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Having trouble with Speaker groups? Read this first

kelanfromgoogle
Community Manager (Admin)
Community Manager (Admin)

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

2 Recommended AnswerS

kelanfromgoogle
Community Manager (Admin)
Community Manager (Admin)

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

View Recommended Answer in original post

kelanfromgoogle
Community Manager (Admin)
Community Manager (Admin)

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.

View Recommended Answer in original post

561 REPLIES 561

My Google Nest speakers have the latest firmware of 3.73, but I am still experiencing the problem with volume not working even at 100% it sounds more like 20% when they are paired.

I had this with Amazon Music. I'd set the music audio to be normalised, which, weirdly, reduces the volume of ALL music so much I thought my Google speakers were playing up. 

Wondered if you might have done the same thing, but if not, it's probably yet another issue with Google Home stuff. 

 

 

After playing a somewhat successful game of Whack-A-Mole with different speaker groups the past week or two, it appears google has managed to screw it up again!!! After trying my usual bag of tricks to listen to some music nothing seems to help. In the "home app" under "devices" the speakers now have two buttons for each speaker. There is the one that has always been there with the volume percentage and now there is a second button for the same speaker but just a toggle on or off! WTF!!!!!!

This is a freaking nightmare, clearly google has absolutely no idea how to fix this! This all stems from the law suite they lost several years back and they have been attempting to create their own code but how could they? If they remotely tried to test this they would see what piece of crap they turned this in to!

The on/off button does not **bleep** thing, just more code for them to screw with!

The On/Off button in the home app was not added by Google. In my quest to fix/find alternative to this mess I have jumped down the home automation rabbit hole. Sorry for the miss information and problems this may have caused. 

How exactly is this "group leader" designated and is it possible to just change it? I rarely speak to get use my speaker groups and this still sounds vague.

You definitely won't get an answer to that here because there probably isn't one!

Speaker groups decided to stop working when issuing voice commands

Example:

Hey Google, play <radio-station-name> from <app or provider> on <speaker-group-name>

 

This used to work fine, but now all I get is:

      "Sorry, I don't understand"

I have deleted and created a new speaker group.

 

I have reset all the Nest Mini devices.

 

I have deleted and re-created the "home"

I have reset my router and reconfigured it, all to no avail.

 

Is this an ongoing issue?

 

Should I dispose of the Nest devices and switch to Amazon, as that works fine when I use it elsewhere?

Please can you let me know of a fix or at least that your are aware of the issue and are trying to rectify it, from the threads I have seen tonight, it appears that this has been happening for a while.

 

Thanks 

Beth

There are Echo's with audio out. I will be testing that for my 2 speaker groups. It's a shame that Google won't support or live up to their comment for what they sold all of us.

It's a shame, as when they work as you want them to, the nest and home are fantastic. 

 

I just want to know why they have suddenly stopped working (speaker groups), when issuing voice commands. It's infuriating.

 

Anyway one more attempt to resolve the issue when I get time, if that doesn't work, I will look elsewhere.

Ended up trying another factory reset and reconfigured my router, everything is connected properly and now the speaker groups work.

 

It's annoying, this shouldn't have to be the default solution to fix the errors, but at least it's now working again.

Thank you for your message. How about the google chromecast audio? I have an Subwoofer acting as a speaker. It was working flawlessly. But i hope that also getting fixed... Or let us choose a speaker-leader. Then i think the problem is also fixed with a workaround. Thank you for your reply! 

So kelan wrote .......... "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."

Multiple people have asked with no reply "How Do We Know Which Is the LEADER". Someone last week reported finding the Leader using WireShark, I installed it and spent hours trying to learn it. I had already created spreadsheets with devices IP address etc, trying to see what was going on. My router shows each devices download and upload speeds. I finally noticed one of the speakers in the group was uploading at  over 900 kbps! I confirmed this was the leader in my Logbook in Home Assistant.

So was wondering how to pick the Leader of the group? I created a new group with just one speaker and started casting to it. I then proceeded to add additional speakers to the group and the original speaker is indeed the LEADER!

You may ask what difference does it make? It confirms my initial thoughts that there is a buffering issue "the stammering stuttering" when things start to go wrong. Turns out after every song plays each speaker "Buffers" for a fraction of a second then goes back to "Playing". So if the leader has less than perfect signal it Hits The Fan!  

CHAZZER
Community Member

Following

Several weeks ago I segregated my speakers that did not have the 3.73 update and it has been very reliable only a few times needed to play Speaker Whack- A-Mole. I started a new group with the leader 15 feet from primary router and have the 7 segregated along 5 that have 3.73 update so far so good?

CHAZZER
Community Member

How do you know it's the leader?

JohnLand
Community Member

My router shows upload and download speeds for each device connected to it. The leader is the only speaker uploading huge amounts of data. 

Now... that's a ROUTER!!!!!

I have my ISP router (because it's a cable one, and i don't want to have 2 devices to segregate the MODEM / ROUTER combo) and it gives me absolutely NO CONTROL (the configuration is even made "remotely", through a OEM UI made by the ISP...)

Since 2017 not counting my initial ISP router, I have purchased 3 different router setups  thinking they where the problem with speaker groups. 

