Alexa Remote2 stops talking

Got you - I thought you'd come up with a way to monitor what Alexa says :slight_smile:

But your technique of having a dummy Alexa routine could be quite useful - I'll have to have a play around with that to see if I can override things like "Alexa play"

[edit]Wasn't able to overide "Alexa play" but I could add "Alexa, play now" which I'll try out to control the play/pause on my SkyQ box :slight_smile: [/edit]

I am doing this to refresh cookie every 30 mins and auto initialize at start seem to keep things working

[{"id":"675460ec.13bd78","type":"inject","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"},{"p":"topic","vt":"str"}],"repeat":"86400","crontab":"","once":true,"onceDelay":0.1,"topic":"","payload":"alexa","payloadType":"flow","x":100,"y":1480,"wires":[["ebd93115.caa3f8"]]},{"id":"ebd93115.caa3f8","type":"trigger","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","op1":"","op2":"","op1type":"pay","op2type":"pay","duration":"10","extend":false,"units":"ms","reset":"","bytopic":"all","topic":"topic","outputs":2,"x":280,"y":1440,"wires":[["85cc1a9e.98baf"],["fe958c08.c5ee38"]]},{"id":"85cc1a9e.98baf","type":"change","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"reset","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"reset","pt":"msg","to":"1","tot":"str"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":290,"y":1500,"wires":[["679b5d5a.d143b4"]]},{"id":"fe958c08.c5ee38","type":"alexa-remote-init","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"Initialise","account":"c9677242.dca69","option":"initialise","x":530,"y":1460,"wires":[["9262897.11cae78"]]},{"id":"679b5d5a.d143b4","type":"trigger","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","op1":"alexa","op2":"0","op1type":"flow","op2type":"str","duration":"-30","extend":false,"units":"min","reset":"","bytopic":"all","topic":"topic","outputs":1,"x":430,"y":1560,"wires":[["b613adcd.84e2f"]]},{"id":"9262897.11cae78","type":"change","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"alexa","pt":"flow","to":"payload","tot":"msg"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":710,"y":1480,"wires":[["79cf360a.a49148"]]},{"id":"79cf360a.a49148","type":"trigger","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","op1":"","op2":"alexa","op1type":"nul","op2type":"flow","duration":"30","extend":false,"units":"min","reset":"","bytopic":"all","topic":"topic","outputs":1,"x":190,"y":1560,"wires":[["679b5d5a.d143b4"]]},{"id":"b613adcd.84e2f","type":"change","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"payload","pt":"msg","to":"alexa","tot":"flow"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":680,"y":1560,"wires":[["d9d21565.dec6"]]},{"id":"d9d21565.dec6","type":"alexa-remote-init","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"refresh Cookie","account":"c9677242.dca69","option":"refresh","x":730,"y":1620,"wires":[["9262897.11cae78"]]},{"id":"d3a73930.50f9b8","type":"inject","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"},{"p":"topic","vt":"str"}],"repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"topic":"","payload":"alexa","payloadType":"flow","x":90,"y":1600,"wires":[["d9d21565.dec6"]]},{"id":"863ad3bc.99d47","type":"catch","z":"bd5de813.ef7f68","name":"","scope":["20baae0e.ce9082","36f7cc0a.9f479c","ff75ab6f.05e978","7be2ba81.886ae4","fe958c08.c5ee38","d9d21565.dec6"],"uncaught":false,"x":100,"y":1640,"wires":[["b78c42e6.f8216","aa7de2d.1090c2"]]},{"id":"c9677242.dca69","type":"alexa-remote-account","z":"","name":"alexaremote2","authMethod":"proxy","proxyOwnIp":"192.168.1.25","proxyPort":"3456","cookieFile":"alexa-remote2.txt","refreshInterval":"14","alexaServiceHost":"layla.amazon.co.uk","amazonPage":"amazon.co.uk","acceptLanguage":"en-UK","userAgent":"","useWsMqtt":"on","autoInit":"off"}]

These are all cool approaches. Thanks for the ideas. :slight_smile:

Have others been as lucky as I have and experienced no dropouts for a very long time?

I'm been using the Proxy method since I started using alexa-remote2 last February (connected to Amazon's US server). Initially it would frequently lose its connection. I can't recall when I upgraded it (6 months ago?) but it's been running smoothly ever since.

I had even created a flow to monitor the connection's health and report when the dreaded Authentication failed: "No body" occurred but it hasn't for a long time; the connection has been reliable and the service accessible whenever it's been called.

Just curious to know if this is a fluke or just par for the course nowadays.

