2 weeks ago I bought some Alexa Echo devices and installed the Alexa media player integration. I’ve been trying to use it to get the player states so I can trigger when one of them is playing to start my AVR and set it to the correct source etc. But the media player states never update. When enabling debug, I see that the integration gets my commands and refreshes the devices now and then, but the states are always either standby or paused. I never get playing unless maybe if I happen to be playing music while resetting home assistant. I don’t know what to do and so far I got zero help on github for the project. This is breaking my biggest use case with the alexa devices, so it really sucks…
Unfortunately, the API that Alexa Media Player and other integrations use has always been unofficial and, as such, has always been one decision by Amazon away from shutting down completely. If reporting on the subject it to be believed, the Alexa project has been a money pit for Amazon for years. It’s probably only a matter of time before they shut it down completely, do everything they can to seriously limit “free-loader” uses like AMP, or (maybe more likely considering the way thing are in the industry) switch to a subscription model.
Yeah, maybe. But I also get the feeling it’s only me having this problem. And I wonder if it has something to do with my location being Mexico, but Alexa being the US. There is a very close relationship between Amazon mx and us, I wonder if that makes issues
It’s not only you, this has been an ongoing issue for Alexa Media Player since at least May and there have been reports of similar problems from multiple countries.
And issue aren’t limited to AMP, about 2 weeks ago the Node Red “Applestrudel” palette stopped working completely for days due to changes by Amazon.