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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

Elgasen
Community Member

Hello,

I have the same issue that I can't start casting of music to a speaker group via Google Assistant.

- It was working fine for a year ago.
- I have a mix of different speaker brands (JBL,RIVA and LG) at this speaker group.

- i have a standard router from Asus.

- I have tried to turn of all security settings at this router without any improved result.
- it's alsways working fine if I only cast music to one single speaker via Google Assistant.
- Sometimes  everything is working fine for a couple of hours after a restart of all speakers in the group.
- It's always working fine if i start casting to the speaker group via Spotify or TuneIn app.

Please assist!

rm3
Community Member

There is definitely a problem relating to mesh wifi. I've 2 TP-Link Deco M9 Plus access points and since fitting them I've had *no end* of problems with my Google Home, Google Home Mini and Google Nest Mini devices in addition to the Google Home app failing to see devices and/or control them when it does "see" them.

Today I factory reset everything and that didn't help. I asked a downstairs speaker to play the radio on the "home group" (all speakers) but only the downstairs ones were working. About 10 seconds after I unplugged the upstairs access point from the power, the upstairs speakers sprang to life as they joined the cast group.

This has been reported for a year but silent Google simply don't care, as usual.

CameronS
Community Member

Up until a couple of weeks ago, December ############, I was able to play audio on a couple different combinations of speaker groups. It had been working reliably for a couple of years on a combination of 2 Nest Minis, G1 and G2, 2 Home Hubs, and 1 Nest Audio Speaker.  But on the 17th it all just quit working.  Now I can only play audio on a single device at a time.  I have tried restarting every device in the system and deleting and recreating the speaker groups and nothing works.  I am on a single Aruba router with all devices connected directly to the same WiFi network.

ChuanSE
Community Member

Welcome to the club 😐

This thread keeps getting off topic. I'm pretty sure this is it. Mirroring to groups is broken. I can cast to groups from apps like Play Books, but I can't mirror from the Google Home app. I suspect this is an accidental bug because the breakage is only in this one app. My speaker groups still function.

So, have you tried casting to something like Youtube Music?

Just tried doing that to my Speaker Group, and it chose only one speaker in the group to play on.

CuirBear
Community Member

So, in all that is going on with the Sonos/Google thingy, reports keep talking about this ridiculous "volume across speaker groups" issue. I really don't care about that whatsoever.

What I want is for the reports to say "speaker grouping no longer will work on Google"; why is this not brought up?

MarceloL
Community Member

One tip I would like to give (I found it out by luck) is if you are in the Media screen (Home App > Media), where you see all speakers to select and play music.. if you hit your volumes key there, they will control all selected speakers simultaneously! 🙂 I hope it helps.

Shu
Community Member

I believe I have Google home mini 1 and 2, although I have three in total the speakers don't always work...

I will give a command to play a song on one speaker, then I go into the app, select media and click to have it play on another speaker at the same time.... And nothing. I either get "something went wrong, try again later" or it's marked as if it's playing and nothing comes out. Absolute silence. 

I use to do it all the time, as I like music in lounge and kitchen (one of my kids has autism and sensory processing disorder and likes the music to be the same in each room, using radio can be an issue as they can be slightly out of sync)

This gave me the perfect answer! Solved all my problems!

Until... It didn't.

Anyone know what I can do?

I've already turned off and on again, reset all speakers, cleared from app and started all over again, and still nothing. 

When I've looked online it states "go to media and select speakers you wish to play from"... Except it no longer works.

AB23
Community Member

I had the same issues with group speakers, but now it is solved and everything works.

For me, the problem was the router:

First, in "advanced WIFI settings" - I changed "Channel bandwidth" from "auto" to 40MHz. This worked for a while but the issues with group speakers reemerged after a while. 40MHz was choosen as it was recommended by router producer (ASUS) for improving signal stability.

Next, I went back to "advanced WIFI settings" and changed "Control channel" from "Auto" to "6". (6 was choosen based on below link). Now everything works.

Good luck!

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/179344-how-to-boost-your-wifi-speed-by-choosing-the-right-chan...

Stormenorm
Community Member

Most mesh networks don’t have the possibility change channel, unfortunately. 

Also, found this article https://9to5google.com/2022/01/06/google-speaker-group-volume-changes/

Elgasen
Community Member

I did configuration according to your instruction  and I did a restart of everthing and it was working fine all evening. Unfortunately it was not working this morning. It seems that I still have to restart all speakers every day to get google assistant to cast music to a speaker group.

AB23
Community Member

Did you try one of the other channels sugested in the link (1 or 11)? Maybe a neighbor wifi is interferring?

Elgasen
Community Member

I tried channel 1, 6 and 11 without any success.
If I restart everything it is working fine for a couple of hours.
I didn't have this issue for a couple of month ago.
I have a standard Asus router.

