Having trouble with Speaker groups? Read this first

[kelanfromgoogle]

Hi everyone, 

Thank you for continuing to notify us of the reliability issues you’re facing with your Speaker groups. I escalated these issues internally and the team is actively investigating a resolution. If you’re able, all feedback is appreciated! Please keep it coming by saying “OK Google, Send Feedback." Providing details, such as mentioning that the issue is with the "speaker group," is especially helpful.  As always, we appreciate your feedback and are working hard to alleviate the issues. 

Thank you for the patience,
Kelan

[kelanfromgoogle · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

Thank you for your continued patience while our team has been working to address the issues with Speaker group functionality. I want to give you all an update and confirm that a fix was identified which will address a specific problem where some devices, when acting as the group leader, cause an issue with audio not playing on other speakers that are part of the same group. However, you may experience that the main (or leader) device will still play the media as expected.

The following devices will cause this behavior when used as the group leader:

- Chromecast with Google TV (4K)
- Chromecast with Google TV (HD)
- Google Home (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Google Home/Nest Hub (first-generation)
- Google Home/Nest Mini (first-generation) (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Nest Audio (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Nest Hub (second-generation)
- Nest Hub Max
- Nest Mini (second-generation) (Fixed as part of firmware update 3.73)
- Nest Wifi Point
- Pixel Tablet
- A small percentage of third-party speakers were also affected

Note: the issue must be fixed on the device that is the leader of the group in order for the other devices in the group to start playing consistently

The fixes are specific to each device type, and are dependent on upcoming scheduled update rollouts. We will update this post as the fixes begin rolling out for each device so you can test your own speaker groups.

There may be some devices that take longer to receive the update so if you’re still encountering issues, you can try these temporary workarounds:

Cast directly: if you’re trying to play audio in multiple rooms, cast the audio directly to the individual speakers.

Restart your devices: If you’re having trouble with your speaker group and are unsure which device is the group leader, try restarting all devices that are part of the speaker group. This can often resolve the issues.

As always, we deeply appreciate the feedback and your patience. If you are still running into issues with Speaker groups, please leave a comment below with clear descriptions of the behavior you're encountering. This feedback will help the team further investigate and mitigate anything else that might be causing this feature to not work as intended.

Thanks again, we're working diligently to get everything back to how it should be.

Kelan

[rickjforbes]

@Lardo 

That's nothing. I haven't had a single issue fixed on dozens of cases across the Google ecosystem since October 2022. They never commit..and they think it's okay to advertise features that don't work at all or consistently for customers

See my thread here

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Another-Dead-Thread-False-Promises-No-r...

[rickjforbes]

 its supposed to work. Get it fixed Google or get them their money back

[binarydad]

Me too. I have a group of 8 speakers, a mix of Chromecast pucks, Google Home/Mini, and the device in question... a Nest Mini. I noticed the one speaker, the nest mini, is no longer playing as part of the group, while the other 7 play fine. I can cast to it directly, however.

Also, weirder, is if I join it to a group with one other speaker, it sometimes plays with the other speaker. Adding more speakers causes the others to play, but not the nest mini. I can't seem to find a pattern to it. I've done a reset of the nest mini and rebooted all other devices (pretty sure I did).

Hoping this gets resolved. Luckily the speaker that is not working, as part of the group, is in a bathroom, so it's not noticeable.

[Uncle-Googs]

Company coming over today.  Barely anything is working today.  Groups dont play.  Some pairs work... Some dont.  Cant wait to show them this great ecosystem throughout my house.

"Oh yeah.... All those speakers you see?  Yeah - those on the wall I mounted? - for the last year they have been crap.  They want play together. They do tell me the mic is off however.  Google could care less..."

"Why aren't they all playing?.... Well... That was a feature that worked when I bought them... Then google got sued by Sonos... rather than paying fees keep its millions of customers happy... It took away features... "...

"Sure - the few that are working now sound nice.  But

.. Dont make the mistake I did.."

