Google home not playing the right playlist in routines

[Jess5]

I am having an issue with the Google home routine which was working last night.  routine I put in under : What music would you like to play? 

Play ‘Sleep lofi’ for 40 minutes. 

This action has been playing fine until tonight when it started to play another playlist called ‘“lofi beat hip hop community, lofi beat, lofi chillhop’ which is highly annoying because even using the quotation marks, the routine doesn’t even work properly now and just playing random playlists. It seems like the Google home is not reading the instructions properly and not producing the correct result. 

How is Google unable to have their products read simple instructions? This problem was resolved a few months ago and has popped again. Why is this happening again and again?  

Why do every upgrade seem to make Google routines a bad client experience? 

Please resolve!

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

If this is a playlist of your compilation I include my name and with a relative long playlist title with spelling mistakes to make it unique from other playlists.

Now, if you're using Spotify and a Nest Hub or Nest Hub Max there's a way to mute ithe Spotify Introduction before the music plays ..

https://youtube.com/shorts/Syy1p71zVOU?feature=share

[Kadven]

Agreed that this appears to have just started in the last 24 hours. It would seem that it is no longer possible to play a playlist using voice commands or even within a routine. E.g specifying something like 'Play my XYZ playlist in spotify' where XYZ is a personal playlist in spotify no longer works correctly. As you say it will just pick up a slightly similarly named piece of music.

In the past when this has occasionally happened it seemed to be down to a record track appearing within the application (Spotify in my case) with a name very closely resembling the playlist name. In the past I've got round this problem be renaming my playlist to something different but trying this today has failed miserably, In every case it just finds another track, among the millions of other that very slightly resembles the playlist name.

Whether this is down to the google assistant or possibly even the audio application of Spotify I do not know.

If anyone has any suggestions they would be much appreciated. Most annoying to have to use a phone etc. to now play a specific playlist.

[Kadven]

Hi @SmartHomeH-TAGS 

This is along similar lines to what I used to do when I had a playlist title that was similar to another record track but it no longer seems to be working. Even tried giving a playlist a total gibberish name that would never clash with another track and now it just responds that it cannot find that title so cannot play it. I suspect that for some reason the system is no longer actually checking for playlist names. Be interesting, therefore, if you have tried this out very recently to see if your own playlists can still be found.

[Kadven]

Hi @Jess5 

Seems to be working again. Interestingly I have 2 nest speakers set up as a pair and only of them has just had a software update. May just be coincidence. Be aware though that it is extremely picky regarding playlist names so sometimes it is necessary to find a name that cannot be thought to be something else.

[marcolopes]

No!

I have playlist called MY DISCOVER WEEKLY and a Spotify automatic playlist called DISCOVER WEEKLY and they played correctly!!!

Now Spotify plays the DISCOVER song or DISCOVER xxx LP!!

This was fixed, then was not, then fixed again, then not... and users suffer over the months and YEARS!!

[Jess5]

Hi the issue has not resolved. 
it still keeps playing the wrong play list, I even changed it to Play “Laffey” for 40 minutes (an Lofi artist) and it just plays a lofi mix playlist and not this specific artist. So I don’t know how Google nest is reading the commands. 

Also the playlist is not a personal one it’s a curated playlist from a music label. 

So please resolve google!! 

[zyberwoof]

This just started happening for an existing, previously working routine this week. The routine played a personal Spotify playlist. I even renamed the playlist to make the name longer and more unique, but that didn't help.

[Kadven]

Hi there.

There is no doubt that trying to get the system to play personal playlists on Spotify has recently become a bit of a nightmare. I had a regular playlist that I used to initiate that I called 'orange chess green' that I called from a routine. This worked for quite a while until the last few days when it started playing something completely different. I renamed the playlist 2 or 3 times to different names, even gibberish but they didn't work. Finally found a one word name that did work.

Also found that just purposely miss spelling a name no longer seems to work. It has therefore become very difficult to initiate a playlist using voice commands. It is possible but it  has become a right pain to find names that work. Additionally even if you find a name that works there is no way to ensure that in a few months a track will not appear of Spotify with a name similar to the word you are using which will then take over again. It would help massively assuming you use the phrase 'play my XYZ playlist' it would first check your personal playlists before anything else. Then we wouldn't get this problem

Also using a long phrase for a name doesn't work any better since it now only seems to check the first couple of words for a general match

Interestingly if I ask google what playlists I have on Spotify it replies that I don't have any which is incorrect.

[marcolopes]

It's related to this recurring problem, being reintroduced by Google systematically! https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Google-Assistant-not-playing-ROUTINES-a...

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

Maybe it's a regional problem with Google. I live in Australia and I just tested my Spotify playlist routine and it worked perfectly on my Nest Hub Max.

Maybe if you all share you country and state there might be some server commonality to the issue you are all having 

[Kadven]

Hi @SmartHomeH-TAGS 

That's a possibility. It may also be related to the Spotify region as well since I understand that Spotify content also varies by region as well.

As I mentioned I managed to find a one word name for my playlist named in my routine that works for the time being, although it did take a lot of trial and error to find an unused name, in the UK by the way where I am. I  fully expect that once another playlist is created with a similar name to the word I am using or just a record track with a similar name appears in Spotify then once again it will fail. Just wish it would check my own playlists first and default to those before anything else.

[marcolopes]

It's a possibility, because the last time this problem was fixed, it wasn't fixed for everyone... you can see that users still complaining on the Spotify thread. 

[Jess5]

I’m in Australia as well and still having issues

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

@Jess5 I actually tried to use a routine to play Spotify playlists on Google Mini and they didn't respond correctly. 

Do you use a Mini or Nest Hub/Nest Hub Max?

The automation used in the link I shared in a previous comment still works for me on the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max I own.

By the way my language is set to English (United States)

[Kadven]

Out of interest my routine that I tend to use for initiating playlists is as follows. I only use a couple of Nest audio speakers by the way that are set up as a stereo pair.

Using the Google Home App I first create a personal automation.

Obviously you can call the routine anything you like.

1. Add a Starter of the type 'When I say to Google Assistant' and give a one word phrase such as 'Relax'

2. Add an action of the type 'Try adding you own' and enter the phrase 'Play my XYZ playlist on Spotify and shuffle' where obviously XYZ is the name of the playlist.

Then save the automation.

I also tend to include an additional action to adjust the media volume and the choice to include 'shuffle' in the command is also a personal choice.

Then to execute the automation I just say 'OK Google relax' or 'Hey Google relax' and away it goes.

Now the main nightmare though is finding the name to call the playlist that is not used anywhere else or sounds anything like a track or artist already on Spotify. As we have all found this is not easy.

[jpzsports]

Same issue here! Extremely annoying. It's been happening for several weeks now. My Google home automation for bedtime would automatically play a specific playlist for me and it is not working anymore and keep playing a different playlist. What is odd is that when I say the command by voice, it does work. But when I have the exact same command built into the automation, it fails to pick the correct playlist. Google and Spotify need to fix this ASAP!

[marcolopes]

THEY know how to FIX it because they fixed 2 TIMES already over the past year! https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Google-Assistant-not-playing-ROUTINES-a...

The thing is they keep REINTRODUCING the problem over and over again!

Seems there is a saboteur in their teams!!!