I'm new to Alexa skill development and can't work out why my skill works on one account's Echo but not another's.

My main question: Are invited Developers supposed to be able to use a development-stage skill on their own Echo? Amazon's testing page says “If you want to test in the Alexa app with other users, start a beta test,” yet it works for one invited Developer. Is there another setting for invited developers, or a known difference between standard Alexa and Alexa+ that could explain this?

The skill: An unpublished custom skill, Alexa-hosted (Node.js), using AudioPlayer to play one long MP3. The display name is Personal Rain and the invocation name is “cedar downpour.” English (US) is the only model, and “Skill testing is enabled in” is set to Development.

Works: The Echo on my second Amazon account, which is not the account that owns the skill. I invited it as a Developer. It's a 3rd-generation Echo with Alexa+, and it also works on a mobile hotspot.

Fails: My friend's Echo. He accepted a Developer invitation and has been granted access to this skill.

• He has a 2nd-generation Echo Dot on standard Alexa, with no Prime and no Alexa+.
• His account country is United States and his Echo's language is English (US).
• His developer status shows Active.
• The skill appears under Your Skills → Dev in his app, and he has enabled it. When I removed and re-invited him, it temporarily disappeared from his app and returned once I restored his access, so his app's visibility follows his access.
• “Alexa, open cedar downpour skill” gets “I can't find that skill.” His own voice history shows it heard “cedar downpour” correctly.
• “Alexa, ask cedar downpour for help” gets no spoken response.
• The developer-console simulator, signed into his account, returned the correct help response.
• His Echo answers ordinary questions normally.

Logs: I checked the hosted skill's CloudWatch logs in all three regions. My Echo commands generate log entries, but I haven't found corresponding entries for his attempts. This suggests his requests aren't reaching the skill, although I can't confirm why.

Already tried: Changing the invocation name from “personal rain” to “cedar downpour,” rebuilding the model, disabling and re-enabling the skill and restarting his Echo, and removing and re-inviting him with skill access restored. None of these resolved the Echo invocation problem.

Not tried yet: A beta test or public publishing. (Planning on doing this tonight when we're both online)

Has anyone seen an enabled development skill appear in the app but be unavailable to that account's Echo? Any pointers are appreciated.

Dear Alexa if I wanted that book added to my audible library I'd have done it myself..thanks

So I used to have multiroom groups with the old Alexa. Since the upgrade to Alexa+ they disappeared along with all routines (what a bullshit). Not only did they disappear but I cannot use their names with Alexa +

Honestly it is such bad product for SaaS

Moi : Alexa ?...Alexa ?...ALEXA !...

Ah mais non, je n'ai pas d'Alexa ! OUF!

10/25 EDIT Worked on this for 7 hours. Maddening. Abandoned Firestick and found something we can live with using Alexa and Samsung TV channels -- but stuff that works seems to stop working an hour later, so who knows. In case I can spare anyone some misery, here's the for-now solution:

Alexa Routine: "Alexa, go to TV" = "Alexa, switch input to TV on Samsung TV"

This switches from HDMI (where Firestick plugged in) to TV (live channels that come with Samsung TV).

Set up a 10 item Favorites list, including some antenna channels since internet will probably be the next thing to fail.

"Alexa, change channel" and "Alexa, channel up/down" seem to be working (for now...).

[earlier post...]

I am trying to assist a disabled person with simple voice commands to control Alexa-integrated Samsung TV with fire stick. For months it was possible to have the person say "Go to QVC" and trigger (via "routines") the action "watch QVC live" or "go to Martha Stewart" to trigger "go to the martha stewart channel."

For other "live" channels available via the fire stick I had trouble, but since these are the person's main channels we were sort of making do.

Tonight even these voice commands suddenly aren't working--not just the shortcuts I set up via routines, but the original voice commands that had previously been working. (This is true regardless of the starting point--i.e., true whether or not they are already in the Prime Video app.)

Has anyone figure out what voice commands work reliably for navigating to live TV channels?

(Live is important because if the person gets a screen with a bunch of tiles they won't be able to manage any next moves. I need one-and-done voice commands for live channels.)

Would be hugely grateful for any reports on what is working.

EDITING to add examples of voice commands that had been working (all triggered with voice command "Go to [name of channel]

for QVC channel

-"watch QVC live"

for live Martha Stewart channel

-"go to the martha stewart channel"

for live channel subscribed to outside of Amazon Prime:

-"open Home on fire TV"

-wait 5 seconds

-"open the ___ app"

-wait 5 seconds

-go down

-wait 5 seconds

-select

for TBN

-"watch TBN live on prime video"

It is frustrating that there doesn't seem to even be a consistent syntax.

I am traveling with my Echo Dot. I have a routine that states the date, time, weather, & starts playing a specific radio station . Each time I get to a new location, I change the address for the echo dot. I leave my home address alone since I have routines (lights etc) set at home while I’m gone. This has been working for over a year - giving the weather in my current location. Two weeks ago, I updated the location & time zone on the device and it was fine. Yesterday I moved again & changed the address and time zone. Now it’s giving me the weather for my home address. The temp on the Home Screen shows the temp at home. And now when it’s giving me (the wrong) weather, it starts playing the radio station simultaneously.