[rickjforbes]

I have a Google Home Max (not the hub, the massive speaker)
During my recent interaction where we briefly talked around swapping the faulty devices, the agent just said, "we don't have that one anymore" and that was the end of it, like I wouldn't notice the "half-solution"
Funny thing is I don't think they keep playing a round with the Max software, and it's the best working device out of the lot, the Hub Max's being the primary dog poop, followed by the Nest Mini 2s, then the WiFI minis, then the older stuff gets progressively better (relatively)

[KatrinSchaper]

I start realising the problems with speaker groups some weeks ago. It is 2 out of my 3 Nest, that disturb the group. When disconnectiong them from the group, all works fine. the group contains of multiple mini, Nest and other Google compatible devices. when do you expect updates for the different devices? Really inconvinient without Speaker groups and realy frustrating buying expensive google products and they are the ones causing the problems!

[Uncle-Googs]

Hey all.  I am the guy (if you have been following) that has factory reset all his Nest Speakers (14+) --- and realized that the "name change" process or just naming process in general was very buggy.  I had learned that names and name changes were not taken consistently.  I had done the following.  As setting up new speakers that I knew were going to be part of a "pair"... calling them "Name - R" and "Name - L"... prior to joining them as a Stereo pair.  Then - when creating the pair... calling it "STEREO - Name"... so like "STEREO - Living room".  Then... making sure eash of these "Pairs" functions correctly.... before making Groups.  With Groups.... I used a naming standard of "GROUP - Group name"... so like "GROUP - Garage".

Although I have came back a few times and ranted.  Most recently - when having company over.  Eventually things starting functioning correctly.  Honestly about 10 minutes after that "company" rant.  Things started working fine. 

Its been about 4 weeks now - where things have honestly been working decent.  Are things slow to show up sometimes?  Yes.  However - this is the most consistent things have been in the last year.  Instead of spending 45 minutes waiting for group to show up (if ever)... withing 5-10 mins max - I am playing on "GROUP - Garage"... and happy.

Although it sounds like there are firmware updates coming - I really suggest taking a look at your names, pairs, and groups... and getting consistent.  With the naming standard above like above.  I now know when my "GROUPS" show up - vs- wondering... is that the group name?  Or is that just one of the Speakers?

Its honestly been working pretty good.

I think its worth the try.  I am not sure if the Factory Reset played into my fix also - as I did the "consistent naming" right after the reset.  Maybe start with Naming?  Break apart all your Groups/Pairs.  Name them as such... then rebuild?

Good luck all...

[RussdaFuss]

I can't confirm that! From the beginning, it seemed logical to name individual speakers, speaker groups and stereo pairs consistently. But I still have all these problems. One should not fall into the error of seeing such a simple and inherently logical action as a solution. If that were the solution to the problems and Google knew about it, wouldn't Google have pointed it out long ago and suggested it as a solution to the problems? No, it's not that simple. It is a mistake to believe that the user has any influence on the behavior of the speakers.

[Uncle-Googs]

Welp.  Sharing what worked for me.

Multiple people have stated that names and pairing names (Stereo) have been buggy.  As are renames of Stereo pairs and groups..  Prior to my rebuild process I outlined... in the "Home" app - pairs, and groups were flickering back and forth with one speaker name,.. then flip to stereo name... then back to one speaker name.  My casting list was like playing whack-a-mole.  Things coming and going.  One speaker... Then the pair... Back to one speaker of the pair... Then disappearing again.

Since stabilizing things one step at a time   Speaker names.  Stereo names.  Then group names... Its been drastically better for me.  I used to spend 45+ minutes waiting for a group to show up... Ultimately just giving up in frustration.  Now - 5 min... and I see the group I am looking for.

I am not suggesting "what" you name your sprakers matter.  I am saying - when you create a stereo pair... do not rename it!  Break it apart... and give it a new name when you re-pair them.  Same with groups.  Delete the group. Rebuild.

Get all your stereo pairs functional to your liking... Wait... Confirm things are functional and that you are happy with all your names (cause u don't want to rename pairs).... THEN build groups.

