How to Fix Common Alexa Issues

Having problems with Alexa and need to know how to fix common Alexa issues? Is your Alexa device not working properly?

Stop worrying! You are at the right place now. Here in this article, I am going to provide you with A to Z solutions for your Alexa device problems.

Alexa is a device which is created to make your life easier. It plays the songs you want to listen, any historical facts you want to know, control devices using your voice and many more. For all these things you don’t need to open your mobile or desktop manually, you just have to say it to Alexa and Alexa will find the information for you. But what if your Alexa is creating some problem, maybe it is a connection problem or maybe you are new to Alexa, so you need some setup but not getting the appropriate information.

You might also be interested in:- 8 Essential Alexa Security Tips

You don’t have to worry about that. This article will solve all your problems regarding Alexa. So, let’s proceed right to the solutions of various issues you may face with your Alexa device. In this article, I am going to discuss some common issues you may face while using Alexa. Before start reading the article you must plug your Echo device in and you must have “Amazon Alexa” application on your mobile phone. So, let’s get started.

What to do when Alexa doesn’t understand me?

Alexa might not understand you sometimes. It may give you unwanted results or wrong result irrespective to your need. Alexa needs a simple training to understand you properly. If you do the training for any of the Amazon device, Alexa would be trained for all the devices automatically for the respective Amazon account. Before proceeding for the training, make sure there are no other disturbing sounds around you.

Steps to train and make Alexa Understand you!

• From your mobile, go to the “Amazon Alexa” application.
• From the Home page, go to the three stacked bar from the top left corner of the screen. If you are not logged in, sign-in with your Amazon account.
• Select “Settings” from the side pop-up screen which appears.
• Now select “Voice training” from the new screen.

• Select the Echo device by clicking the down arrow below “Voice Training”.
• Click “Next”
• Read the sentence from the pop-up screen and click “Next”.

• Repeat the step till all 25 sentences get completed. Before reading, practice the sentence once and then record for better results.
• Click “Complete” after completion of all 25 sentences.
• Select “Go to Home page” from the new pop-up screen. If you want to train Alexa for any other friend or family member, click “Start New Session” and follow the same steps as mentioned above.

Hurray! You have successfully trained Alexa. Now it will properly understand you. So, now you will not face any difficulty of Alexa not understanding you.

How to connect Alexa to Wi-Fi?

You got a new Amazon Echo device or your existing Amazon Echo device gets disconnected. You just need some Wi-Fi settings from your Alexa app and Alexa will start working perfectly. Amazon Echo device only connects to dual-band Wi-Fi. It does not connect to ad-hoc networks.

Steps To Connect Alexa to WiFi

• Open “Amazon Alexa” application from your mobile.
• Select the three stacked bar from the top-left corner of the home screen.
• Select “Settings” from the side pop-up screen.
• Click “Set up a new device”. If you have an existing Wi-Fi, then select “Update Wi-Fi”.
• Press the “Action button” of your Amazon Echo device until the ring turns on with orange light.
• Select “Connect to Wi-Fi” from Alexa app.
• Select the Wi-Fi network of your Amazon Echo device from the list of available Wi-Fi networks and enter the password. If you are unable to see the Wi-Fi network, click “Re-scan” or select “Add a network”.
• Click “Connect”.
• You will receive a pop-up message “Setup complete”.

Hurray! Alexa is now connected to Wi-Fi. So, now you Alexa has successfully connected yo you WiFi network.

How to enable Alexa calling?

Alexa calling is a great feature for communication. The communication may be in the form of a call, a text or a voice message. You can easily connect a call or receive a call from any of the Alexa device even when you are not close to your mobile phone. Alexa calling supports Alexa- to -Alexa calling, which includes making a call within a country as well as international calling. It also supports landline and mobile numbers for those who are having a contact number of U.S., U.K., Canada and Mexico.

