Chromecast Audio no longer working in Google Home

[Henrik_Rosen]

I'm still using a Chromecast Audio, which has worked well for the last 2-3 years, to play music over the Aux port (3.5 mm) on my kitchen speaker. It has been connected to a Group of devices in the Google Home app, consisting of three Master & Dynamic speakers with Chromecast built-in and the one Chromecast Audio. Over the last few years this has worked more or less perfectly - now and then I need to reboot a device, but generally it all works well, and I control it with the Google Home app (v.2.46.1.7), previously on a Google Pixel 4 and now on a Samsung Galaxy s21 Ultra running Android 12, OneUI 4.

Yesterday the Chromecast Audio stopped working with the rest of the Group of speakers. When I cast audio from either my podcasting app (Pocketcasts) or Youtube Music, which worked fine just two days ago, the sound plays but switches from one speaker to another at ~20 second intervals - it begins playing in only one speaker, then goes silent there and continues in 1 other speaker, etc. This has never happened before. Also, the confirmation noise played by the Chromecast Audio when I begin casting to it sounds new - has Chromecast Audio received any updates recently? I thought it was discontinued, and would not get updates.

Here's what I've tried in terms of troubleshooting:

- Powering down and restarting all the devices (Chromecast Audio, each of the three M&D speakers, and my phone) - no difference

- Removing the Chromecast Audio from the Group - this solves the problem, in the sense that the other speakers function fine when the Chromecast Audio does not interfere, but as soon as I add the speaker again, it interferes with audio playback in the entire group. When the Chromecast Audio is not in the Group, it works fine as a single speaker, and the other speakers work fine as a Group - but as soon as I add the Chromecast Audio back it interferes with playback.

- Factory resetting the Chromecast Audio, both via the Home app and via the hardware button on the Chromecast Audio, several times, with no improvement

Any additional ideas I could try?

[GogleWitha2ndO]

When I ask my google mini to play music on the chromecast audio speaker I receive the "Sorry something went wrong. When you're ready give it another try" message. I have the same firmware as the others.

Does Google mini/no longer associate with the chromecast audio?  

I can cast from my phone so I know it still works and my wifi is up.

[KevinAtHome]

As I've written earlier, I have the same issue ("Speaker ping-pong") with a mixture of two chromecast audio and two chromecast comaptible "eBird WiFi Speaker" if I deviate from this procedure:

First, I have to power on (plug in the wall wart) the two eBird speakers (they run with an older Chromecast Firmware), no order required.
Then I open my app (Audials) and start playing on my "all-devices" group and wait until both eBirdies play.
When both eBird speaker play, I plug in the wall wart of the Chromecast Audio in my living room
When the living room Chromecast plays (1-3 minutes later), I plug in the Chromecast Audio in my bedroom and normally it starts to play also 1-3 minutes later.

If I don't use one of the devices, I even have to follow this order but skip simply the power-on of the unused device.

Don't ask me about this order, it's not alphabetic, maybe the device-id, but it works if I don't deviate from it.

Note: if I don't power on one of the devices in a reasonable period, it will not start playing (although I see it in Google Home and even can play on it separately from a second Android - but unsynchronized: the music is delayed some seconds compared to the group devices.

If the above is the case or if only the playing is disturbed by anything (network timeouts - seldom, earlier android 11 energy saving - seems to be mostly fixed now), I have to plug out all devices, restart my Samsung XCover and do the whole procedure again.

It seems, the software updates in the Chromecast Audio last fall, resulting from the Google-Sonos-struggle, lead to synchronization problems in a mixture of devices with different Chromecast firmware versions, but is circumvented by a specific device plugin order.

Maybe your issue is a similar one ? Then you have to find out the order of plugging in your devices.
Or maybe your Master & Dynamic speakers firmware can be updated to a newer Chromecast firmware ?
(If I use only my Chromecast Audio as a group or only my eBird WLAN speakers as a group, I don't have any problems, so the problem seems to result from their different firmware versions).

Annoying, yes, but better than throwing the whole sh*t into the trash...

[KevinAtHome]

Sorry, didn't look at the date...

[TerryN]

I have a Chromecast Audio that I'm just setting up for the first time. (I took Google up on their closeout sale without having a specific need yet. I knew it came with risks but admit nerfing due to lawsuit was not one I thought of.) I'm hoping I'll be able to block my device's communication with the update server without blocking the communication needed for all the other functionality. Can you or anyone else tell me what domain (with subdomains) Google-made Chromecast devices connect with to check for firmware updates? If you know that they actually download the update from a different server, its domain (with subdomains) would be helpful to know too. Thanks!

[PolYGame]

I don't know if it's related, but none of my LG Speakers nor LG Soundbar with Chromecast built-in will be working with YouTube Music, separately or in a group. They are all running an old version of Chromecast (1.21.75965)

The odd part is that with every other app (Spotify, Soundcloud, etc...) it's working great. Never had this issue before on YouTube Music (Android, iOS & Chrome) so I don't know if it's related to the SONOS case or not.

My other Bang & Olufsen with Chromecast built-in works great (1.28.102057)

[Henrik_Rosen]

By the way - to anybody who finds this now, still looking for a solution, my way of getting around this was to buy old Chromecast Audio's and plugging them into all my speakers. It feels ridiculous to have to get a CA for a Chromecast-Built-in speaker, but CA is the only solution that Google is still supporting, for now. I have no trust that Google will continue to support Chromecast Audio in the future, since they're not selling them and Google has absolutely no inherent loyalty to its customers, but for now this solution works.