[JohnLand]

I have also been able to get speaker groups to work for several days decently, till I have to rub my stomach CC with one hand and tapping my head with the other, all while standing on one leg. But the new firmware has broken all the magic tricks. Clearly Google has no interest in fixing this or atleast being upfront with us. Way to much wasted time and money just to listen to music!

[DallasGG]

Google Speaker groups is about as effed up as it can get.  One minute a group works and then the next it doesn't.  It appears that the "system" is picking one speaker in the group and assigning the group name to that device and then only playing music on that device.  C'mon Google, fix this mess.  These used to work but now it's a big old cluster.  I was thinking of buying a Google Nest Audio but if the speaker groups don't work, what is the use?  Please fix something that used to work.  I used to think that Google had the setup and settings work way better than Amazon echos but at this point Amazon is head and shoulders above Google.  At least their speaker groups work!  Ugh!

[mrxree]

I think my environment is a little different from most posters so far, but some of my observations may be useful for getting a clearer understanding of what is vs isn't functioning well.  It might even help Google to resolve the issue, assuming that the community manager, @kelanfromgoogle, remains engaged with the discussion (clearly not a given since that user doesn't appear to have posted anything since 6/27).

1. Other than my Pixel tablet, all of my other endpoints are OEM devices (Primare, JBL, KEF, Wiim) with Google Chromecast Built-in.  The overall Chromecast implementation in the Pixel Tablet appears to be the least reliable device, by a considerable margin.  The issues occur somewhat less often if I avoid using that device as a source, and considerably less often using groups that don't contain that device.

2. I do not use left vs right configurations for devices, as others have described, so I have insights into that particular configuration is unusually susceptible to issues.

3. In addition to casting to my Chromecast speaker groups from Android applications (primarily Pocket Casts), I also use Roon.  This is where things a get interesting wrt to the earlier posts re: dependencies on which device is the lead for a given group, and I hope the following observation, courtesy of Roon, sheds light on the issue in general, independent of that application.  Roon can stream to Roon-ready endpoints, but it can also stream to Chromecast endpoints, including speaker groups.  Unlike every other application I'm aware of, in the audio configuration for my Roon server, I can see multiple instances of each of my Chromecast speaker groups.  Also unlike every other application I'm aware of, Roon specifies the IP address for each speaker group instance.

From this perspective, it would seem that Roon sees more than one device in a given speaker group broadcasting itself as a lead device.  I can imagine why various applications only appear to display a single group instance, but the fact that Roon displays more than one might be an indication that multiple devices in the groups are attempting to function in the "leader" role.  

I realize this is a bit of leap, but on the face it appears that Roon may be perceiving multiple Chromecast endpoints in a given group to be operating as the "group leader", (a concept I first heard about in in an earlier post on this topic).  That earlier post seemed to imply that there is supposed to be a single leader device for each group.  Could the crux of the issues everyone is experiencing simply be that the Chromecast protocol, application integrations, etc. are predicated on a single leader for each speaker group, but that for some reason the stability of the "group leader" assignment in groups currently has a defect? For most applications, users may be thinking they are always selecting the same group, but without realizing that their application is inconsistent with regards to which group instance (aka which lead device) the application is streaming to. All because the applications aren't designed to handle conflicting instances of the same speaker group - I don't mean conflicts by name, to be clear.

4/Bonus, which I hope @kelanfromgoogle can address directly, and which may either inflame or mitigate the general aggravation/distrust with Google right now regarding Chromecast audio in general and Chromecast speaker group functionality: why on earth does the "Speakers that work with Google Cast" link at Introducing Google Cast (formerly Chromecast built-in) - Google Cast Help now point to Discover how Android helps connect your devices | Android - a site with literally no information about OEM Google Cast enabled speakers/devices and little/no information about Google devices that ostensibly have this capability?  I'm nearly certain that this site, or a similar Google one, used to list dozens of third parties that integrated this capability into their devices (I assume through a licensing agreement, and, if I'm not mistaken, on condition of a vetting process with Google)?  Google sites appear to be disappearing this entire concept, leaving users like the ones posting to this thread feeling hung out to dry and raising pretty serious questions about the state of the relationship between Google and the Hi-Fi OEMs that have been selling devices such as those listed at chromecast built-in at Crutchfield.