Alexa calling is only supported on iOS 10.0 or above, android 5.0 or above or fire tablets. To enable Alexa calling you to need your mobile number and a saved contact list of numbers of your friends and family. So, follow the steps below to enable Alexa calling.

Steps To Enable Alexa calling

• Open the Alexa application from your mobile phone.
• If you are not logged-in, sign-in with your Amazon account.
• Go to the communication tab from the bottom bar of the home screen.
• Write your full name, verify your contact number, and give permission to Amazon Alexa to access the contact list of your mobile phone.
• Now you are ready to use Alexa communication.

To call someone simply say “Alexa call “name of the person”. To hang up a call, say “Alexa, end the call” or “Alexa hang up”. Or to answer an incoming call, say “Alexa, answer the call”. To reject a call, say “Alexa, ignore”. If you don’t want to receive any call or messages, say “Alexa, turn-on do not disturb”. To again receive calls from Alexa, say “Alexa, turn-off do not disturb”.

What to do when Alexa is not streaming?

Mostly the streaming issues occur due to low internet connection, low bandwidth or interruption of other objects. Make sure you have an internet connection of at least 0.51 Mbps. Make sure your device is placed away from walls, floors, any kind of metal objects or any kind of objects which may create interference such as microwave ovens, televisions, etc. So, follow the few steps to fix the issue of streaming issue :

• Switch off the devices which are not in use but connected to Wi-Fi. Due to more number of devices connected to a single Wi-Fi, bandwidth becomes low and hence may not stream the Alexa properly. This usually happens when the echo device is connected to the router’s 2.4 GHz channel.
• Keep the echo device very close to router and modem without interruption of any other disturbing objects.
• Connect your echo device to router’s 5GHz channel for better performance and better range. A number of devices connected to Wi-Fi would not be an issue then.
• Switch off the router and modem and wait for few seconds. Now switch on the modem and wait till it is started again. Again, now switch on the router and wait till it is started again. Now turn off and then turn on the echo device.
• If you know that you are having a firewall on your network, then check whether the following UDP ports are open to outgoing traffic. The UDP ports are as follows- 123, 443, 4070, 5353, 40317, 49317, 33434.
• If you are still facing problem in streaming the Alexa, then you should consult your Internet service provider, router manufacturer or network administrator.

Hurray! Alexa will be now streaming properly. You will not face any problem with Alexa streaming from now.

What to do when Alexa is red and not working?

If Your Alexa device’s ring turns red and says “Sorry, I’m having trouble understanding you right now”. Feels like Alexa is discouraging you. The Echo device’s ring turns red when the microphone is muted or it is turned off for some reason. Before moving ahead, make sure you are having a good internet connection, your device does not face any kind of interruption by other objects, the device must be very close to router and modem and your device is properly connected to Wi-Fi. Alexa app should be updated. So, follow the steps below to rectify the error.

• Press and hold the microphone button of your Alexa device which turns on your echo device and the red light ring will turn off.
• Restart your Alexa device if the red light ring is still turned on, by plugging off then plugging on the device.
• Check the IP address of your echo device in your router. It may be blocked. Un-block it and the red light ring is turned off.
• Check if you are having updated firmware in Alexa device.
• Press and hold the Reset button of your Echo device. It is inside a hole. The ring will turn orange and now the echo device is in Setup mode. Setup the device as the Alexa instructs you to do.

Congratulations! Alexa is working properly and the ring is not red. Contact your manufacturer or retailer for a hardware issue. If you are still unable to solve the problem.

What to do when there are unwanted activations?

Unwanted response from Alexa is very common among all the Alexa users. It may be some unwanted search result by listening some sort of voice, for example- Alexa catches sound from A series going on in television. Or it may be some annoying sounds from the Alexa device quite a sudden, even though the environment is very much quite. Sometimes it may happen that Alexa starts speaking private conversation. This is quite an embarrassing as well as an annoying situation. This may affect your privacy.

