Google speaker keeps playing music after I tell it to stop

[Palazzo]

Hi,

I've seen a few threads with the issue that when asking a Google Home device to "Stop" when playing media, it restarts again after a few minutes. There haven't been any posted solutions.

What I discovered when playing "Times Radio" via TuneIn on my home mini was that the "Hey Google, Stop" command only puts the media into a Paused mode rather than cancelling it completely as you would expect.

I discovered this by checking the device status on my Google Home android app.

I tried a few other commands "Cancel", "Stop Playing" etc and all only seem to pause the media.

It then spontaneously seem to restart after 5 minutes or so.

I've been using this device for probably 2 years now without this issue - it just appeared in the last couple of weeks, so I assume it's a bug in a recent software update.

Can someone confirm the bug and when it will be fixed, or, if it's a new "feature", what commands can be used to completely stop the media playing?

[Zaytas]

I just want to add that I'm having the exact same problem with TuneIn.  It happens on my devices (Google home, Google Home Mini, Nest Hub).  The station always restart playing with a TuneIn ad first then continues to play the station.  

[gbf]

Thank you for confirming my suspicions about the TuneIn ad restarting the station playing after turning the device off. I am never around when it restarts, so I don't know what is playing when it does. I just know that this self-starting crap began after TuneIn started injecting ads in the middle of broadcasts.

[gbf]

TuneIn is causing me to tune out. 

[ynieves1]

it just start playing music and i feel people are connected to it i need help can't anybody hacked us ?

[Lindey]

TuneIn is a huge turn off. When you just want to listen to listener-supported radio and you get ads profiting off of non-profit content, and then those ads prevent your speaker from working correctly. Only with TuneIn! I can turn off Spotify on command, but TuneIn turns itself back on to give me more ads on non-profit content and to wake up my kid after I've headed to bed. As gbf said, TuneIn will definitely cause me to tune out. Can't figure out how to not use it for radio on my Google speaker since it's your default, so I'll have to stop using my Google home as well. We've had a Google home for years and really liked it, but for radio it's now an unpleasant experience thanks to TuneIn ads. Such a shame.

[gbf]

Lindey, there are radio stations you can play on Google Home that don't use TuneIn. One radio service that Google Home also uses is Audacy. I've been listening to a station called 101 The Mountain that is totally commercial-free. I've listened to it for over 3 weeks without Google Home turning back on after I shut it off. Although it's called 101 The Mountain, I have to tell Google Home, "Hey Google, play Froggy 101". Froggy 101 is a local over the air station that plays country music, but for some reason, when given the above command, Google Home plays 101 The Mountain which is a really great classic rock station. The only problem with it is that sometimes Google Home has a problem playing it. If there is a particular TuneIn station that you really like, you can still tell Google Home to play it and then when you are finished listening, you can tell it to play "Froggy 101". After that starts playing, you can just shut it off and neither station starts playing again. 

[gbf]

After a week and a half, that seems to be a good workaround but I am holding off giving it my full endorsement until 2 weeks have passed and Google Home doesn't come back on.

[Lindey]

Thanks for the suggestion! Our household listens to CKUA out of Alberta all the time. I can listen to their stream on my phone or computer without needing any help from TuneIn, but I cannot for the life of me figure out a command to get Google to play it without the middle man. The zombie turning itself on again is one issue, but the ad insertion is also just bad. No way that money is going to CKUA and it randomly interrupts the music. Sigh. But again, thanks for the suggestion!

[gbf]

Yeah I think each station is tied to a particular streaming service on Google. CKUA tied to TuneIN, 105 The River (the station I want to hear) is tied to TuneIn, 101 The Mountain is tied to Audacy, etc.

[GoinNutz]

Can someone tell me if this issue has been solved? I'm going crazy over here as it was only one mini now its all minis and still wont stop playing after i command "stop" or "off" it just plays after a few minutes again. 

[gbf]

Not solved. The only way I've found that stops it is to play the TuneIn station you want to hear and after you shut it off, tell Google to play something else on another service like Pandora or an Audacy station. Once it starts playing, you can shut it off and the TuneIn station won't turn on again on its own. The Audacy station I mentioned previously, Froggy 101, won't play for me anymore but even though it won't play, just asking Google to play it stops the other TuneIn station from playing on its own.

