Amazon Echo Skill all devices 'not responding' until Hub rebooted

Main one

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this means it has nothing to do with hubitat. and is indeed some network issue or unique amazon configuration issue on your side.

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Almost looks like the Hubitat skill "loses" authorization, but is fixed by a reboot. So there is still something going on with Hubitat (maybe Hubitat's cloud).

that would be my guess. the cookie is expiring somewhere like the alexa voice stuff. but it seems a general issue that it expires and not a hubitat issue if the app also doesnt work.. In fact it appears hubit fixes it by rebooting the hub.. not sure why that would be. can we confirm that the alexa app also does not work at these times and after rebooting the hub, it also starts working again?

hubitat would have to look up if there is any and what code in the hub or echo skill that is run on a reboot.

I think @d114 has observed this.

Confirmed. Alexa app is also broken until the hub is rebooted.

I don't think the issue is with your Hubitat hub itself. For some reason (perhaps Hubitat's cloud, or perhaps something on the Alexa cloud), the authentication cookie is expiring.

I use Node-RED for some of my Alexa voice control, and have resorted to renewing that authentication cookie a couple times a week.

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instead of rebooting have you tried going into the skill and clicking done.. to see if that resets it.

i personally am not using the skill just the older amazon echo app as i only control lights and switches..

We've made all sorts of config changes to the Amazon Echo Skill in hubitat. I even completely deleted and recreated it.

Interestingly, when I did that, I could not even get the Alexa skill re-enabled without a reboot.

Do you have any cloud-enabled Hubitat Dashboards? It would be helpful to try one of those cloud dashboards when this issue occurs. Make sure to disable WiFi on your phone, and then run the test. I'd really like to know if the issue is specific to just the Alexa integration, or if any other cloud connected integrations are impacted. I know you mentioned that Google Home still continues to work, which I find interesting as well. :thinking:

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Yes, Google Home has always worked consistently and continues to work when the Alexa integration is busted.

I do not have any cloud enabled dashboards; will set one up and see what happens.

I have just thought of another idea... Are you using the PRIMARY Account Holder on the Amazon Alexa account, when enabling the Alexa Skill within the Alexa mobile app on your phone? I know some people have had issues when using a subaccount instead of the primary/main account user. Just a guess...:wink:

My account is the primary --and only-- account configured on Alexa.

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Alexa skill tokens expire every hour, and the skill renews them a few minutes before. I've made a special note to not update a particular hub running Alexa integration, and we'll know if it's going to blow up next Monday. I've also checked both Alexa skill settings and skill code, and there's nothing set to explicitly expire in a week. That doesn't mean there isn't an implicit default somewhere, though.

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Did you ever look at your gear icon menu for this app like I mentioned above? Maybe @gopher.ny would like a screenshot of it?

As you correctly pointed out, probably too much info in there for a public post. @gopher.ny let me know if you need any specific details of my setup.

There are a couple quick things that you can check without posting them.

First: take the epoch time for "tokenExpires", and see if that converts to being within one hour from now.
Second: See if there is a scheduled job for "getAlexaAccessToken" which is scheduled for just before the time that "tokenExpires".

If both of those are true, then it would certainly seem like the Skill is behaving as expected on your Hubitat, allowing @gopher.ny to focus on other causes for this problem.

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Ok here we go -- 7 days of uptime since last hub reboot, Alexa integration is dead again. Leaving it dead for now and not rebooting so we can collect info.

In the Alexa skill, refresh tokens are good. Had a good token when I first brought the page up, watched it renew on schedule. Alexa still busted.

Cloud dashboard I configured and tested yesterday is also now dead -- page just says "no response from hub."

Google Home integration is, as always, still working right now.

I really think this has to be a network issue. What does your router have for IP address lease time? And there is nothing like "flood control" turned on in your router?

But lets have @gopher.ny look at this.

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I agree.

Edit: Specifically a network issue between your Hubitat and the Hubitat cloud. Clearly not a LAN or generalized WAN access isue.

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