Amazon assures that they take care of our privacy to the best of their knowledge. Follow the steps below to get rid of the unwanted activations in Alexa.

• Go to settings from Alexa app on your mobile phone.
• Chose your Amazon Echo device, select “Change wake word” and select either “Amazon” or “Echo” instead of “Alexa”.
• Press the microphone button from your Alexa device when there is some other sound in the room or you are in a conversation via echo device.
• Turn off the camera by saying “Alexa, turn the camera off” if you don’t want the use of the camera while conversation.
• Go to settings from Alexa app on your mobile phone. Select “Alexa Privacy” and then select “Manage How your data improves Alexa”.

• Switch-off the sliding button next to “Help improve Amazon Services and Develop New Features”. By doing this you free from human scrutinizing.

• Go to settings from Alexa app and select “Alexa Privacy”. Select “Review voice history”. Select “All History” from date range and then select “Delete all recordings for all History”. This will delete all the saved voice recordings from Alexa.

Hurray! Alexa is now free from unwanted activations and you are safe from privacy issues.

What to do when alarms and notifications are too loud?

All Alexa users must be very familiar with too much loud volume of alarms and notification. The volume differs from the music volume of Alexa and both the volumes are handled differently. Sometimes it may happen that the alarm tune which has been chosen by default seems to be very much loud. So, follow the steps below to adjust the volume of notifications and alarms.

• Firstly, open the Amazon Alexa app from your mobile phone.
• Tap the three stacked bar at the top left corner of the screen.
• Go to “Settings”
• Select your Echo device
• Lastly, select “Sounds” from the new screen.

Now you can adjust the volume bar according to your need.

Follow the steps below to change the default alarm sound.

• Firstly, open the Alexa app from your mobile.
• Select the three stacked bars at the top left corner of the screen.
• Go to settings.
• Tap “Timers and Alarms” from the new screen.
• Then go to “Alarms”.
• Select “Manage alarm volume and default sound”.
• Select “Alarm” and choose the desired tune you want to set.

Hurray! With this, you have successfully adjusted the volume level of alarms and notifications of your Amazon Echo device. You now know how to fix common Alexa loud noise issues.

How to Reset Amazon echo?

It may happen that you want to play Alexa with a new Amazon account or your echo device is not functioning well or you want to sell your echo device to a friend, you need to reset the echo device. By factory reset, all your smart home Echo device connections will be lost and you have to set it all again. If you don’t want to lose the connections, kindly don’t reset your device. So, follow the steps below to reset your echo device.

• Firstly, open the Amazon Alexa app from your mobile phone and select “Settings” from the menu.
• Secondly, select the Echo device you want to reset. Select “Deregister” on the new screen which appears.
• Long press the Reset button of your echo device until the light ring turns orange.
• The reset button may differ from generation to generation. Generation 1 has the reset button below the echo device inside a hole. Reset device for generation 2 is “Microphone off” and “Volume down” buttons and for generation 3 the rest button is the “Action” button.
• The light ring will first turn orange then turn blue then turn off and then finally it will turn orange.
• Open the Alexa app from your mobile.
• Go to the three stacked bars at the top left corner.
• Go to “Settings” and select “Add device”.
• Select the Wi-Fi network of your respective echo device from the list of available Wi-Fi networks.
• Lastly, select “Connect”.
• You will receive a message that your echo device is now connected.

Congratulations! You have successfully done the factory reset of your echo device. Now it will work like a new echo device with no interruption. You now know how to fix common Alexa resetting issues.

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How to connect Alexa to Bluetooth?

Pairing your echo device with Bluetooth of your mobile phone would be very easy in streaming music. You may pair your Echo device with Bluetooth speaker which will help you in many ways. You don’t have to stick to your echo device to listen to music, you can listen music from anywhere within the house with good sound quality. Echo device connects with only one Bluetooth device at a time. Bluetooth speakers should be 1 meter apart from the echo device during pairing. So, let’s see how to connect your Alexa to Bluetooth.