Fortunately, my connection has always remained solid (at least as far as I can detect). When the silence happens I always get a 'Success' response in NR and all my other Alexa functions work fine, it's only the speech. I have noticed that I think it gets knocked out when I get an Alexa notification from the cloud like when a package from Amazon arrives. I haven't been able to perform any controlled tests to isolate that theory yet but that's my perception. Other than that I haven't notice any other pattern. It's not a high priority flush out as I built in a reset function from my home automation (which I can trigger with Alexa, which I find funny).

Hi.. i've not been having much luck with the node.. i have to keep doing the inject node to do the initialise again.. sometimes you have to do it a couple times and then it is fine.. but it just fails again soon after.

make this node very unusable :frowning: even though it actually got some great features.

In my hope i also installing a forked version called node-red-contrib-alexa-cakebaked but that still does the same thing... wanting to load up browser to sign back into the Amazon account.

tried the flow above that suppose to update every 30mins.. as well

out of interest is there any Alexa Nodes that just does Speak?

ta.

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I have been using node-red-contrib-alexa-cakebaked (node) - Node-RED as well my and my

debug messages have gone away and everything seems to be working as it should be. That maintainer also seems to be much more active.

I used this method more changing from the normal remote2 and it was seamless:

@Cjkeenan Thanks for the heads up on that node.

As of now remote2 is completely failing to work and is flooding my dns (pi hole) with millions of requests.

I tried to install cakebaked but it will not work alongside remote2 so I'm just about to delete my remote2 nodes so I can uninstall it !

Edit: just realised you have posted a workaround for this. Great job.

been using the cakebaked version for a couple weeks now and show how it has settled down and seems to be working ok since.

i removed remote2 completely then installed Cakebaked and then reeditted all the nodes to work again.

in config i have the cookie path set.. eg
/mnt/dietpi_userdata/node-red/cookie.txt

Auto Init Off / Events On.

also have the refresh flow posted somewhere earlier that does a refresh every 30mins and cookie refresh.

I think the important change for me was that before i was creating the cookie file and then pasting in the grabbed cookie values..

Where this time i gave it a different name that didnt exist and let the Config create it.

or could just been pot-luck and it stops working 5mins after posting this LOL!

Thanks!

My post (the one you quoted) was back in December when I stated I had had no problems for many months. Obviously I tempted fate because, as we all know, everything went sideways and now nothing works.

I had hoped the author of alexa-remote2 would find the time to correct it. However, it's been a few weeks now so it appears I will need to switch to alexa-cakebaked. Thanks again for reporting its availability.

Hi,
I've spent hours and hours to make it happen but it seems that the nodes are working not longer than 5 minutes only properly, configured with proxy authentication.
With a refresh and redeploy it is working for the next couple of seconds until 'Error while checking authentication'.
Has someone found a solution or do I have just to deinstall the Alexa Remote2?
At the moment it isn't usefull at all.

The node seems to do different things for different people :frowning:

For me, the listening to commands side has been working flawlessly for a couple of months

I don't use the speaking facility much - and even though I reset it each night - it will randomly fail during the day. But using an inject to trigger and initialise works to restore this.

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As mentioned above....try cakebaked. It is working well for me. I am currently trying injecting cookie every 24 hours.

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For me cakebaked is not working anyway.

After first inizialization, as soon as I Deploy something I am getting "Error while checking Authentication: Error: no JSON" message.

To everyone: this node has been forked!

Please read here: This module has been forked because the maintainer had disappeared. PLEASE READ! · Issue #201 · 586837r/node-red-contrib-alexa-remote2 · GitHub

2 Likes

Can someone be so kind as to explain how to refresh the cookie file and have it INIT let's say every hour?
I see people here talking about it, but it is obvious that I am not smart enough to understand without pictures!

Also, anyone found a better alternative that is rock solid yet? Love the idea of having Alexa announce, or just say stuff when certain things happen, but SUCKS when it just randomly stops.

Hope if this helps. it been working for me now for quite some time where before it would just stop working every day.

so this is the flow i have, no idea if this what has sorted it.