[Attilio]

Unfortunately not solved. 

[chase84]

This really needs a resolution. its been ongoing since October and Google has been of little assistance in resolving the issue despite video's being provided and multiple people reporting it. 

[ToasterBoy]

Yes, this is still a daily annoyance! If I didn’t have a significant financial investment in the equipment I would have ditched Google Home a few months ago. As it stands I can’t recommend Google devices to anyone. 

[gbf]

Find an Audacity radio station that you like and use that instead. TuneIn will get the picture once nobody is listening to their stations anymore. I've found that there are a lot of Audacity stations available that don't cause this annoying problem.

[Palazzo]

As the original poster last October, I should note that this behaviour has stopped on my Google Mini since about 2 months ago. It still goes to "Paused" when I say "Hey Google, Stop" but after about 20 minutes it does not restart on it's own and the  paused state changes to properly stopped.

My thinking is still that it's something to do with the specific device or account that maybe has a problem buffering Tunein for a relatively short period while paused, so it is eventually forced to continue playing. I can't find out what the default Google/Tunein Pause limit is or why mine should have stopped having the issue.

[gbf]

Yeah, my Google Home is still doing it. The only way I've been able to stop it is to tell it to play an Audacy station after I'm finished listening to the TuneIn station. Then, I can just tap the top of the Google Home and it shuts off the Audacy station. Neither station comes back on. Apparently, telling the device to play a non-TuneIn station breaks the cycle.

[gbf]

Better yet, now when I'm finished listening to the TuneIn station, I tell it, "Hey Google, play Froggy 101". It now tells me that's not available right now, try again later. Then it shuts off everything and I don't have to turn it off myself.

[RockGlide]

At this point I'm pretty confident that Google doesn't care if this is an issue or not. Their attitude is to use YouTube Music or any one of their other pay services where they might actually lose money. They have a history of releasing products and then not fully supporting them. Look at the mess that they did with Nest products.

TuneIn doesn't care either which in itself is a shame because now I make every effort to tell whoever will listen that they shouldn't use that platform.

[gbf]

Yep, after this amount of time and it's not fixed, they don't care. As soon as I hear one of their commercials interrupting the regular programming, I switch Google Home to an Audacy station.

[dampne14]

100% agree, but I still have some sliver of hope this will get fixed. Maybe one of the Community Specialists wants to chime in here and prove that we're wrong about Google not caring about this?

@Muddi @Dan_A @Juni @Princesss 

[GoinNutz]

The more we call them out on social media the more bad publicity and they maybe just maybe might fix the issue.  

[dampne14]

I wonder if we all start reporting the issue via the device itself whether that might help escalate the issue? These are the steps the support team gave me to report it.

• Open the Google Home app.
• Tap your Google Home > Settings > Recognition and sharing. Turn On send data usage and crash reports.
• Command your Google Home: "Hey Google, send feedback. GHT3 Device started by itself, playing advertisements".

[gbf]

My Home app doesn't have Recognition and sharing, but when I go to Settings and click on the 3 vertical dots in the upper right-hand portion of the screen, there is an option for Feedback. I submitted the issue that way.

[gbf]

I also sent verbal feedback through my Google Home similarly to the way you suggested. Thanks for the tip. Maybe it will do some good.

[RockGlide]

Doesn't it figure that as soon as we start reporting the issue en masse to Google, they go and break the whole thing.  Now none of the Google speakers that I own can find a radio station to play. Assistant Radio Disruption - Google Assistant Community

ARGH!

[gbf]

I am still able to play a bunch of stations.

[RockGlide]

Well it looks like they fixed the problem with playing any radio stations and (while I may be a bit premature), my testing seems to show that perhaps they have also fixed the TuneIn continuing to play 15 minutes after being to stop.

Fingers crossed 🤞

[dampne14]

Tested today and issue is still occurring for me 😕

[RockGlide]

Okay so I guess it was a bit premature. Problem still persists. So much for trusting Google to fix something

[gbf]

I will start testing and let you know.

[gbf]

It hasn't happened for me in 2 days, but I have seen it go for a week before it starts happening again.