Geographic location restrictions?

[larryllix]

@bmercier My Alexa speakers suddenly have started to spout nonsense to me.

When asked to turn on all lights, it responds with I don't have any spaghetti. This seem to be only ISY relate topics.

After many trials to repair this I finally unlinked the ISY Portal account from Alexa and when I attempted to reconnect it it tells me I am not allowed to enable the skill due to geographic restrictions.

I have gone through the setup of all my Alexa speakers and standardised my location exactly the same.

Any ideas?

[Guy Lavoie]

I've had the odd Alexa device mix up, where it activates the wrong device. I'd delete it from the Alexa app and rediscover it. But that was with Hue lights being controlled through HA bridge. 

Insert "Alexa is blonde" joke here... but stuff happens. 

You geographic restriction thing is really odd. It could be (hopefully) something temporary.

[Mr B]

Yesterday morning ours started giving us a "I don't know how to do that" response when we asked an Alexa to turn a light on or off.  That problem cleared up a couple hours later except for one Alexa that won't control our Laundry room light.  It just says "Sorry, something went wrong".  It's weird because the other 4 Alexa devices can control that light.  I'm blaming it on Amazon.

[larryllix]

This is still an issue (next day). I tried some of the old tricks, including resetting every device's location, removing the apartment number, to comply with the suggested location address, changing the country to US, etc..

Skill still is not allowed to be enabled "due to geographic restrictions". This also happened years ago, when the skill was first being developed, but has worked without problems for many years, until yesterday again.

Based on the sudden nonsense answers Alexa gave us for most device control attempts, this appears to be an amazon bug, so far. Contact with them has been unfruitful, so far.

[bmercier]

@larryllix This seems to be an Amazon bug indeed.

A smart home skill can't decide on what words to speak. It can return error codes, which triggers Alexa to speak pre-determined error messages.

So if it's saying nonsense, then it's either an Amazon bug or an Alexa configuration issue. An example that comes to mind is if it was configured for an incorrect language, then it would not understand you and say some gibberish in another language. You probably have a different issue that this as she seems to respond in english, but I have no clue what the problem may be.

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, bmercier said:

@larryllix This seems to be an Amazon bug indeed.

A smart home skill can't decide on what words to speak. It can return error codes, which triggers Alexa to speak pre-determined error messages.

So if it's saying nonsense, then it's either an Amazon bug or an Alexa configuration issue. An example that comes to mind is if it was configured for an incorrect language, then it would not understand you and say some gibberish in another language. You probably have a different issue that this as she seems to respond in english, but I have no clue what the problem may be.

I discovered a new switch in the ISY mobile app that enables/disables the account permission. This seems to have coincided with my using "Sync" with my polISY in the mobile app. It seems it installed  defaulted to disable.

I am guessing the "geographical restrictions" was a generic message applied in lieu of more detailed error reports, as programmers tend to do, until the fine polish is put on their programs.

After allowing the mobile app to allow permission the accounts connected again and all devices seem to be working fine after a "Discover" via Alexa.

Thanks.

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, bmercier said:

@larryllix This seems to be an Amazon bug indeed.

A smart home skill can't decide on what words to speak. It can return error codes, which triggers Alexa to speak pre-determined error messages.

So if it's saying nonsense, then it's either an Amazon bug or an Alexa configuration issue. An example that comes to mind is if it was configured for an incorrect language, then it would not understand you and say some gibberish in another language. You probably have a different issue that this as she seems to respond in english, but I have no clue what the problem may be.

No gibberish but just another poor attempt at AI (guessing) what was asked in lieu of knowing about any devices. It was a very weird experience.

I had to install an Insteon wall switch, which I wanted to do some day anyway, that gave me Fast On/Off, Dim up/down, and third tap capabilities to even control my lights via ISY program logic and wizardry.

Dependent? Definitely with mostly all WiFi lighting. I had no idea until now.

Edited November 18 by larryllix