[Annie_aan]

Hi!

I have a random issue, I have a music group with all my speakers (10 speakers). It’s been working fine for years. But now, randomly don’t play from all speakers in the group. I open spotify and select the group, every time it plays from all except 1-4 of the speakers in the group.

Then when I open the Google Home app, I can see it playing - and when I open up to see where it’s playing I can see that not all speakers are selected. But I can select the “skipped” speakers manually and then it will play on all.

I have tried resetting the speakers, I have tried creating new groups with different names, delete all groups, new groups with only some, then add all etc. It always skips a few speakers (which ones are random). 

The same happens if I ask Google to play music on a group, I can see it does not start playing on all speakers in that group and have to manually select the “skipped” speakers. 

I have also tried creating multiple groups and switching in the Google Home app, and when I switch to a group with all I can see it starts playing on most - but always skips some.

Why? And how do I fix this? 
I started noticing these issues the last week.

Thank you!

[milnivlek]

What you described sounds just like the known problem that Google acknowledged in the "recommended answer" above in this thread.

Basically, whenever we cast to a speaker group, one of the speakers in that group is designated internally as a "leader". But there's a bug that makes the leader unable to communicate with some of the other speakers in the group. That's why you are getting only a subset of speakers playing music. But if you cast to the other speakers directly, it works since it's not going through the leader.

The solution is to restart the leader. But unfortunately we can't easily tell which one is the leader (and it may change over time). You might be able to figure it out indirectly, since the leader is one of the speakers that does still play the music. But otherwise the only sure-fire solution is to restart all of the speakers in the group.

It's super annoying. But this seems to solve the problem every time. The problem will recur again after a while though, so you'll just have to restart them again (maybe once a day or so). That's the best we can do until Google releases their fix.

[JohnLand]

The new firmware being released will no longer allow music to be cast to those devices

[JohnLand]

Found a solution "hopefully" . Created a new group with the speakers that received the update and they all played! I then added older speakers one at a time to the new group. So far their working, 10 devices so far I'll try more later if this works???

[JohnLand]

Nope lasted maybe 5 minutes, back to ping, ping, ping, stammering stuttering all over the house!!!

[chaconmorales]

Hi JohnLand,

Thank you for posting here in the community. I apologize for the inconvenience that you are experiencing with your Google Home devices. Thank you for your insights and best effort to troubleshoot your devices when casting media/music. 

Before we get started with further details, let me ask you some important questions:

• What model of device do you have?
• Does the Google Home Device display any error or messages?

It sounds like the firmware update intended to resolve music casting issues might not have been entirely successful. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot the problem:

Basic Checks:

• Device Reboot: Restart both your phone or tablet (the device you're casting from) and your Google Home device. Sometimes a simple reboot can resolve temporary glitches.
• Wi-Fi Connectivity: Ensure both your casting device and your Google Home device are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. A weak or unstable Wi-Fi connection can disrupt casting.
• App Update: Verify that you're using the latest version of the Google Home app on your phone or tablet. Updates often include bug fixes and compatibility improvements.

Casting Specific Checks:

• Casting App: Try casting music from a different app that supports Google Cast or Chromecast. This can help isolate if the issue is specific to one app or a system-wide problem.
• Target Device Selection: Double-check that you're selecting the correct Google Home device when casting music. You might have multiple devices listed, and accidentally choosing the wrong one could explain why music isn't playing.

Please check the following article to Music is choppy or stutters and to Reboot Google Nest or Home speaker or display in case it helps.

Please keep me posted.

Regards,

Mario

[JohnLand]

To make this real simple, any device with this forced software in a "Speaker Group" that has speakers that are running a different version breaks the group. You can create a group with just this software and it works. Or create a group that does not have this software and they all play fine. Mix them together and it breaks. I am including a link "Google" that clearly shows what devices are effected.................https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7365257?hl=en#zippy=%2Ccurrent-preview-program-firmware...

