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Google Home Speakers and Chromecast Are Down Worldwide, Company Confirms (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by msmash on from the internet-of-things dept.

"Sorry, something went wrong. Try again in a few seconds." That's the response that Google smart speaker users around the world heard Wednesday when they asked their devices to play music, get the weather or even respond to its "Hey, Google" prompt. From a report: Google confirmed there's a problem with both their smart speakers and the Chromecast, the plug-in video casting dongle for televisions. While the company did not say how many people are affected or what caused the issue, it did confirm it's working on a fix. "We're aware of an issue affecting some Google Home and Chromecast users. We're investigating the issue and working on a solution," Google said in a statement. Google Home and Chromecast owners started reporting issues to Google early Wednesday morning, according to online help forums for both devices. Devices affected by the problem have lost their normal functions.

12 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. This is why... by Nutria · · Score: 2

    explicitly bought a media player that has an Ethernet port and is a dlna client, while running a dlna server on my main PC.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:This is why... by omnichad · · Score: 2

      If you haven't manually blocked automatic firmware updates, you may not be in a much better position.

    2. Re:This is why... by Khyber · · Score: 2

      How do you know your ethernet-connected media player isn't phoning home on you?

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  2. Confirmed; Happened to me this morning by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

    My Google Home is used, among other things, as my alarm clock.

    This morning, the alarm went off as normal, but after about the third tone it said "Sorry, something went wrong..."

    Every attempt to activate it after that produced the same thing.

    I even reset it. It would then respond, but when I asked it to play the news or music it went back to the "something went wrong" BS.

    Figured I would troubleshoot when I got home today. Interesting to know that I am not the only one.

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  3. Washington Post by cliffjumper222 · · Score: 2

    Of course, the WaPo would report this!

    1. Re:Washington Post by sysrammer · · Score: 2

      Yeah. Didn't realize what your point was until I figured out the central person involved. A quick google shows a only one other site picking this up.

      Found this in my surfing and thought I'd regurgitate it for my amusement: from 2017, "Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users".

      Anyways, as always, I offer my condolences to those with first world problems.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  4. It was to be expected but... by Teun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That the home speakers need net access to slurp your data was to be expected.
    But as someone that contemplated (past tense) getting a Chromecast I am still surprised the damn thing can't stream from laptop or phone to the TV without accessing Google.

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  5. Why Chromecast? by klingens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I understand that internet-of-shit things like Google Home cannot work when the server end which does the actual speech rec is down. That's why no one sane buys such crap after Nest. And whoever still buys it deserves anything he gets.

    However, Chromecast ist a doodad for my TV so my Android Smartphone or Chrome browser can push whatever is on their screen to my big TV, right? This is a cheapo 5cent ARM CPU with 500MB of RAM and a wireless adapter. Basically a small step up from a ESP8266. Why would this need an Internet connection to a mothership? No speech rec or similar. What for? It's by definition in my LAN/WLAN only. Can someone explain this to someone else who owns neither a chromecast nor a spying microphone?

    1. Re:Why Chromecast? by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google uses the internet connection for transmitting data back to them about your device, your media, really anything they want. What they collect changes regularly and is used for marketing and profiling purposes.

    2. Re:Why Chromecast? by sysrammer · · Score: 2

      Yes. That is the primary purpose. Any technical reason is simply a justification for data munching^W^W enhancing the user experience.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:Why Chromecast? by rundgong · · Score: 2

      > When you "cast" from Netflix to Chromecast, your Chromecast streams from Netflix and not the device that initiated it.

      But before you are even allowed to start the netflix app on the CC it does a lot of different checks to verify that you are connected to the internet. Probably one of the servers they try to contact to do this has some problems.

  6. Google-over-Slack by Chelloveck · · Score: 2

    Wait a minute... Slack was offline this morning too. Does this mean Google Home is using Slack as its transport layer?

    Frankly, I'm not sure if I'm joking here.

    --
    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.