Amazon echo saying "not responding" and "no device found"

[rccoleman]

I use my fleet of Echos to control much of my home automation and the voice recognition success rate has gone way up compared to a year ago.  Within the last few weeks, though, I'm starting to get some weird error messages despite the commands doing exactly what they're supposed to.  When I issue a command, the light ring spins for a bit, whatever activity I asked for starts, the light ring spins a bit more, and I get a "Sorry, xxx is not responding" or (this morning) "Sorry, I can't find a device named xxx in your profile".  I've made no changes to my Echo setup in the ISY portal for a while, and the only recent change was updating to 5.0.13A.  I get these weird responses maybe 20-30% of the time now, but like I said, the ISY programs/scenes are triggered as expected.

Is something strange going on with the portal or Echo integration, or does it have something to do with 5.0.13A?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi rccoleman,

All systems are 100% healthy here. Are you sure that your devices do actually respond?

With kind regards,
Michel

[rccoleman]

Because lights turn on, my alarm arms, my water recirculator turns on, all as expected.  All indications are that the programs and devices respond, but my Echos/Dots tell me that something's wrong.  Like I said, only happens 20-30% of the time.  Maybe less often, but happened last night and this morning with different messages.

[smokegrub]

16 hours ago, rccoleman said:

Because lights turn on, my alarm arms, my water recirculator turns on, all as expected.  All indications are that the programs and devices respond, but my Echos/Dots tell me that something's wrong.  Like I said, only happens 20-30% of the time.  Maybe less often, but happened last night and this morning with different messages.

I have the same occurring at two separate locations and I have  not upgraded to 5.0.x. 

[larryllix]

I get a lot of that too, Alexa  saying XXX is not responding, but performs the function anyway.

AFAICT this started with the last ISY Portal shutdown for maintenance, about a month ago.  Before that time, it happened about once every few months. Now it happens every few days.

 

ISY v5.0.13a

[kohai]

I've noticed the not responding message too.  I've never had that before.  I'm on 5.0.13 (not yet .13a).  The devices do what they should -- I just get alexa telling me it isn't responding.  I have only noticed it with my lights so I made the assumption it was specific to my lights.  I'm glad it's not just me.

[drprm1]

I too am getting these messages. Also getting “the skill for that device is not enabled, please enable the skill and try again”.

Even though it says that the command is executed normally.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello everyone,

Is anyone of you NOT On 5.0.13?

With kind regards,
Michel

[kevindavis544]

I'm NOT On 5.0.13 (I am at 4.6.2 and so are all my installations). I am relieved to find out others are having similar issues. In my own environment and at one of my customer's I have experienced these issues recently (in the last 2-3 weeks). 

At my site and one of my customers...Some Programs just stopped working such as "turn on Front Door Lock". Alexa would respond with "OK" but nothing happened at the Z-wave lock. I entered an additional spoken form: "My Front Door Lock" and then "Turn on My Front Door Lock" worked. 

Commands used for controlling Scenes consisting of KPL and FL, which had worked very well a month ago are now returning Alexa response, "the skill for that device is not enabled, please enable the skill and try again later"

[larryllix]

Using v5.0.13a I have also found the "OK" with no result getting quite frequent now.

Last night I had three "OK"s in a row with nothing happenned. The target was a program in ISY that operates many different styles of devices inclusing an Insteon scene. None operated until the fourth time reeating the same command. Each time a different Dot device responded, strangely enough.

This has been happenning for several months and also appears to be getting worse with time along with the "Device does not exist"

[drprm1]

Using 5.0.13a

[rccoleman]

3 hours ago, larryllix said:

Using v5.0.13a I have also found the "OK" with no result getting quite frequent now.

Last night I had three "OK"s in a row with nothing happenned. The target was a program in ISY that operates many different styles of devices inclusing an Insteon scene. None operated until the fourth time reeating the same command. Each time a different Dot device responded, strangely enough.

This has been happenning for several months and also appears to be getting worse with time along with the "Device does not exist"

I have that happen from time to time, and I suspect that one possibility is that the ISY being busy with other things and the action is simply delayed.  One of my new Z-Wave devices puts the ISY into a constant state of activity (separate post), and I noticed that that caused this same symptom: I'd get an "ok", nothing would happen for a while, and then the correct action would finally happen after a minute or so.  When I've had it happen in the past (before I got that device), I often checked the Alexa app for what it heard and it would sometimes hear something else (Light instead of Downstairs Lights, for example).  Other times, it heard the right thing, said "ok", and then apparently did nothing.

