Alexa executing scene even though says not responding

[gobigdave (Dave Dupre)]

I have HA running in a container on a NUC for many months now. I’m using NubuCasa for Alexa. I have several scenes setup, and I usually execute them with Alexa. Recently, things are acting strange. For example, I have a “Dinner” scene that announces “Time for dinner!” on all the house speakers, along with a couple of other tasks. Been working great forever. However, now what happens is:

Me: Alexa, start dinner
Alex: Dinner is not responding
HA: Executes the dinner scene

This happens with all my scenes. It doesn’t happen with lights, etc.

I did try deleting all the devices/scenes in Alexa and then re-syncing from NabuCasa, but the behavior is still the same.

What happened?

I’m running the latest versions of everything.

Dave

[Stiltjack]

Several threads about this, but no solution:

Alexa device not responding on first try

I’ve been struggling with an issue for the last few weeks where Alexa will respond with “device is not responding” or simply not responding at all on first attempts despite having acknowledged the command. Strangely, a second attempt will often successfully execute the command. Subsequent commands will also work for a while. It feels almost as if something is timing out or something is “going to sleep”. Can anyone help point me in a direction as to how I can begin to solve or test for what may b…

…and there’s a (long) Github thread here which suggests the problem was fixed some time ago (although it clearly wasn’t):

Emulated hue devices not responding

For what it’s worth, a friend who has Alexa and Hue lights but not HA reports the same problem.

[Sidioussam (Paul Downing)]

I think this may be a problem with Alexa itself. I get the same response (xyz not responding) even though the action executes. This goes for things on HA and off. To my uneducated mind, I figure it to be a timing problem of some sort, as if Alexa is not receiving a response within a set time.

1. Alexa given order to switch on device.
2. Alexa executes order.
3. Alexa does not get a response from device within a specific time.
4. Alexa announces that device is not responding (even though it is)

I could be wrong, but that’s my thought on it.

[Stiltjack]

@Sidioussam

I could be wrong, but that’s my thought on it.

No I think you’re right. According to some of the Alexa forums there is a timeout of around 10 seconds, which can’t be changed for “security reasons”. Variations in network traffic would explain why the problem comes and goes.

[gobigdave (Dave Dupre)]

10 seconds sounds plenty long enough. In my case, HA executes the scene within a second or two. Often Alexa is saying “Dinner is not responding” while all the speakers in the house are announcing “Time for dinner!”.

[elliotmoso (Elliot)]

I just have submitted a PR that fixes this. (I think my issue is the same described by @gobigdave).
When I tell Alexa to activate Movie, it actually activates it but it says Movie is not responding (in spanish)

Correct Alexa scene activation