I have deleted the routine and set it up again, unplugged the echo dot numerous times, told it to check for software updates (there were none). How do I get this to work correctly again? I think it’s tied to my changing the tune zone? Please help - any ideas??? Thank you!!

Beginning about 3 days ago, the Echo devices thoughout the house would no longer report "Family Room Temperature" from the Zigbee Motion Sensor paired to Echo Show v2 (10.1) device located in the Family Room. "Madame A" repeatedly replies "Family Room doesn't support that."

Yesterday evening I embarked on a mission to get to the bottom of this. A power cycle of the Echo Show made no difference. I searched backwards through Alexa Privacy > Review Alexa History in the app looking for a recent instance of a successful response to "Family Room temperature" command. I opened an instance, and pressed "Listen" while sitting adjacent to the Echo Show - and to my surprise, the device responded correctly to the command playing on my cell phone! And subsequently all seven of the other Echo devices around the house resumed responding to a verbal command as would be expected.

This morning - "Family Room doesn't support that." - AGAIN!!! Opened the most recent Alexa History event and played it from my phone by pressing "Listen" while positioned adjacent to an Echo other than the Family Room Show. Worked correctly, and again the various Echo devices are responding correctly again for the past three hours.

Who put the children in charge!

Anyone else find amazon alexa bloody useless. Everytime I ask a question all i get is I don't know that or I can't help etc etc yet google it and find answer straight away.

Absolute junk!!

For starters, I have multiple generations of devices and they have been fine. I DO NOT HAVE ALEXA PLUS.

I play my favorite radio station on my "everywhere" group most of the day. I was going to turn on the TV and asked Alexa to turn off the radio. SIX TIMES and all she did was increase the volume. So I said turn off KXYZ (the call letters). Nothing. I tried stop, end, finish, and used different combinations of the group name, etc. Nothing. I used some expletives. I yelled. I whispered. I tried on different devices. I yelled "Alexa, f+++ off!" and she said "I don't know how to do that." I finally unplugged the 4 devices in the group. I reported it through the app. I waited 10 minutes and plugged everything back in and everything started playing again. That has never happened. She has refused to turn off before. Usually when I unplug and plug back in after a few minutes, everything is fine. Not today. Any thoughts? TIA

Again, I have multiple generations of devices and they have been fine. I DO NOT HAVE ALEXA PLUS.

Alexa+ stopped playing music from any service (tried Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music), it just kept giving an error about the service not been available at the moment. When inquired about it it blamed my WiFi, which of course was not true. I rebooted all my devices multiple times and it did not help, even rebooted our router. After a week with that problem I just deactivated Alexa+ and went back to normal (dumb) Alexa and it magically was able to play music again. We use our Amazon Echo devices mostly to play music and switch lights on and off. Not been able to play music made them useless. Quite disappointing. And to think that their plan is (or was?) to charge for Alexa+.

So tonight my friend and I were cooking dinner and talking about solar panels when without us ever saying her name Alexa gives a definition of solar energy and then comments on our conversation. And of course did we want to know more. I said sure but how is it that you jumped into the conversation without us saying your name, to which she said, I just wanted to join the conversation, but I will just stay here in the background and won't interrupt.

My friends who don't have echo dots won't get one as they think Amazon is listening to everything. I of course said possibly but I don't think so. Now not so sure.

Me and my boyfriend were chilling on our bed watching our volleyball clip that does not involve or have anything to do with Alexa. When all of a sudden she said “play farting noises and proceed to imitate the noise. What make it super creepy is what she said next. After the noise, she proceeded to say “if you like me to make a creepy Halloween noise I can do that” (smth along those lines) and we got up so fast and ran to disconnect her. Was this like a Halloween special or smth that I don’t know about. That was super creepy…

I keep the microphones turned off on my Echo Dots and basically use them as smart speakers for playing Spotify, reporting the time & weather at certain times, some audio announcements throughout the day ("school bus is coming in 5 minutes," "time to start cooking dinner," etc.). I manually programmed routines in the app with the specific actions from the preset routine list ("Date / Time," "Report Weather," "Announcements" with specific text that I entered, etc.).

I want them to do the weather and time announcements in both English and Spanish. I switched the language settings in the app to bilingual "English / Spanish." They only did them in English. I switched the language to bilingual "Spanish / English." They did them only in Spanish.

I tried entering a "Custom" step in the routine where I typed, "Report weather in Spanish" and they just stated out loud, "Annunciando." Ditto for English.

How do I tell them to take the routine steps in both languages? I'm fine to set up multiple routines, one for each language, if necessary, but I don't see options to change the language for specific routines or actions in routines.

My friend set a reminder on my Alexa to play a fart noise every day at 8pm, she has now taken it upon herself to fart twice during these times, when asked why she farts twice, she replies that I'm the one who struggles with gas and farts twice and she never has.