Pairing echo device with mobile phone

To pair your Echo device to your Mobile phone, follow the steps given below.

• Firstly, open “Settings” of your mobile phone and turn on the Bluetooth of your device.
• Start your echo device and say “Alexa, enter pairing”. The wake-up sound may differ.
• Lastly, select the echo device from the available list of Bluetooth devices from your phone.
• You will receive a message from Alexa that your device is now connected. Alexa will also instruct you if it gets disconnected then say “connect to my phone” and it will again connect your device.

Congratulations! You have successfully paired the echo device with your Mobile device. You now know how to fix common Alexa mobile pairing issues.

Pairing echo device with Bluetooth speakers

To pair your Echo device to the nearby Bluetooth speakers, follow the steps given below.

• Firstly, turn on the pairing mode of your Bluetooth speaker.
• Go to Alexa app and select “Settings” from the menu.
• Select your device.
• Select “Bluetooth” and select “Pair a new device”.
• Lastly, select Bluetooth speakers from the list of Bluetooth devices.
• You will receive a message from Alexa that the Bluetooth speakers are connected and Alexa will also instruct you to pair the speakers again if it gets disconnected.

Congratulations! You have successfully paired the echo device with Bluetooth. You now know how to fix common Alexa Bluetooth pairing issues.

What to do if Alexa skills are not doing what they are told?

Using Alexa skills will make your life a bit easy with very enabling of things like turning on the AC, accessing web series from your TV and many more by just only voice commands. Alexa skills will also improve business abilities. It can connect to a wide range from all across the world. We face problem in Alexa skills when we don’t know what to say exactly and very less knowledge of “Smart Home Skills”. There are so many smart home skills which we can easily connect through and make our lives easier.

• Firstly, go to Amazon Alexa app from your mobile phone.
• Secondly, select “Devices” from the bottom of the screen of the home page.
• Now select “YOUR SMART HOME SKILLS”.
• Select “ENABLE SMART HOME SKILLS”.
• Select the Smart Home Skill from the list of available Smart Home Skills.
• Click “Enable to use” and follow the on-screen instructions to enable the skill.
• Each Smart Home Skill has its own instructions about what you have to say it to Alexa, follow it and say it accordingly.
• If you are facing problem in any particular skill, click “HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE SKILL?” of a particular Smart Home Skill and type the problem you are facing. You will get results accordingly.
• If you are still facing problem go to “Alexa Skill Kit”, here your all doubts would be cleared.

Hurray! Alexa skill will follow you properly. So, now you will not face any command difficulty with your Alexa device. You now know how to fix common Alexa command listening issues.

What to do when Alexa is not responding?

There are so many reasons for not working Alexa properly, sometimes it is just a simple setting or sometimes it may be a manufacturing issue. You may have a problem in connecting Wi-Fi or your echo device is turned on red. For proper functioning of Alexa, you need a strong Wi-Fi with powerful channels. Before making the changes, make sure you have an original adapter connected to the echo device, your echo device is free from any kind of interruption and it should be away from floors and walls.

Make sure the Microphone button is switched on. Restart the device before amendments. If you have echo device speakers then keep them 1 meter apart from each other.

• Firstly, switch off the mobile data on your mobile phone.
• Sign –in router portal from your favourite browser.
• Type the IP address. You can find it in the base of your Router.
• Sign-in with your username and password.
• Click “Wireless setting”
• Divide the network channel into 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz band.
• Change the Wi-Fi names, different for both the channels.
• Set the network value to “Auto” for both the channel.
• Now set any value from 1-10 for 2.4GHz channel.
• Set any value from 36-48 or from 149-165 for 5.0GHz channel. You must prefer the highest value within the range for both the channel.
• Select “WPA2-PSK [AES]” as network security.
• Select the checkbox next to “Disable port scan and dos protection”.
• Connect your echo device to 5.0GHz channel network.
• Now you are free from red-light ring error and your echo device will have a very strong performance.
• If the LED is not working properly of your echo device, contact the manufacturer or retailer. It may be a hardware issue.