[chaconmorales]

Hi JohnLand,

I appreciate your follow up. Thank you for your insights and best effort to find alternatives when having issues with your Google Home devices.

I understand that the groups and music casting for speakers and displays is working, however it is directly affected based on the firmware version. Please make sure that all your devices are up to date or check the following option to Turn on or off automatic firmware updates.

We're always looking for ways to make you all feel welcome. Your feedback is important to us.

Please help us improve by filling out the feedback form.

This is really helpful. Please keep me posted.

Best,

Mario

[JohnLand]

Again updates in the US are automatic, no way to turn on or off!

[CHAZZER]

Rubbish

[JohnLand]

"If you’re in the European Union (EU) or Norway, you can turn these updates off " In the US these updates are automatic you can't turn them off and you can't revert to older version. There are several threads related to problems with speaker groups. Google needs to address them and stop wasting everyone's time by giving out disinformation!!!

[rickjforbes]

Hi John @JohnLand 

This is the point I make in my post here

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Your-quot-Higher-Support-quot-quot-Engi...

No respect for your time, or awareness of their own issues...or worse..a combination of both.

[marcolopes]

What??

[rickjforbes]

Certainly not true in UK.

[kelanfromgoogle]

Hey @JohnLand,

This is not true, 3.73 did not remove the ability to cast music. Do you mind sharing the documentation you're looking at or where you got this information? 

Thank you.

[JohnLand]

If you create a "Speaker Group" that does not include a device with that New Software you can sometimes manage to get them to play. Then add just one speaker with the new 3.73 software and that group will not play. Create a group that has all 3.73 speakers "only" it it will play.

[JohnLand]

Sorry It's the 3.73.420420 version that I was speaking of. Not sure when the 3.73.415414 was released? Someone has merged my original separate thread on the 3.73.420420.

[CHAZZER]

I have 2 with 3.73 and only only one will play. The other has that clickclickclick

[kelanfromgoogle]

Hey @JohnLand 

As mentioned in the earlier reply, if you're experiencing issues with your Speaker groups make sure that all devices in the group are part of the device types that received the fix (listed above). In your case, you are correct - a group consisting of only device types that received the fix as part of 3.73 should play correctly.

[JohnLand]

Exactly, I can pick 6 speakers, or I can pick the other 8 speakers I own. Both will not play all together!

[CHAZZER]

And yet.... it doesn't. 

[JohnLand]

And you just yesterday modified your list with the added software versions. My original seperate thread was several days prior, about the new software not being compatible. So let's not muddy the water here, trying to get Google to see the frustration we have been put through is tough enough!

[CHAZZER]

There isn't documentation.... it just doesn't work. I really don't understand Googles lack of engagement to resolve this issue.

[DallasGGG]

One of the most frustrating things is that one day a speaker group will work and then the next day is doesn't (without any changes).  Google: I don't get why this is so complicated.  If you put speakers in a group, just make them play music together.  It's probably more complicated than that, but still, just make them work consistently please!

[kelanfromgoogle · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

The 3.73 firmware update contained fixes for some of the issues impacting Speaker groups functionality. 

These fixes are specific to the following device types:

• Nest Audio
• Nest Mini
• Google Home Mini
• Google Home

Speaker groups consisting of these devices should not experience disrupted playback. If you were experiencing issues with your Speaker groups, remove any devices from the group that do not appear in the above list and test them again. If after testing you still experience problems, please respond below with as much detail about your setup.

We appreciate your patience while the team works hard to investigate and identify fixes for the rest of impacted device types.

Thank you.

[CHAZZER]

This did not resolve the cast issue with Nest Minis.

[CHAZZER]

Also funny that the Firmware version is 420420

[GarySu]

Hi Google,

with this new 3.73 firmware update, I still faced issue related to speaker group (nest audio). I’ve tried the factory reset, but it seems to be unhelpful. Please keep pushing this issue, Thank you.

BR,

Gary