[{"id":"e0083a78.1fcd58","type":"group","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","name":"","style":{"stroke":"#ffcf3f","fill":"#ffefbf","label":true},"nodes":["675460ec.13bd78","ebd93115.caa3f8","85cc1a9e.98baf","fe958c08.c5ee38","679b5d5a.d143b4","9262897.11cae78","79cf360a.a49148","b613adcd.84e2f","d9d21565.dec6","d3a73930.50f9b8","863ad3bc.99d47","1208dba6.c05524"],"x":34,"y":319,"w":852,"h":262},{"id":"675460ec.13bd78","type":"inject","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"},{"p":"topic","vt":"str"}],"repeat":"3600","crontab":"","once":true,"onceDelay":"0.5","topic":"","payload":"alexa","payloadType":"flow","x":150,"y":540,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"ebd93115.caa3f8","type":"trigger","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","op1":"","op2":"","op1type":"pay","op2type":"pay","duration":"10","extend":false,"units":"ms","reset":"","bytopic":"all","topic":"topic","outputs":2,"x":350,"y":360,"wires":[["85cc1a9e.98baf"],["fe958c08.c5ee38"]]},{"id":"85cc1a9e.98baf","type":"change","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"reset","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"reset","pt":"msg","to":"1","tot":"str"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":360,"y":420,"wires":[["679b5d5a.d143b4"]]},{"id":"fe958c08.c5ee38","type":"alexa-remote-init","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"Initialise","account":"f4d9fba3.0c4f08","option":"initialise","x":560,"y":380,"wires":[["9262897.11cae78"]]},{"id":"679b5d5a.d143b4","type":"trigger","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","op1":"alexa","op2":"0","op1type":"flow","op2type":"str","duration":"-30","extend":false,"units":"min","reset":"","bytopic":"all","topic":"topic","outputs":1,"x":500,"y":480,"wires":[["b613adcd.84e2f"]]},{"id":"9262897.11cae78","type":"change","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"alexa","pt":"flow","to":"payload","tot":"msg"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":760,"y":380,"wires":[["79cf360a.a49148"]]},{"id":"79cf360a.a49148","type":"trigger","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","op1":"","op2":"alexa","op1type":"nul","op2type":"flow","duration":"30","extend":false,"units":"min","reset":"","bytopic":"all","topic":"topic","outputs":1,"x":310,"y":480,"wires":[["679b5d5a.d143b4"]]},{"id":"b613adcd.84e2f","type":"change","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"payload","pt":"msg","to":"alexa","tot":"flow"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":700,"y":480,"wires":[["d9d21565.dec6"]]},{"id":"d9d21565.dec6","type":"alexa-remote-init","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"refresh Cookie","account":"f4d9fba3.0c4f08","option":"refresh","x":780,"y":540,"wires":[["9262897.11cae78"]]},{"id":"d3a73930.50f9b8","type":"inject","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"},{"p":"topic","vt":"str"}],"repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"topic":"","payload":"alexa","payloadType":"flow","x":540,"y":540,"wires":[["d9d21565.dec6"]]},{"id":"863ad3bc.99d47","type":"catch","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","scope":["20baae0e.ce9082","36f7cc0a.9f479c","ff75ab6f.05e978","7be2ba81.886ae4","fe958c08.c5ee38","d9d21565.dec6"],"uncaught":false,"x":190,"y":360,"wires":[["ebd93115.caa3f8"]]},{"id":"1208dba6.c05524","type":"inject","z":"5c0266f6.1b3f78","g":"e0083a78.1fcd58","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"}],"repeat":"","crontab":"*/30 0-22 * * *","once":true,"onceDelay":0.1,"topic":"","payload":"alexa","payloadType":"flow","x":170,"y":400,"wires":[["ebd93115.caa3f8"]]},{"id":"f4d9fba3.0c4f08","type":"alexa-remote-account","name":"AlexaRemote","authMethod":"proxy","proxyOwnIp":"192.168.0.26","proxyPort":"3456","cookieFile":"/mnt/dietpi_userdata/node-red/cookie.txt","refreshInterval":"3","alexaServiceHost":"alexa.amazon.co.uk","amazonPage":"amazon.co.uk","acceptLanguage":"en-UK","userAgent":"","useWsMqtt":"on","autoInit":"off"}]

and the Alexa Config details.

Why all that complex stuff??
You are saving the cookie in a file (from your settings), but the flow use a variable for the cookie!

I am just injecting every hour a timestamp in the Alexa Init node (saving the cookie to a file). That's it!

indeed.. the flow was from an earlier post.. honestly it was a copy and paste lol.
the Setting bit is where i think it is working now.. for the FilePath i made sure it pointed to a file that did not exist so it created it with the required permissions.

So either 1 is making it work or 1 of them is.. i haven't really tried disabling either.. as like i said it been working fine for months so its like tempting fate to go poking around now :slight_smile:

Has anyone managed to get this working in the last few days??

I had a flow working fine until a couple of days ago and now it has stopped and gives this error message.
Screen Shot 04-17-21 at 11.55 AM

I've also tried 'alexa-remote2-v2' (as the last update was done 2-weeks ago) but this gives the same error message.

I think the problem may relate to the cookie file not being created.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.