TTS is confirmed to allow volume changes. I’m referring to this which is one of the use cases where programmatic volume changes have been reported broken.
Please enable debugging logs.
like i said i didnt use the echo for several hours
i set the volume to very low and did send TTS (almost didnt hear it)
then i did set it to very high and send TTS again and it blasted through the room.
no people do send silent music to activate, then send volume change and then send TTS.
when i change volume, it doesnt matter what i do afterwards, the volume stays at that level.
i am sorry, but the problem is NOT at the amazon side. you can change the volume at ANY time with a routine. you can activate everything you can with the alexa app also with the script.
you can create a routine to change the volume and activate that though the script, or just change the volume through the script.
i do those kind of things on daily basis.
i can now change volume and then ask for my daily, or i could create an automation for a daily.
it doesnt matter because the volume from alexa has changed after i change it.
if you have the idea that an alexa device has more then 1 volumesettings, then you are wrong.
1 possibilty only. change the volume, and everything is going to be given in that set volume only.
HA mediaplayer on the other hand doesnt allow that. even for other types of mediaplayers i have seen people having trouble setting volume, when the mediaplayer isnt active.
its the same with lights. you cant set brightness with a light that is off. without switching it to on.
sorry but i am 1000% sure that the volume from an alexa device can be changed in every situation, at any time.
Thanks that’s generally it. But to be very pedantic for those who want to test it:
- Play some music.
- Set a volume to some setting either manually or programmatically and confirm volume changed.
- Either wait for the music player timeout (reported at 2 hours plus) or run a flash briefing to force the timeout.
- While no music or TTS is playing, (but flash briefing is ok), issue a programmatic volume adjustment.
- Play something and confirm the volume has changed since step 1. The reported bug is the volume won’t change unless step 3 is run while playing music or TTS. Any attempt to change during a flashbriefing will also not work.
I’m glad it works for you. I’m trying to diagnose a reported issue and you had mentioned you had a working script without that issue. Unfortunately, you’ve only been able to test known working setups (e.g., music, silent music, and TTS) for programmatic volume. That information doesn’t help with finding a solution for the reported problem case (e.g., flash briefing and long periods of time after the paused music state has timed out (>2 hours)). Thanks for your effort though, I will continue to try to debug it through other channels.
i dont use silent music.
i did change volume several hours after the last time the device was used.
i asked alexa for my next appointment, did set volume to another level asked again, volume was changed.
did the same and changed volume when she was speaking, and she changed volume in the middle of speaking.
asked her for my daily updates, same behaviour.
i tell you its not the script thats giving a problem(and there are no problems on the amazon side, use routines to find out what is possible, and what you can do with routines, you also can do with the script), but HA mediaplayer.
im preparing to release an appdaemon app in the next week.
its mostly to create entities without restarting homeassistant, but i will include my alexa entities.
you are very welcome to try them before i release them.
Perhaps different firmware versions in the Amazon hardware have an effect.
Sure thing. I’ll be happy to review the API calls you’re using if you’ve found a solution. Please share when you’re ready.
From my testing - I have the exact same issues using the script. I can’t set volume when a flash briefing is playing, or indeed without having done one of the known actions thats been discussed previously.
Tried it again this morning after leaving for some time and I get the following when just first trying to set the volume before doing anything.
{"message":"No routes found","userFacingMessage":null}
Got the exact same response when playing a flash briefing, but then when I played a radio station on tunein then it started to work.
Now it’ll continue to work for some time no doubt and I can currently change the volume whatever, but after some defined period, clearly something happens at the amazon side.
Found a fix using the sequence type Alexa.DeviceControls.Volume which appears to work for both media and flash briefing in my testing. It’s in the 1.0.0 dev branch which allows control of sequences and Alexa routines. However, it’s a major breaking change to use that branch since we refactored the dependencies.
I’ll be reporting it to the script repo at some point so hopefully they can integrate it in too.
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Change “1LIVE” to “eins live” work for me:slightly_smiling_face:
Thanks! This works.
Any ideas to get groups working?
Now if we could get control of skills that would be AWESOME! My fingers are crossed!
Anyone loose access with the most recent update? I am just getting a no states available for media_player.echo. In lovelace now. I am trouble shooting it now but thought I’d see if anyone else had this problem. Should note. I was trying the Lovelace storage mode out and switched back to yaml mode so maybe that did it?
Version < 1.0 and HA V0.84.3 were working fine up until today.
I lost access today. No changes were done. I have not updated HA and still at 0.84.3.
I updated to version 1.0 this evening and see.
The following components and platforms could not be set up:
Please check your config.
I signed on to Alexa and noticed the Alexa site asked for password and authentication.
Is this a problem with Spotify only or any music provider? Wasn’t aware this wasn’t working. Please file an issue and we’ll see if we can validate and fix it.
What skills particularly? The next build can control any skills you can do with routines in the app. I don’t believe that has third-party skills yet, but I haven’t looked too closely. If you see the functionality, then the wiki has instructions on how to get the information we need to use it.
There have been reports of updates without issues.
- Check your Dev_States tab and see if you see the media_players.
- Make sure you’ve handled any configurator questions. It now pops up in the top right with Lovelace.
- Turn on debugging logging and review the logs for anything obvious. You’ll find common issues in the FAQ including instructions on enabling logging. If you still need help, we can review your logs here.
1.0.0 is a prerelease and only intended if your’e comfortable debugging as it has configuration changes and requires manually installing dependencies. If you want to try it, make sure you follow all instructions here.
Otherwise use 0.10.1 instead if you just want it to work without changes. What you described sounds like your cookie expired or potentially Amazon wants you to change your password. You can tell that by trying to login to the Alexa website directly.
Thank you @alandtse.
I see the error now…
2019-02-11 08:51:39 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.loader] You are using a custom component for alexa_media which has not been tested by Home Assistant. This component might cause stability problems, be sure to disable it if you do experience issues with Home Assistant.
2019-02-11 08:52:00 ERROR (SyncWorker_2) [homeassistant.util.package] Unable to install package alexapy==0.1.0: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement alexapy==0.1.0 (from versions: 0.0.1, 0.0.2, 0.0.3, 0.0.4, 0.0.5)
No matching distribution found for alexapy==0.1.0
You are using pip version 18.1, however version 19.0.2 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the ‘pip install --upgrade pip’ command.
2019-02-11 08:52:00 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.requirements] Not initializing alexa_media because could not install requirement alexapy==0.1.0
2019-02-11 08:52:00 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.setup] Setup failed for alexa_media: Could not install all requirements.
I have upgraded pip.
pip -V
pip 19.0.2 from /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip (python 2.7)
You’re missing the dependency installation step. It has to be run in your virtual environment. Please make sure you run all install steps if you’re running the dev version.
3rd party skill, particularly the My Chevy Skill. If this was possible it would make a already most useful component in my setup even better. How cool it would be to have the ability to start my car from a script!! Also to be able to start my “Thunder Storm Sounds” skill automatically when I start my good night scene!!
The possibilities would be endless!
Thanks for the information I’ll look into it!
You guys are doing a fantastic job with this! Thanks for all you do in this community, I definitely appreciate each and everyone of you!
Thank you @alandtse.
I forgot to update in docker. Updated in docker and all is well.
Testing and working great!!!
keep checking routines in the alexa app.
as soon as you can do it with the alexa app there can be thoughts about doing it with HA.
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