Ubiquist
Community Member

Manually selecting channels - this worked!!! I can't believe it. Was searching for hours. Thank you!

Jimbo1982
Community Member

Hi,

I relocated a few of my devices to my Parents' for Christmas to try and win them over to the concept and due to covid am awaiting the return of some of my devices so I can recreate the speaker groups I had before and problem solve as above - thanks everyone for your input so far.

Ubiquist
Community Member

Speaker groups are not accessible via voice commands. As before, the speaker even asks "should I play music on [nameofspeakergroup]?" When answering yes it says "I encountered a problem. Please try again once you are ready." Once I am ready? Wait a minute... So I can start music by voice command on one speaker only, then need to go into the app and select the group. And it's playing. WTF... I thought it was a youtube music issue first. But same behavior when selecting spotify as default. Please help! 

[Solution]: Manually selecting channels (router) did the trick. Thank you AB23

SusieQt
Community Member

I too have been having weird and wonderful experiences with small speaker groups (containing 2 or 3 google products) I call one group “kitchen” and the other “downstairs”. The good morning routine ends up with the kitchen speaker group playing the radio. It correctly displays on the Nest Hub Max as playing on Kitchen but there is only sound coming out of the google speaker across the room. Touching the screen to see what the volume settings are clearly shows that the Nest Hub Max is not connected. I cagoule say stop and then reissue the command to play the radio on “kitchen” and it’d be ok. Today was weird … it tells me it can either play on “kitchen, kitchen or kitchen” and asks me which I want. Obviously I reply “kitchen” and it says something went wrong. 
I have read through this thread and feel I must add that we have a mesh type range extender thingy system in the house. I’m going to try to delete the groups and start again. 

oldsol
Community Member

I have 3 Google home minis and cannot get groups to work properly after trying all troubleshooting steps I have found online? I understand the volume feature no longer being available but to also take away ability to play speaker groups is pathetic. 

Hanky
Community Member

Interested to know how people would feel about launching a class action against google for this? There’s been precedent with tech companies being found guilty of deliberately interfering/reducing a devices ability to perform as it was intended. 

blrhead
Community Member

Update: 
Like all of you, all of my google home speakers (Google Home Hub, Google Home, and Google Home Mini) were all working fine then all of a sudden, they stopped working as a group. I was using my T-Mobile Home Internet Router which is made by Nokia and just stopped casting all audio as a group. Only one speaker would play when selecting the group whether it was Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube Music. I had a Google Nest wifi router that I put away when I switched to T-Mo Home Internet, so I brought it out and set up my wifi network again, this time all of my devices were playing music as a group. It casts all music from all sources to the entire group with no issues. 
I set up the t-mo router just to see if it was a setting, but this time the audio was not casting to a group, only to one speaker at a time, but it worked fine with the Google Nest router. 
I already had the router so I didn't mind using that instead of the T-Mo, but I would recommend people to get that router anyway if you have a google setup at home. It works well with the Google Home App and does the job. 
It is a mesh router so it works fairly well in larger homes. 
That is what I would do, just replace your router with the Nest one. 

eeker22
Community Member

WOW!   I had almost cashed in the chips on this one...then hit your post.  I have a T-mo Home Internet 5G box.  I had a couple of old ASUS routers hooked up to it trying to expand the range a bit.  It worked well with Google, but I determined I didn't really need the extra range so unplugged one, then the other.  I got busy and didn't pay much attention to how the setup was working with just the T-Mo box.  Seemed ok...but started noticing the quirks with speaker groups.   Tested and found it was essentially not working.  Had no idea that the ASUS was making Google Home groups work!!  Plugged one back in and viola...problem fixed.   My rath has been relocated from Google to T-Mobile.   😉   Perhaps they are both to blame.  Not sure.  Thanks a TON for the post about T-Mobile Home Internet.   Saved my bacon.

SuperRay
Community Member

It is Google after all. We should just get use to It.

SusieQt
Community Member

Sad but true. Can’t help thinking that it’s all got too big and Google can’t cope any more. Probably lots of IT sticking plasters applied as more functionality added and to cope with new operating platform versions and now it’s just a mess that they probably ideally need to scrap and start again but of course they can’t. 😢

HariHari
Community Member

how to make google speakers group work without going online, only on local network?

 

SusieQt
Community Member

Just for the purpose of balance I felt it only right to post that my speaker group issue seems to have been at least partially resolved without me doing anything.  It’s stopped asking me if I want to play the radio on “kitchen, kitchen or kitchen” (the name of my speaker group repeated). 

S_Steve
Community Member

Same problem here. 3 Nest Audios and 2 Minis. Sometimes all will play, but at other times one, maybe two will play from the group. The only solution I have found is to restart my router so all devices and re-connect. 

CuirBear
Community Member

The Air Music app works very well for me so far. If you've tried it, you will see that it basically casts the same source to multiple speakers simultaneously, bypassing any grouping. I wonder why Google has not looked at this option, or a variation thereof.

