Alexa Drop Outs & Robotic Sound

[Jonefun]

Plan

Premium

UK

Device

Echo 3rd Generation X 4

Operating System

(Windows 10)

My Question or Issue

When I play music on all my 4 devices together, each one will randomly dropout sound crackly or hiss with a sometimes robotic sound. This is random and on any of the devices. If I play the radio no problem or if I play from Amazon no problem.

All devices are firmware updated. The router as been recycled many times with a down speed of 34Mb and SNR 6db The 5Ghz is disable as I don't use it. 

This issue started about three days ago, until the no issues at all.

I have unlinked the skill and re-linked to Alexa App, no change. I have cleared the Spotify and Alexa App cache too. If I play from Spotify on my Win 10 PC and Select everywhere the issue is still the same.

Can any help?

[Alex]

Hey there @Jonefun,

Thanks for the post.

This sounds very odd, and we haven't received reports of such behavior previously. One reason for this could be that the the signal from the router is not strong enough. This can happen if one of the devices is too far away. 

If it's possible, can you try bringing the devices closer together and see if the strange noises still occur. 

You can also try switching off one or two speakers to check if the robotic sounds come up when you play to only two speakers.

Let us know how you get on.

[Jonefun]

Thank you for your reply, the speakers are very close to the router, with just one alexa playing no issue, two alexas playing some drop outs and robotic sound, all four and it sounds terrible. I have just purchased and install a new router to rule this out. Say about 4 weeks ago no issues what so ever so now im scratching my head.

[Dian]

Hey @Jonefun,

Thanks for the reply.

Have you tried resetting the affected Alexa devices to their factory settings to see if this brings any difference?

Let us know how that went,

Cheers!

[Jonefun]

Hi, yes all echo devices have been reset and linked back to the router with no issue. Music will one perfect on one device at a time but as soon as I select more than one device (Multi Room or Group) the drop out and robotic effect kicks in. I've Deleted and re created the groups. Delete and Reinstall Alexa App and Spotify. Only until a few weeks ago all devices played well in the everywhere group no sync issues nothing. All firmware is up to date too.

[OscarDC]

Hey @Jonefun,

Thank you for keeping in contact and for the info shared.

To continue investigating this issue, do you remember if the issue started after and OS or app update? This will give us a better look at it.

Also, it would be great if you could check it using a different Wi-Fi network to see if it makes any difference. In case you don't have a different one available, you can use a mobile data hotspot to test it. We appreciate your help.

We'll be on the lookout.

[Jonefun]

It all worked perfect until a few weeks ago, I did notice the Amazon app had update, I couldn't get it to work on a mobile network but I have now ordered a new ASUS DSL-AC88U to see if it is a router issue. The worst bit is, they can play fine for time the start cracking up again. Thank you to all for your help.

[Lyubka]

Hey @Jonefun,

Thanks for getting back to us! 

In this case, it'd be best to contact Amazon for further assistance on this. Their customer support will happily help out!

Cheers!