[gsayner]

Hi guys, am looking for a little help.

I've followed the guides, and got everything setup.

However when I give Alexa a command, nothing happens.

I've tried the test function on the skill website, entered a command into the textbox. I get a response, and my kodi box executes the command, but when I try it on my echo, nothing happens.

Any help appreciated.

[jingai]

I've tried the test function on the skill website, entered a command into the textbox. I get a response, and my kodi box executes the command, but when I try it on my echo, nothing happens.

I believe you have to enable the skill at alexa.amazon.com or in the Alexa mobile app.

[gsayner]

I've tried the test function on the skill website, entered a command into the textbox. I get a response, and my kodi box executes the command, but when I try it on my echo, nothing happens.

I believe you have to enable the skill at alexa.amazon.com or in the Alexa mobile app.

Yeah, I've tried that, I assume it already is enabled, as I only have the option to disable the skill from the echo app.

[jingai]

I've tried the test function on the skill website, entered a command into the textbox. I get a response, and my kodi box executes the command, but when I try it on my echo, nothing happens.

I believe you have to enable the skill at alexa.amazon.com or in the Alexa mobile app.

Yeah, I've tried that, I assume it already is enabled, as I only have the option to disable the skill from the echo app.

Check the Alexa app for any cards. Then, look at your server logs (Heroku, Lambda, etc) to see if the request is making it there, and if so, what it's saying about it.

By 'nothing happens,' could you be more specific? Does Alexa complain about the request? Say she can't help you? Does the blue ring just disappear?

What command are you trying to send?

[gsayner]

I believe you have to enable the skill at alexa.amazon.com or in the Alexa mobile app.

Yeah, I've tried that, I assume it already is enabled, as I only have the option to disable the skill from the echo app.

Check the Alexa app for any cards. Then, look at your server logs (Heroku, Lambda, etc) to see if the request is making it there, and if so, what it's saying about it.

By 'nothing happens,' could you be more specific? Does Alexa complain about the request? Say she can't help you? Does the blue ring just disappear?

What command are you trying to send?

Hi,

There are no cards, but Alexa has picked the command up because I can see it in history. The blue rings just disappear. I've tried play movie (plays random movie in test app), pause (again works fine in test app).

It isn't anything to do with me being in the UK with a UK echo, and lambda is hosted on us servers?

[jingai]

There are no cards, but Alexa has picked the command up because I can see it in history. The blue rings just disappear. I've tried play movie (plays random movie in test app), pause (again works fine in test app).

You are remembering to invoke the skill, right? "Alexa, play movie" won't work, for instance, but "Alexa, ask Kodi to play movie" should.

Try a command that doesn't involve the words play, pause, stop, skip, etc. Like, "Alexa, ask Kodi to watch a random movie".

Also, please look at your server logs (Heroku, Lambda, etc) to see if the request is making it there, and if so, what it's saying about it.

It isn't anything to do with me being in the UK with a UK echo, and lambda is hosted on us servers?

No idea, honestly.

[shukerr]

I can confirm that UK users need to configure the Alexa Skill to use the English UK language. You get a pulldown choice of English US, UK or German on the first page of creating the app for the three regions where Amazon are selling the Echo.
You should be able to add the language to your existing app and then remove the English US language, although I did mess that bit up and had to start again.
This is the same reason that IFTTT doesn;t work for UK Echos and you need to use Yonomi instead.

I also had to add a load more custom types that are in the latest Intents file now which aren't covered in the guide.

I followed the howtogeek guide using Heroku and haven't found the sleep thing a problem.
If it's gone to sleep then it will wake up automatically when you issue a voice command.
I notice the howtogeek guide has since been updated to use AWS Lamda.
If I get time I might also set up AWS Lamda and duplicate the skill to use a different invocation name.

Lastly, I notice that when you create an Alexa Skill you can choose whether your skill will use audio controls.
This would be great to add to the intents file if it's possible. e.g. "Alexa pause" would hopefully pass that through to the correct skill.

[stuCONNERS]

This works fine on a UK setup, with lambda. Mske sure you use the ireland eu-west-1 server in the .env file it doesn improve it slightly, I found the US server struggled with a Manchester accent.

