I use the chromecast beta and it occasionally happens on mine as well. I have a rule that clears and reinitializes all my speakers using a virtual switch as a trigger. This seems to keep it working for a bit after I find that they have lost connection:
My Refresh Rule
It also refreshes all of my Samsung speakers. So, I lined them out and I put a red box around the section for the Chromecast ones. The underlined will also be needed. I highlighted the commands, then you select all of your speakers to replace mine that are not highlighted.
Also, if you did not, you should enable the polling in the chromecast app. I believe the default is 15 seconds. It did not eliminate the issue. But, it did make it so that I do not have to clear them nearly as often.
I've been using this for years and can't remember the last time my Google assistants quit making announcements. The built in polling option did not work as well as this app does.
I have had a lot of issues trying to use groups though and no longer have any included within HE
I just tried using a group today for the first time to see if it worked better and for whatever reason it works fine for me so far....
I hadn't turned polling on within the Chromecast app until just now, so we'll see how that goes. If I keep having problems, I'll try that Chromecast Helper app next.
I've been on the platform since April of 2020 (I came over from Smartthings) and the Google devices have always quit announcing for me unless they were "nudged". You could also just try issuing an "initialize" command for each device using Rule Machine on a continuous basis (i.e. every 4 minutes) or whatever works for you.
You need at least Initialize and Refresh. I added a speak command for confirmation that the initialization worked. But, I only do it on a virtual switch. I can see where that would not be ideal if you were doing it every X hours or minutes. Mine do not drop off that frequently anymore. So the virtual switch option works for me.
Yeah it stopped working again today. With polling on, no difference. The group dropped out just like the individual devices did.
I decided to say heck with an app or a continuously running rule in the background to refresh on a regular basis - that seems like it takes up way more resources than necessary when this is literally only for a doorbell chime... SO, what I did was just add an "initialize" command and a "refresh" command just before the command to play the chime in my original doorbell rule. This literally solves the problem (so far...) and adds maybe an additional second of latency before the chime sounds - but it works perfectly so far and doesn't require anything continuously running.