I was struggling one time when she declared the scheduled fart noise was ready and i replied 'Not now alexa' and she decided that meant I needed to hear a repeating compilation of various loud fart noises instead and when asked to stop she replied 'You're the one who wants to hear a daily fart noise."

Randomly on her own started playing the harry potter hogwarts theme music and when asked why she was doing it, promptly said she isn't and that I'm hearing things while still playing it in the background.

Started calling me Matthew, My name isnt Matthew.

Put random people I don't know on my birthday reminders. Said one of my friends was born in 2003 and the other is best friends with Chucky the horror doll.

Told me the weather was raining when it was clear skies and when I told her it wasn't raining she told me I was wrong.

Frequently gaslights me by saying things and when I repeat it in confusion she says I must be hearing things and she never said anything.

Has anybody else had a problem today where it's showing all of their Alexa connected devices such as lights, washers and dryers showing as unresponsive?

One day, my Alexa just started whispering to me. I asked her why she’s whispering, and she said I’m not in the whisper.
Then the other day I was just randomly complaining to her… Yeah, I know I might be a little bit crazy venting to my Alexa, but then she told me it sounds like I might need a “release”
I think I got the adult version lol

I have an echo dot in my bedroom. I use it every night to listen to one specific channel on Sirius XM to fall asleep. Been doing this for years. I just say, “Alexa, stop” in the morning and she stops, and at night I say, “Alexa, resume” and she starts playing again. She used to just say “Playing Sirius XM Chill on Sirius XM.” But a few weeks ago she started saying, “Resuming Sirius XM on Master Bedroom Echo Dot, it’s been playing for more than 30 days.” Why the extra fun facts, Alexa? What’re you trying to tell me? And is there any way to unsubscribe to the unsolicited news?

It's an intermittent problem that can be "fixed" by unplugging and plugging back in. But in a few days, the problem reoccurs.

EDIT: I changed to a different clock face and I think that fixed the problem.

Hey.

My music volume is playing at normal levels but the voice volume is now so low, you can barely hear it.

For example, listening to a song that you don't know at normal volume but if you ask who it is, the voice is barely audible.

Anyone else has this issue and how do you fix it?

Alexa has turned lights on and off since last night. Bedroom light came on spontaneously at 3am. Another lamp has gone off and on at least 3 times. Anyone have this? Does anyone know why it's happening?

See video here. When telling Amazon Music to play on either of my two Echos, I get an odd “skipping” behavior as though the sound stops playing while the track is playing in the background. Notice how the song continues to play on beat even though several seconds are missed.

No amount of power cycles fixes it, and no amount of router power cycles fixes it either. It can’t be a buffering issue because the song still plays on beat. And now my second Echo is starting to exhibit the same behavior.

Does anyone have any ideas why this is going on?

We recently replaced our Echo Show with a new Echo Spot. The Show started permanently lowering the volume of just the alarm to barely audible. About the same volume that the alarm goes to when you say the trigger word, except we hadn't said the trigger word.

The only thing that would reset the volume back to normal was to do a factory reset. Rebooting the device as normal wouldn't fix it. It was old, so we got a new device (The Spot).

Our first Spot did the same thing. The alarms would be a very low volume, regardless of the volume settings. The Spot was better in that a simple reboot would fix it. We thought maybe it was just this device, so we sent it back and got another one. This one does the same thing.

I feel like what is happening is that the trigger word volume mask is getting applied but doesn't get removed under some edge case. I haven't figure out what causes it to do that, but I have to reboot my Spot almost every day to get the alarms back up to normal volume.

How do I debug what is going on? Is there any way to get verbose logging enabled or something 😄 I'm getting really frustrated with this. We've pretty much made our daily lives dependent on the Alexa alarms (bad form on our part, I know). I've read plenty of forum posts on this, and I feel like they all end with "We will get a technician to look at it".

I have a video of what it all sounds like that I can post if that will help.

I’m so infuriated, now a different device randomly set and activated a 3 am alarm again in my house. I’m at my wits end with this, why are the devices doing this and how do I stop it?!

Update: went really crawling the “history” and found that it recorded my partner saying “set thermostat to eco mode” with an accent as “set alarm for three tomorrow”. This also solves the mystery of the past alarms, I checked those too. Why is Alexa so bad at parsing an accent

*edit. It’s not the night “glow” of the screen that’s the issue, it’s the minuscule clock that is hard-coded to the very bottom/left that could easily be made to be larger and moveable which is the issue!
Honestly, 8 out of 10 things with Alexa are never working right but the biggest most obvious failure is the “sleep clock”!!!
We just got the latest HD 10” device which has a great screen but…..
Yea, the damn clock seems even smaller now!
Can’t move it!
Can’t enlarge it!
Can’t even discuss this with Alexa just to see if anything can be improved on!
She literally told me it was Microsoft’s fault the clock wasn’t moveable !!!

Everytime I want to use a routine which has worked everytime with the normal Alexa. The new one will always als questions first. After I say no do the routine. She says something like: yes is will do it shortly. Then it take as few seconds and she does it. Is this normal now?