Knock on wood, it's only been the TTS that has been affected on my end. Although I don't use the Alexa- NR link that heavily to know if my other commands, like volume, are affected, too. The next time it stops I'll try to adjust the volume and see what happens.
Ive had the alexa routine node stop speaking on and off for a week or so now, I would just re-initialize my account and everything would work.
But the last couple of days, this has not worked...
The routine node status changes to success, but nothing is actually spoken on my devices. A debug node also has msg.payload = null
Anyone figured another way to keep her talking?
I can keep it running by doing a "reload" redeploy every hour but this is not a good solution. Redeploying goofs up my Rasberry PI outputs. I wish I could find a way to reset just the Alexa node.
Knock on wood, re-init'ing the interface still works on my setup. I set up a virtual switch in my Hubitat that I can turn on through Alexa that performs the re-init function and so far it's been working. I wish there was a way to detect that it's not functioning and self correct but this is all I've been able to find that works at all.
@Marty_B @wecoyote5
Well as of last night, the init node cant even generate the cookie
I keep getting an unexpected end to json error.
This was common for a aussie acoount some time ago but fixed itself! Now its broken again, so just have to keep trying.
I use hubitat also and like the virtual switch option. Once its working again ill look at setting the same up
I use an inject node to re-init every few hours.
On the odd occasion when I still don't get speech, I have set up a routine on the Alexa app. A remote2 device activity node listens for this and then activates the init node.
So I say "Alexa, sort yourself out" and it works again.
Could you explain a bit more on how you do this?
Here is a pic of my flow alexa init
First create a ROUTINE that listens for a phrase of your choice - I did this on the alexa app on my phone e.g. so when you say "Alexa, Sort yourself out" it says back "I am sorted".
Now set the node red Alexa 2 node to listen for that phrase - In the command box select device activity.
Feed the output into a switch node with property msg.payload.description.summary. Output matches regex "sort yourself out" or the phrase you have used.
The change node then changes the payload to flow.alexa (this is the stored cookie from the init node).
Hope that helps.
Got you - I thought you'd come up with a way to monitor what Alexa says 
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 [/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.
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 
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
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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