Chromecast audio group? Showing state off

Just tried two chromecast audio in a group.
When i play like this, using multiroom, Home Assistant think that the chromecast is off.

Anyone using chromecast in multiroom?
Is this normal behavior?
Is there any workaround?

For me, this is a problem because i turn my receiver off when my chromecast is paused och off for 15 minutes.

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Did you ever find a fix?

Nope, not yet. Haven’t been using multiroom lately but will add my other Chromecast to my setup and try multiroom again.
In my case I will edit my automation for my receiver and let my Chromecast group keep my receiver on.
If you find a solution or got an idea how to handle this, please let me know.

Well perhaps this can help: Chromecast Radio with station and player selection

I haven’t tried it myself, still contemplating between Chromecast Audio’s and RPI’s

Check my issue on Github for a fix/workaround. It works for what I want to do so maybe it can do the same for you.

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I don’t see how this solves my problem.
I see all my players including the group player.
But still, when i cast to a group the included players state is off instead of playing.

I had one of my players added with ip-adress like you had.
I removed this and now i only use:

media_player:
  platform: cast

Do yours show playing when you use group?

I have 3 Chromecast Audio players. In Home Assistant, thanks to reducing my config to what you use now, these 3 players show up as well as the group player.
So when I cast to one of the 3 players, that player in HA changes states. When I cast to the group of players, the group player changes states but the individual players do not. This may be odd but after updating the triggers of my automations (to include both the individual player and the group player) to deal with this behaviour, I can now do what I want to do.

I don’t think this is a bug, but just how the Google Cast platform works. I think so because the Google Home app shows something very similar: when casting to a group of Chromecast players, only the group player shows what it’s doing properly. The individual players show limited information about their current state (notice the missing cover art).

The difference is that in the google home app it shows playing. In HA it shows off.
The problem here is that you can’t adjust the volume for an individual player in the group.
In Google Home app you can adjust the volume synchronized for all players just like in HA, but you can also adjust the volume individual. Because the players is in off-state HA can’t adjust the volume.
I have an automation looking like this:

action:
     service: media_player.volume_set
     entity_id: media_player.vaggen
     data_template:
       volume_level: '{{ states.media_player.vaggen.attributes.volume_level + 0.05 }}'

This won’t work because the state of that player is off when using multiroom.

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Okay, I see the issue in your use case. So I reopened my issue on Github with your use case as an example why the behaviour in Home Assistant should match what one sees in the Google Home app.

Is this still a problem?

Thanks!

I don’t know. I am still on 0.63.
I hope someone else can answer that question. @fanaticDavid ?

not had issues for a while now. Currently on 0.81.1

I just started using cast speaker groups since normal chromecasts now can be added to a group.
I have this exact problem. I would love to control the volume of the individually chromecasts in the group while playing, however since they are “off” in HA and don’t provide volume or any other information that is not possible.

Only solution I found is to call volume_up and volume_down on the chromecast I want to control, but that’s not very useful since there’s no way of knowing the current volume level.

I guess the cast component would need some changes for this to work, if it’s even possible.

Do they show up as as on for you while being in the cast group playing?

No they show as off.
I’ve set their volumes individually si now when I cast to the group is the right level across the house / per room

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Ah, I see, that’s pretty smart.
I’ll probably end up automating that to at least get the initial volume right, thanks.