[gsayner]

Got it all working now guys, thanks.

Removed the Skill, and Recreated it. All seems good

[jingai]

I also had to add a load more custom types that are in the latest Intents file now which aren't covered in the guide.

What guide? The guide on github should be current, but if you've noticed something that's missing, please let us know.

Lastly, I notice that when you create an Alexa Skill you can choose whether your skill will use audio controls.
This would be great to add to the intents file if it's possible. e.g. "Alexa pause" would hopefully pass that through to the correct skill.

This is on my list of things to look at.

[jingai]

If Alexa is 5 hours off on when my video will "end" when I ask her (and thanks to whomever added this feature, it ROCKS!!!)...How do I adjust the skill or app to make up for the 5 hour time difference? Where do I have this set wrong?

If you can (or anyone else, specifically those using AWS Lambda), would you mind testing this change on my branch here?

Please test with SKILL_TZ as empty, undefined, and whatever time zones you'd like to test.

With SKILL_TZ unset/empty, the expected behavior is to return the time the item will end in UTC. With it set to a valid time zone, it should tell you the time it will end for the given time zone. Ultimately this will be your local TZ, but feel free to play with it for testing purposes

[shukerr]

@jingai. The guide on github is correct for the custom slots. I followed a guide on howtogeek.com and it only mentions three custom slots - MUSIC, MOVIES & SHOWS. This is presumably an out of date list.

Now, I have another little annoyance that I'd appreciate some guidance on. I'm a UK user, but not sure that's related.
If I haven't specifically listed a Movie, TV Show or Music in the Custom Slots Values then it simply will not find it.

For TV shows I either get the dull chime from the echo or a comment along the lines of "I can't find the answer you're looking for..."
For music it is trying to play it through Amazon Music & saying "I can't find an album by XYZ n your collection."
In the case of music the artist name is repeated back correctly so Alexa has definitely understood correctly.

Everything I've entered into the custom slot values works perfectly.
I don't mind populating the custom slot values, but my impression was that it should still have a reasonable chance of working regardless.

Lastly, this app to populate the values mentioned earlier in the forum is now offline. https://sleepy-wave-26412.herokuapp.com/

[jingai]

Now, I have another little annoyance that I'd appreciate some guidance on. I'm a UK user, but not sure that's related.
If I haven't specifically listed a Movie, TV Show or Music in the Custom Slots Values then it simply will not find it.

For TV shows I either get the dull chime from the echo or a comment along the lines of "I can't find the answer you're looking for..."
For music it is trying to play it through Amazon Music & saying "I can't find an album by XYZ n your collection."
In the case of music the artist name is repeated back correctly so Alexa has definitely understood correctly.

Everything I've entered into the custom slot values works perfectly.
I don't mind populating the custom slot values, but my impression was that it should still have a reasonable chance of working regardless.

You definitely don't have to enter them into the slots, except for the DoSearch intent "Alexa, tell Kodi to search for ...". I'll be fixing that soon, but for other commands they use fuzzy matching that should get you the right answer most of the time.

List off some specific commands you're trying to issue. It's possible we simply haven't thought of those phrases.

And what do your server logs say when it doesn't match?

Lastly, this app to populate the values mentioned earlier in the forum is now offline. https://sleepy-wave-26412.herokuapp.com/

@m0ngr31 hosts that, so I can't say why it's not online.

[jacobh]

My turn to ask a question

I've found that after some period of time, Alexa will start intercepting the basic commands (e.g., play, pause, stop, skip, etc) herself rather than passing them to the skill.

If I change the invocation of the skill, this will usually fix it for a short time, but eventually she will start intercepting them again.

I am suspecting this may have something to do with the reason Amazon requires a two-word invocation for skills. I've been keeping mine to one word (alternating between cody and kodi). Or maybe something to do with the new(ish) audio player interface they have..

Has anyone managed to get this working 100% reliably?

I haven't tried with that many playback commands (other than stop or pause). I have had this happen maybe once or twice when asking for music in my Kodi library and I am not very clear in saying "kodi". Repeating the command more clearly has always worked.

[jingai]

Yeah, I'm referring specifically to the one-word 'basic' commands like play, pause, stop, etc.