JohnLand
Community Member

Also I jumped down the home automation rabbit hole and Home Assistant Logbook confirms it by calling it "leader "

Home Assistant logbook? Where do i get that?

Home Assistant is a open source home automation that runs on your local network. The logbook is a log of all devices running on my network

Can you share more details on how you got this info?  I have Home Assistant setup and my Google homes setup using both the Google Cast and Google Home integrations.  I'm not seeing the leader information in the logbook nor am I seeing it in the device/entity attributes.  Any help would be appreciated.

In Home Assistant Dashboard "far left" Logbook is between Energy and History. The Home Assistant has nothing to do with Google

Yes, they are separate but you need to do something to connect your Home Assistant instance to your google account.  If you didn't setup manually using one of the integrations, I'm guessing you have the Google connection through Nabu Casa subscription. That difference would explain why I'm not able to see the information in my setup since I'm not a subscriber to Nabu Casa at the moment.

Yes I did link it using Nabu Casa. And I'm not finding away to tell it to only use this speaker as the leader. So it kinda makes the whole exercise pointless.

So the mixing of the 3.73 with non 3.73 defiantly has issues. I'll play with that later

Can you tell me the order in the group, the leader is on the top? 

 

So in my case, the subwoofer is the leader?

 

https://tweakers.net/i/aTJeCHPA1BSueyMLyg2UiD9NPgs=/full-fit-in/4920x3264/filters:max_bytes(3145728)...

Just finding this reply I created 2 hours ago was an ordeal. Any how my idea on assigning a leader to the group is shot, I have seen the leader bounce to three different speakers in the group. I give up! 

mrxree
Community Member

Yes - exactly!  If group leader is central to this stuff working, the fact that the leader can change almost certainly makes managing this much more challenging.  It's pretty clear to me that casting to groups is supposed to work, even if one or more of the members are offline.  And of course, I expect that extends to the specific case where "the leader" is offline.  Whether a new leader is established, and whether that is only temporary, is not clear to me.  

Will the Google Home Max be bumped to 3.73? My FOUR multi-hundred dollar speakers are still on 1.56.275994 and I don't see them listed above. Yes, I have checked and see that my speakers are, in fact, on the latest released firmware for this specific model.

I know they are discontinued but I would be very disappointed if these speakers were simply no longer supported. Especially since I spent thousands of dollars between these speakers and my Google Pro Wifi system.

Listen chatbot everything u said is a complete pile of steaming...you know full well the devices are malfunctioning now for over 8 months with nothing having been corrected. How do we wake up a chatbot for a truthful reply? OK Google chatbot?

By the way... the mic is off.  Please slide the switch on the back of your device...

Cast directly to a single device...that's your answer? You are cheating people that bought these devices specifically to use in speaker groups, you have known of this problem well over 6 months, yet refuse to fix it. OK Google, wake up the chatbot to give us an update.

Hi there, I'm a new user of the Google home nest speakers. I have two nest audio speakers connected in a stereo pair and I have one nest mini generation 2. I can cast audio from YouTube music directly to the nest speaker stereo pair or directly to the mini. However, when I tried to cast to my home group which comprises all three speakers YouTube music will not play. I also cannot use voice commands to play music to the home group. 

I have read all the posts above and all my speakers are using the 3.73 firmware level.  In fact, this was the firmware level on the speakers when I set them up as far as I can tell just a couple weeks ago. 

 

Of course I have rebooted the speakers, of course I have removed and reset up the home group.

 

Are there any next steps? I actually ditched Sonos for this setup instead due to their disaster with their application. I was hoping Google stuff would work better. 

 

Help?

okey1
Community Member

Hi

Workaround is to play music to stereo speaker then open google home and you should see the speaker playing...then click the cast button then you can tick all other speakers to play

That will work

Sometimes that works... But that is not a stable solution.

 

However you are assuming the first stereo pair in the room you are in shows up..  i have 2 stereo pairs in my garage.  Sometimes neither show up to start the first cast, to then add more.  Or... One shows up... But the other (even in the home app)... Never shows up on the list.  Neat!  But then the "simple fix" is just... Split pair.  Factory reset, reconnect the speakers, re-form the stereo pair, reboot wifi.

 

This is not a solution or workaround.  Its something to try - but still not reliable.

Gazer2740
Community Member

Okay well this seems to work sometimes. I didn't know this was a possible ok, this seems to work sometimes and is a workaround. However, I agree with other community members below that this should work when I click the home group. Why doesn't it when I have the latest version? What am I missing here. Is this just one of the things that doesn't work?

This is not actually a resolution to the issue and shouldn't be categorized as an answer. Do better.

I notice there is no "chromecast audio" in your list. 

I have a group with:

  • 3x chromecast audio
  • Google home mini 
  • Google nest mini 

The chromecast audio device in my kitchen is almost always the "group leader" as when I reset that one the group always stops. 

 

Obviously as chromecast audio do not have a microphone, they are never the device that I use to request the music on, it's usually a google home hub.  (sometimes a mini) 

 

Can you confirm that the updates will also roll out to the chromecast audio devices?