In any case, it's interesting that two completely opposite issues seems to be happening - error message despite the correct action happening, and "ok" with no action.

[Michel Kohanim]

Thanks everyone. If it's happening on both firmware version branches, then definitely related to Echo itself. Have you looked at history to see what Echo is hearing?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[rccoleman]

Yes, I checked right after each instance and it heard the right thing.

[drprm1]

I might be imagining this because I don’t remember when I enabled this feature but I think it started after I started using “brief mode” on my echos.

???

[rccoleman]

I just enabled ‘brief mode’ on Friday after being prompted, and this was happening well before that for me. 

[Michel Kohanim]

Thank you all. Can you please disable and then enable the skill and then let me know whether or not you see any improvements?

Thanks and with kind regards,

Michel

[rccoleman]

Done, and will report back.  May take a few days or even a week to know for sure.

[kevindavis544]

NOTE: Upon experiencing this problem yesterday after setting up a new KPL and FL Scene configuration as described in the link below, I performed the Disabling of the Portal Skill and then re-enabling. This didn't change anything as to what I am experiencing and explained below. 

I am beginning to believe changes are occurring on Amazon's Alexa end of things. Back in May I started setting up my KPL and FL as described in Wiki (https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY994i:INSTEON_Device:FanLinc-KPL_FanLinc_KeypadLinc_Configuration). I did this so the back light on the KPL would change accordingly even when using Alexa to change the mode of the FL motor. This makes for a situation where each KPL button press or each Alexa command changes the button back light and gives an accurate visual representation of the fan motor and fan light status. 

When I began setting up the configuration back in May, I added spoken form of the Alexa commands for each Scene in the Portal as Dining Room Fan Off, Low, Medium and High. After I set this up initially, when using Alexa I would say; "Turn On Dining Room Fan Medium" and it would work without fail. 

Now if I issue the command as above, I will get from Alexa; "The skill linked with Dining Room Fan is not enabled. Please enable the skill to control this device."

What I have to say now in order for this to work is; "Turn Dining Room Fan Medium On". A bit awkward but it works and she responds with "OK".  

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi @kevindavis544,

Please send your uuid to support@universal-devices.com.

With kind regards,

Michel

[rccoleman]

I just had this happen again. I said ‘turn on the bathroom sink’, my hot water recirculator turned on as programmed, the Echo’s light ring spun for several more seconds, and then the Echo said ‘sorry, I can’t find a device named bathroom sink in Robert’s profile’. Like before, the command worked, but I also got an error message that doesn’t make any sense. I confirmed that the Echo heard the right command by reviewing the history in the app.

 

This is after unlinking and relinking the v3 skill, and discovering devices, which I did a month or so ago.

[larryllix]

I had the "No such device as XXX"  last night, after it turned the program activating the scenes, NRs, and NodeLink devices on, happen again.

The Alexa command was successful but reported device name failure.

[kevindavis544]

A few weeks ago, UDI support suggested I do the following and so far it has fixed all the problems I was having. I’m not sure if it will correct your issue but it might be worth a try.

Go into your web version of the alexa app (https://alexa.amazon.com) and look at your list of devices. Look to see if any are marked as “offline” (this means it was not present on the last discovery). You can either manually forget each of these individually or Forget all and then re-discover. 

Since doing this a mouth ago, I haven’t had the issues I was having before. 

[rccoleman]

4 hours ago, kevindavis544 said:

A few weeks ago, UDI support suggested I do the following and so far it has fixed all the problems I was having. I’m not sure if it will correct your issue but it might be worth a try.

Go into your web version of the alexa app (https://alexa.amazon.com) and look at your list of devices. Look to see if any are marked as “offline” (this means it was not present on the last discovery). You can either manually forget each of these individually or Forget all and then re-discover. 

Since doing this a mouth ago, I haven’t had the issues I was having before. 

Interesting!  I had both an online and an offline version of "bathroom sink", so I forgot the offline version and I'll keep an eye on it.  Thanks for the tip.

[rccoleman]

This was pretty bad last night and this morning, to the point that I ended up using the keypad in my bedroom instead.  Last night, I kept getting "Downstairs lights are not responding" over and over again with it not actually turning off the lights, and then it finally worked after 10-15 mins or so. In the morning, it acted like it recognized "Good Morning", but did nothing over several attempts.  I eventually just hit the keypad button that runs the exact same program and it worked immediately.

Has anyone else had issues with Alexa in the last 12-24 hours?  None of my devices are showing "offline" at alexa.amazon.com, and weren't last night.