Also, it treats speaker pairs as one speaker, so that is a good thing.

MarceloL
Community Member

Is anyone with AC2200 having issues? I have a mesh of 4 of the AC1200 and I wonder if they are not being able to process all the data and split through the speakers. AC2200 has a better processor, then o thought on downsizing from 4xAC1200 to 2xAC2200.. but that is a $320 cost.

 

So, anyone with a mesh of AC2200 (2 routers, no AC1200 points) having issues?

Jdurand
Community Member

Hi everyone, ok here is a workaround for MY issue where when I try to cast music to a speaker group only 1 or a select few play music.  I have a wifi 6 mesh network (Orbi).  To get the music to be casted to all speakers in the group: first cast to only 1 speaker and not a group. pick a non-Google speaker if you have one otherwise pick any speaker.  Once the music starts being cast to that speaker then open the Google Home app.  Click on the Media button on top.  It should then show you the song currently being cast and the speaker it is being casted to.  It should also list your whole list of speakers and your speaker groups.  Scroll down in the list until  you find your speaker group you want to cast to and then click the radio button for the group.  The wheel will spin for a bit and then all the speakers of the group will be selected.  I found that in some cases it pauses the music so you might have to click the play button in Google Home to resume casting.  If for any reason some speakers are not playing simply power cycle those speakers and they should start playing the  music after.  You simply can not cast directly from you music app to a speaker group so you have to start the casting to only 1 speaker and then using Google Home app add the speaker group to the casting to devices.

loki112000
Community Member

I'm pretty disappointed, I bought a Nest Wifi network which works great and used to be able to play music across all my speakers including my older Google Home and Google Mini speakers. 

But now, I can't even add my wifi points (which have speakers built in) onto the network. I also have odd behaviour like playing news, if I ask it to repeat the news it will just say continuing news headlines, and then play nothing. 

It really isn't fair that we have paid for a product that does not function as advertised anymore. 

ApexTech
Community Member

Your audio group chromecast isn’t working because it prefers the 2.4 g on your modem. Try switching off your auto 2.4/5 g on your modem and choose manually for individual devices. That will solve all your problems.  Hope this helps !! 

Dude, read the thread. That's not it, it may be a fix for some specific issues, but not for most in this massive thread 

canuckistanian
Community Member

I've been casting music for 11 years now and have a house full of google devices (for music now, as the firetv dongles won imo the video battle) Audios, minis, nest muni's and hub (18 devices). I've been using access points the last 8 years or so and have had periods of frustration with groups. I recently replaced my old AP's with TpLink EAP620HD V2 and am managing them with their Omada controller software. Music would work for a day or even hours or so across my groups, then speakers would start dropping off. I'd cast with youtube music, or verbally to the entire group, and maybe 1/5th or a single speaker in the group would play, if at all. Casting directly to one device seems to work. Today, I'd ask a nest mini, or nest hub to stop playback on a chromecast audio a room over. Nothing - well - it'd dim the volume, I could ask what that device is playing, all correct, but no amount of yelling and threating the mini would make it stop. Once the devices reach this 'unaware' state, the casting buttons from Chrome or the YouTube music app stall the browser and hang the youtube music app. I've done thurough troubleshooting with my phone/apps, (re-installing, clearing cache, resetting wifi, etc), using a new device completely - and nothing - these google devices seem oblivious to anything related to music and multi-casting. 

It is sad, I am kind of in the same situation as you.. this whole thing is very f****d up. They are probably having to reengineer the whole thing and meanwhile trying to preserve functionalities.. so lots of things are getting lost during this process. The only thing I can assume and I wonder if I am being too nice/hopeful.. and we are paying the price because Google did not do it right 

I've gone on quite a few scavenger hunts lately looking for settings. I just hope that they don't retire Chomecast Audios during this re-jigging. I have 8 and love them, well, love hate. I wish they added aux out to the minis like the Alexas have. 

Hahaha! Agreed! I unfortunately don't have any, but I wish I did 😑..

I might try one day to do it myself.. there are a few YouTube videos showing that that is possible. My only intention would be to connect it to a subwoofer, since Google has none 

I put a;; these devices on a dedicated SSID last week. I just disabled the SSID on all but my most-central AP and the Google home app on my phone is seeing my devices. 

Now I'm playing angry music.

Sorry to ask cos I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.

but does that mean you only put one access point on your ssid and now u can cast to groups?

I have 2 AP's with three SSID's. One SSID is a 2.4 only for light switches and such. During my testing, I moved all the chromecastable devices to a new, 'audio'  SSID that was on both AP's. Their performance deteriorated quickly. Today,  I disabled the audio SSID on all but one router, and all my devices are OK for now. I'm still holding my breath, I've been fighting these things and their **bleep**ty, undocumented nuances for a decade.