Unable to get Google Assistant to work

Configuration
1

Hi there,
I am currently trying to link my Homeassistant instance with Google Assistant to controll some lights and more. I followed the official docs on how to configure this. My problem now is that i get an “Could not reach [test]Homeassistant” error when i try to add my homeassistant to the google home app.

I found this thread where some other guys have a simular problem so i thought this could maybe be solved by filling out the directory information in the google action (description, logo, name and mail, privacy policy) . The problem is that I am not able to upload a Logo (which is required). All i get after selecting my logo in the upload popup is a loading bar at 100% and nothing is happening. In the browser debug console i can see lots of 503 (Service Unavailable) returns after selecting the image.

Is anyone having the same issue?

I’ve tried different image formats with diferent resolutions and different file sizes on differnt devices on three different browsers from different networks in different google action projects and on multipe days… I contacted google support with this information and all they said is to try different browsers and clear cache.

2

I constantly get the “could not reach home assistant right now” message from Google home. Did you ever resolve this issue?

3

I’d had enough and gave up and haven’t tried it since. I’m sorry.

4

Hi, I was having the same problem linking Home Assistant with Google Assistant.
I followed some You Tube videos to perform these steps but they were quite old.
I’ve read many articles with suggestions on how to fix the “Could not reach [test] Project_Name” error…

The fix for me was in the official documentation.
I needed to add / expose entities before I could complete the process in Google Home. As soon as I added ‘exposed_domains’ to my configuration.yaml it worked.

I’ll fiddle further with what entities I want exposed, but that’s what fixed it for me…

exposed_domains:

  • switch
  • light

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_assistant/#yaml-configuration

5

Is this continuing to work for you? I have had this problem for ages now and tried everything, including your suggestion above. Nothing works consistently.

I can say Hey Google Turn On Light and it says it can’t reach Home Assistant then say it again right away and it works. Or sometimes it won’t work for hours. I also have a problem when I try to reconnect or link HA to Google Assistant where it says Could not reach Home Assistant.

I can’t find anything useful in the logs.

6

I came back to post this update. I’ve read many, many threads on this topic and tested so many various configurations.

The bottom line, I could not get this to work in a stable way with DuckDns.org.
I had my own personal domain and eventually as a last resort / let’s see what happens, I used an ‘A’ record on my own domain e.g. home.personal.net…
I moved my domain to CloudFlare (free) so I could leverage existing Cloud Flare DNS update integrations in Home Assistant. I also have an update option on my router for Cloud Flare DNS

This worked immediately. I was able to link the integration in Google Home on my mobile phone. When the devices appeared in Google Home, I was able to control them from Google Home…

My only assumption is that given DuckDns can be manipulated for nefarious use, Google may be treating them differently which is why I couldn’t get it to work.
(If anyone else has a free Dynamic DNS provider working with this integration, would appreciate any comments)

A small irritation that I can’t fix. When I switch a light on (via Google Home), the state of the icon in Google Home will change to ‘On’, then briefly to ‘Off’, then back to ‘On’ again (and thereafter stay in the correct state).

I’ve looked again at other articles and my configuration is correct (report_state = true) but for now, am happy I could get the integration working at all,

8

Hi guys, i was looking at my old google action project again today and wanted to see if the google assistant integration in homeassistant might work again.

And what can I say… it works.

My countless attempts to save the directory information (description, logo, privacy policy) may have worked after all. The logo was there and so was all the other information. I reactivated the integration in Homeassistant and was able to add my homassistant in the Google home app on the first try.

I’m glad it works now but unfortunately I can’t tell you why.

If it helps anyone, I followed this guide and on top of that I filled out the directory information in the Google Action project. I host my homeassistant on Proxmox, have my own domain and use a linux container with ddns-client for dyndns.

1 Like
9

Adding this note for future readers… I never had to complete any of the directory items like a logo etc… - the one item that caught me for about 45 minutes was I NEEDED to RESTART HOME ASSISTANT AFTER MODIFYING THE CONFIGURATION.YAML FILE. Once I did that, it worked. Just reloading the file from the developer tool interface did not have any impact.