Sony's Android TV skill for Alexa

[Leaderaur]

I'm using my Bravia KD-49XE8077 with my Amazon Echo Plus and Sony's Android TV Alexa skill in the UK.

This was working fine up to before Christmas.

However, now, whenever I ask Alexa to do something (turn the TV on/off, change the volume etc), the TV responds, but five seconds later Alexa says "Sorry, TV is not responding".

As I said, the TV is in fact responding, so obviously there's some issue with this being reported back via the Alexa skill, and previously this was working (i.e. Alexa would just go bing to confirm, as it still does when I use it to turn my lights on/off).

I've tried delinking my Amazon account from my TV, disabling the skill through the Alexa app, obviouly rebooting everything multiple times, but nothing I've tried seems to fix this problem. And as I said, it was all working properly not that long ago; I'm not sure if there was an update for one of the things involved that has caused the problem.

Has anyone had a similar experience and found a way to fix this?

Thanks.

[EdwinaU]

Hi Leaderaur,

Welcome to the community.

This may be due to the Privacy Policy update. Please try the steps here and let us know if you need more help.

Best wishes,

Ed

[Leaderaur]

Hi EdwinaU,

Thanks for the advice. I have checked this but the Privacy Policy did not automatically show up; I think I do remember accepting this a little while back.

Either way, I went into the Privacy Policy and hit Disagree which unlinked my TV, then removed it via the Alexa app, rebooted everything, added it all again which worked perfectly, but unfortunately the same problem: the TV responds to commands via my Echo Plus, but the Echo then reports the TV is not responding.

There seem to be similar comments on both the UK and US Amazon pages for the skill (e.g. UK, US).

Please let me know if there's anything else I can try!

Thanks.

[chdawes72]

I have the exact same thing and it's definitely nothing to do with the updated policy !

I have it connected (KD43XF8577) and for about the last two weeks everytime you issue a command it completes it and then Alexa says "Sony TV isn't responding - please check it's power and network connections".

We've taken to responding back to Alexa "Yes it has you clueless machine!!!!"

It's very frustrating - maybe something to do with timeouts changing or a callback failing to reach the Alexa servers properly ?

[Leaderaur]

The only other thing I could think to try was to plug my TV into my router via ethernet cable rather than by wireless, but no change. Looks like we'll have to hope whatever parameter got changed gets changed back in the future... unless anyone can suggest anything else to try!

[chdawes72]

Update: 29th January 2019

It seems the feedback to Sony/Amazon via the Alexa app has worked and as if by magic Alexa is now completing the command and saying 'OK' rather than telling me she can't find the TV that she just controlled!

Hooray!

[Leaderaur]

Yes same here, clearly it got through to Sony/Amazon in one way or another, very glad they sorted it out, was driving me mad!