Ever since I added these two new Nest devices, I am having issues in the group playing setup. If I use cast audio to play on all speakers, the Philips Soundbar doesn't play but reacts to volume control. The other Google speakers work without issues. Similarly, If I make a smaller group, one of the speakers (not necessarily the soundbar) refuses to play.

I have tried resetting my home, all speakers, groups and the issue persists. IMy wifi coverage is good as well. Is there any fix available?

I found a hack that if I play on Soundbar and then gradually add more speakers through the home app then I am able to get all speakers to play at once, but it is too tiresome of a process to do everytime.

Any help with the issue would be appeciated!

[serum]

Same mess here. 3x HK citation one, hub nest max.

Tried different routers, different wifi, reset the crap out of all devices, full reset of the home. It will work when the hub max is not part of the group the misery starts. Sometimes (one of 50 tries or so) it works, all other times only the hub max plays. when the hub max is added during playback it works alongside. (for as long as the stream is active).

group playback is NOT working. 

[SusieQt]

I’ve posted n this stream before and I’m finding that my problem keeps changing slightly in that sometimes the group works normally, other times I’m told that I can play that on kitchen, kitchen or kitchen (the name of my group) and then asks me which so I obviously say “kitchen” and she says ok then says something went wrong she can’t find that device check that device is switched on and connected. When that happens I find I can ask for the music to play on my Google Max (with screen)  without specifying a group and then touch the screen to add other devices. It’s soooo frustrating. What I’ve now decided to do is to bombard google with my verbal feedback and every (well ok most times) time it happens I say “send feedback” … I figured that might at least annoy the developers into doing something more ??? One can live in hope as it seems that’s all we can cling onto 😁

[OmaCoder]

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

[MPBC]

Feedback sent.  Thanks.

[PWB]

I have a speaker group "First Floor" on which I used to play a local radio station. When I first set up the speaker group (about 2 years ago), I could say, "Play WVXY on first floor" and it would work fine. About a year ago, it quit working. What happens now is that Google responds, "Streaming WVXU from NPR on first floor" and then nothing happens. Same thing happens with other radio stations. I've tried all the suggested solutions - rebooting all devices, sync'ing, deleting everything from Google home app and then re-defining (which is a giant PITA given all the switches, lights, etc.). So a feature that used to work fine no longer works. Oh yeah - if I start the Chrome browser on outdated Windows PC, navigate to WVXU.org, start playing WVXU, and then cast the audio to the First Floor speaker group: That works fine. Go figure.

[OmaCoder]

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

[serum]

I just bought a Nest Audio to test, that works fine in all my speaker groups, unlike the nest hub max. Seems that the nest hub max (or perhaps the normal nest hub too) is dominant in the speaker group. The nest hub max and the nest audio play nicely together in a group. The nest audio and the HK citations are also playing fine in a group combined, but the nest hub max and the HK speakers gives the issue that playback is only done on the nest hub max. 

[Jake_Arrow]

I'm having a similar issue too I have 5 nest speakers all round my house working fine in a group but today I added lg sk8 soundbar to my good home and added it to my all speakers group just to find that playing music on all speakers group the soundbar doesn't make a sound 

[droidmaster]

I don't think this issue is coming to Google's notice. Please do tag https://twitter.com/madebygoogle in your issues on twitter. 

I am not sure if this is the best way to surface feedback, but public tweets might get some response at least.

[OmaCoder]

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

[MPBC]

1 google mini + 1 google home device, each speaker is in a separate 'room', both on same - single network in google home app.  When I ask to 'play on house' (default goggle home group) the speaker says "something went wrong, please try again" and won't play on either speaker.  If I cast from chrome to group 'home' it plays on both speakers.  Restarted both speakers; same result. Removed speakers from rooms; same result.  Google is *FAILING* to meet even it's most simple system requirements.

[MPBC]

Update: I found that if I say 'play on house' using the original home mini both speakers will play.  If I say 'play on house' using the newly installed Google home device the 'something went wrong, please try again' message results.

[OmaCoder]

Wow - what a thread I have come across! I started having a lot of these similar issues after I moved. Got a new router but used the same SSID so everything would still work and I didn't write on the back of each hub and speaker what "room" it was assigned.

Ever since rearranging my devices and relabeling their rooms, it's been a complete headache.

Support has given me the runaround. They've been nice and we've had a phone call, but there's a communication gap somewhere.

I finally just responded and asked them to replace all of my devices under warranty.

They responded and asked me to say this to the hub:

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

This also requires that you have debugging enabled under the system settings of each device. They would be enabled by default unless you went in and specifically disabled it.

I wonder if we can get a bunch of people to send that "FEEDBACK" code, if it would help raise the priority?

[MPBC]

I don't see a 'debugging' selection in the speaker settings in Google Home.  Can you be more specific about where this option is?

[OmaCoder]

Google Home \ Speaker settings \ Gear Icon \ General - Recognition & sharing \ Send device usage data and crash reports to Google - should be enabled.

[WantToBelieve]

I see a lot of frustration here so clearly this isn't just my issue. I hope this is of some value to people. 

I have come to believe that my problem with the groups, which I had two set up utilizing six Google devices, was the result of a speaker name or a room name too closely resembling the group name. I made changes and rebooted my phone several times plus each Speaker/Cast once. So far, it's all working properly like it used to. See my method below.

            Rename the room if the name is the same as or close to the group name.

            Rename the speaker that is the same as or close to the group name.

            Check to see that it happened correctly, if not reboot the phone with the Google Home app and check again.

            Delete the group(s).

            Reboot the phone again.

