I have a few of these around the house. Lately they have not been playing or speaking anything. When mail arrives, I have it speak on these speakers "mail has arrived". I also have the speakers announce when its almost time for the kids to go to bed. Lately, and I have been trying this today, I am trying to send any text speech to the devices. I send a speech to it that clearly says "this is a test", and all is heard on the speaker is "Tssssss"... a brief second. Or should I say it says "tiss". Just a sound effect rather.
I also uploaded a file that says "you've got mail" to the hub and tried to play it directly on the rule or on the device page, and that still doesn't work.
When there is an entry in the log, it says this:
2021-12-17 10:29:25.512 am [error]org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.InvokerInvocationException: su.litvak.chromecast.api.v2.ChromeCastException: Unable to load media (method playTrack)
Go to the speaker in devices and click initialize and see if it works after that. I've see if you don't set a reservation for google speakers, sometimes they're lost until you reinitialize. Just a thought.
Unfortunately that did not work. Sometimes when I try to play a track from it, it just dings (like it is about to play something) and then does nothing.
I'm seeing a similar issue on at my four Google Home/Nest Hub Mini devices. Whenever something tries to Speak at them, they start spitting messages like this in the logs:
su.litvak.chromecast.api.v2.ChromeCastException: Unable to load media on line 240 (method runQ)
I figured it out. I had the UI set for SSL only. Sounds like a bug in the Chromecast App. When I disable that, Speaking on the Chromecast devices works again and I don't have those messages in the logs.
Something else for folks to try. When I try to speak "You have mail" on my Google Home Max, the Max triggers, but no audio (using built in Chromecast app).
I tried changing it to "You have mail please check the mailbox", and (it surprised me) I heard "please check the mailbox" with no trigger bong.