Hurray! Now Alexa will respond properly. You now know how to fix Alexa not responding issues.

How to get Alexa to play music?

What to do if Alexa plays music on the wrong device? Alexa supports Multi-Room Music group which make it easy to play music in more than one Echo device in a house from different rooms at the same time. Sometimes the music is played by an echo device that is not expected. The main reason of this happening is due to different groups formed for echo devices and Sonos.

Steps to fix the issue of Alexa playing music on the wrong device:

• Firstly, open your Alexa app from your mobile phone.
• Secondly, select “Devices” from the bottom of the home screen.
• Disable “Sonos” smart home skill and then enable it.
• Click the “+” icon from the top of the device’s screen.
• Select “Add Multi-Room Music Speakers”.
• Select “Custom name” and create a group name.
• Lastly, select the Echo device and the preferred Sonos for the same in one group. In this way keep different echo devices in different groups.
• Now you have to say “Play [music] on [group name]” and will start playing from the desired echo device.

Hurray! you have successfully played music on your Alexa device. So, you now know how to fix Alexa music issues.

Alexa Music Commands

Here is a list of some of the best commands that you can use on your Alexa device to play music.

• You can control the volume of the music by saying “Alexa, turn the volume [up/down]” or “Alexa, volume [1-10]”. Say “Alexa, mute/unmute”.
• To control the playback music say the following:- “Alexa, play/resume [the music you want to play]” “Alexa, stop/pause” to stop or pause the music.
• Play the next or the previous song, say- “Alexa, next/previous [song of your choice].
• To skip a song, say “Alexa, skip [the song]”.
• To listen to the music from a particular second, say “Alexa, jump/skip back/forward [_seconds/minutes]”.
• Say “Alexa, restart the song” to restart the song from the beginning.
• Say “Alexa, turn on/off shuffle” to control the shuffling of the songs.
• You can say “Alexa, play the album [album name]” to play the songs from a particular album.
• Say “Alexa, play songs by [artist name]” or “Alexa, play the album [album name] by [artist name]” to the play the songs by a particular album of the artist.
• Say “Alexa, play [genre name] music. This will play the song by the particular genre you have selected. Few known genres are- folk, jazz, dance, pop, rock, world, vocal, rap, hip-hop etc.
• You can say “Alexa, play music for [activity of your choice]”. Here activity includes jogging, running, dancing, morning songs.
• Say “Alexa, play some [mood] music”. Mood includes all kind of mood swings of yours such as happy, sad, angry, romantic, energetic, etc.

So, these are the most common Alexa commands that you can use on your Alexa device. You can get a complete list of commands for your Alexa on the Cnet Website.

What to do when Alexa does not play music from Spotify?

Alexa is unable to play music from Spotify because of the simple setup which is not yet done. Alexa only supports Spotify premium, if you don’t have Spotify premium then you may choose Amazon prime music instead of Spotify.

• Firstly, go to Alexa app from your mobile phone.
• Select “Settings” from the three stacked bar at the top-left corner.
• Select “Music and Media” from the new screen.
• Link your Spotify account.

• Lastly, select “Spotify” under “Choose default music services”.
• Your echo device is now connected with Spotify successfully.

Now you will be able to play music from Spotify on your Alexa device successfully. You now know how to fix common Alexa music issues.

You need to read this article:- Apps Like Spotify: 10 Free Alternatives

So, that’s the end of this article. If you are having any difficulty or queries or doubts regarding any of the methods mentioned above. Feel free to mention them in the Comments Section below. I’ll be more than happy to help you with it. Now you don’t have to search anymore about ‘How to fix common Alexa issues’ on the Internet.