            Reboot all speakers intended for that group and check the speaker and room names once more. (Select Speaker – Settings - … Reboot)

            Create the group name and add the speakers.

            Reboot the phone again.

            Try the group.

Yes I know it's a bit painful but it worked for me. Good luck.

[PWB]

By coincidence, I just switched internet service providers. Ever since I did that, all my issues with casting to a speaker group magically went away. I have no idea whether switching providers is what did the trick for me and I realize it's a completely impractical solution for the rest of you. But you might try rebooting your cable modem (if you have one) and your wireless router. It might also help you determine if network issues are your problem if you temporarily shut down all other devices using your home network to minimize the load on your network and see if that makes casting to speaker groups work any better. Again, these are not practical solutions but they might help identify the problem.

[canuckistanian]

Every time I think I've figured it out (replacing all wifi hardware, new SSID's, 2.4 and/or 5ghz, tweaking wifi protocols, limiting ssid to one wifi station, new groups, rooms, any combination or cache clearing, restarting, re-installing etc). It may work for a few hours to a day and then it all goes down the crapper and a cast to and combo of devices plays on one or two. Hell, I can ask Google what's playing on my chromecast audio in the basement right now - it will tell me the name of the song but no command + device name will stop it from playing right now. 

[NikolaiM]

Ok so who's actually been able to solve the issue and have it remain stable for more than a week or two? Does using the Google nest router work?

[SusieQt]

Not me … that’s for sure. At the moment it’s behaving … sort of … but I haven’t really done anything recently. 

[simonsheppard75]

Hi

We had been having problems with our Google speakers (we have 7 in the house) for the last few months (everything had been fine for a long time). Music would never play correctly, Speaker groups were completely broken, Google Home seemed broken with speakers appearing and disappearing and it was almost impossible to do anything. 

I'd tried everything to try to get things working again but in the end plugging our router into the Master Socket in the house seems to have fixed the issue for some reason. (Previously the router was in one of our bedrooms as this was the most central point in the house) and now everything is working fine again (for now anyway!)

Hopefully thats the end of our problems and I just thought I would mention it just in case my solution helped anyone else.

Cheers Simon

[Elgasen]

After latest update of the Google home app it seems to be ok for me. I’m using JBL, LG and RIVA speakers.

[saschko]

After latest updade of the Google home app it seems to be worse than before for me. It is not possible to build a group of two JBL playlists. Either one JBL speaker is available or the other. Tried resetting the speakers, resetting my wifi, disabled 2,4 wifi for a while, disabled 5 Ghz wifi for a while, deleted groups and built new groups. It ist a mess. And I did this for uncountable hours in the last 6 months. 

I guess I will switch to another system. I really enjoyed chromecast for more than 5 years. But  it is impossible to use for more than 6 months now. 
JBL say, they can't do anything. Google has to solve this. Google says, they can't do anything. JBL has to solve it. And I can still not listen to my music. Meanwhile JBL offered a 20% discount to for shop. To apologize. However: I do not want another speaker that does not work in multiroom settings.

[droidmaster]

Since the latest Update, groups have been working fine for me as well. Have a combination of Nest Audios, Nest Hub and Philips GA enabled Soundbar.

[65tang]

I believe this has something to do with the mesh and broadcasts.  I just disabled smart connect thinking because the router is steering devices it may be blocking them too.  All speakers showed up....(Wireless Smart Connect. OFF). try it.

[LaraMadrid512]

Does Google respond on here??? I'm still unable to create groups to listen to music. All started (seemingly) after the Sonos lawsuit. Any work around Google??? If not I would like a refund for my purchases. 

[Boogieman]

Exact same problem with 1 google nest audio + 1 jbl link.

Even worse i can NOT get sound EVER from both speakers. I know stereo pair is only supported on two google speakers of same kind, but GROUP AUDIO.....SHOULD WORK.

COME ON GOOGLE.....

LMFAO, as im writing this SUDDENLY the link started playing as well. Been testing a few hours now LOL

[Boogieman]

But instead VOLUME SLIDER in home disappeared both in group and on individual speakers 😁

[OmaCoder]

Oh my gosh you're right!! I was confused! Thought my eyes were playing tricks on me! 

[OmaCoder]

It's honestly a joke! 

[Boogieman]

Silly but trick to get volume slider nack, pull from "invisible slider" at 0 position and towards hugher volume and it reappears.

BUT this is a peoblem each time you switch between the speakers as if Google home is too slow to switch between speakers. Funny that this happened right after grouped speaker chart disappeared due to another well known brand claimed patent and forced Google to discontinue that feature.

Google has billions but lbviously no skilled programmers...this is a joke. So much bugs after so many years is as bad as any china system that cost 1/5. They better look at services and not only at income from comercials and people spying or china will win tech war...same they won gold reserve war and I'll rather have US as spy than China but at this pace China is winning 

[curious]

@ClausBP 
I'm happy to report that JBL updated their software, and the Link now works in speaker groups with Google-made devices. My minis disconnected from the network when I tried to do the stereo pair thing with them, but I reset them (a pain, but not ridiculous), and they're all working harmoniously again (though I haven't tried the stereo thing again... it's really not that important to me). 

But the bottom line is, things are working more or less as they should now... 3 Nest audio, 5 Nest mini 2nd gen, one small hub/screen thing, and 1 JBL ... 

[ClausBP]

Yes - great! 
I tested today also my JBL Link Portable in groups with Google devices - success!!!
Voice commands also worked after 24 hours 🙂

[Boogieman]

Where to update JBL Firmware? 

Is it auto via Google home or do i need JBL app of some kind? Cant see anything in Home which makes sense as its not Google. 

So must be another app?