[Android Alexa App] Alexa speech cuts off before finishing

[vertigoelectric]

I know this isn't an echo-specific topic, but this is the most relevant forum I saw for technical help.

On my Android 7.0 phone, whenever Alexa says something, she gets cut off before finishing.  I've tried all of the obvious troubleshooting steps such as updating/uninstalling/reinstalling/etc.

Is anybody able to help me troubleshoot this issue?

[renegade600]

if you have the amazon music app, see if alexa cuts off there.  or you can try the alexa widget.  this could help determine where the problem is. 

[vertigoelectric]

if you have the amazon music app, see if alexa cuts off there.  or you can try the alexa widget.  this could help determine where the problem is.

The problem occurs through the widget and the Amazon Music app as well.  For example, she just said "Shuffling songs by Infected Mushroom on Amazon Mu-"

[jwlv]

The only times I've seen this happen is when the wifi signal is spotty or when the internet connection is poor (e.g. loss packets).

You might want to run a speed test on your phone and see if there is any packet loss or high latency. These would likely cause the behavior you described.

[vertigoelectric]

The only times I've seen this happen is when the wifi signal is spotty or when the internet connection is poor (e.g. loss packets).

You might want to run a speed test on your phone and see if there is any packet loss or high latency. These would likely cause the behavior you described.

Nah.  I don't think that's the problem.  Even when I'm on a high speed wifi connection the problem occurs.




I really appreciate you trying to help, though.  This issue is very frustrating for me and I haven't been able to find anybody else willing to help me try to fix it.  Please let me know if you have any more ideas at all...

[jwlv]

Wow! That is amazing speed and incredibly low latency. I envy you!
I might have missed it if you mentioned it before, but what brand/model phone are you using? Just to eliminate other possibilities, have you tried using the Alexa app on a different brand/model phone?
Are any Bluetooth speakers or any Bluetooth devices (even a fitbit) connected to your phone when the Alexa voice cuts off?

[vertigoelectric]

Wow! That is amazing speed and incredibly low latency. I envy you!
I might have missed it if you mentioned it before, but what brand/model phone are you using? Just to eliminate other possibilities, have you tried using the Alexa app on a different brand/model phone?
Are any Bluetooth speakers or any Bluetooth devices (even a fitbit) connected to your phone when the Alexa voice cuts off?

Hehe, thanks.  We have a great connection here. My internet plan is actually 500/500Mbps, but obviously the phone isn't gonna pull that.

So I've got a Samsung Galaxy S7 with Android 7.0, rooted/xposed.  It occurs to me that there's a possibility the root/xposed might be interfering somehow, but that's not something I can just 'turn off' just to test that theory.  Also, one thing worth mentioning is that this problem wasn't always occurring with this phone. 

A bit of back story.  I'm one of the early adopters of the Echo Auto.  When it finally arrived some months ago, I set it up and got it working.  There were some hurdles but none related to this issue.  For the most part, it worked great for a while.  Then suddenly, I started noticing the problem with the Alexa voice cutting out.  I thought it was a problem with the Echo Auto so eventually I had it replaced by Amazon, only to find that the problem persisted.  I connected the Echo Auto to my friend's phone and the problem was gone.  It was about that time I realized the problem was the Alexa app on my phone and not the Echo Auto device.

So something on my phone must have changed. My phone was rooted the entire time so that wasn't it.  However, one major change I made to my phone possibly around the same time was updating from Android 6 to Android 7.  I'd have to do some serious investigative work to see if that update was done at the same time the problem started happening, but it's a possibility.  Unfortunately, it's not so easy to just "switch to another version of android" just to troubleshoot the issue.

To answer your question about trying another phone, as I mentioned already we tested the echo auto using my friend's phone, however one thing I haven't tried is logging in to MY amazon alexa account on another phone.  I might just try that.  It might be worth noting, though, that I have multiple Alexa devices (echo dots, fire tv cube, etc) and only the mobile phone app exhibits this issue.

Oh yeah... I did talk to amazon support about this and they weren't much help.  They just told me I should try updating to a newer version of Android since the one I have is "quite old"...  Even though the current version of the app says it supports Android 6.0 minimum.  On that note, though, since I can't really update to a newer OS, I decided to try older versions of the Alexa app.  Figured maybe a recent version had a compatibility issue that I introduced by updating the app.  No go.  Even the oldest versions of the app have the same problem.

Again, thank you so much for helping me with this.

[jwlv]

I also have a Samsung Galaxy S7, but with stock firmware. I attempted to root it once and nearly bricked it. But I was able recover it with the stock firmware.

When you say that only the Alexa app on your phone has this problem, do you mean that when Alexa speaks from your phone, the audio is coming out of the Galaxy S7's internal speaker? Or is the audio going through the Echo Auto, your car's stereo, or something else? I want to try to establish if Bluetooth is the culprit.

I ask this because my Galaxy S7 has a huge problem with Bluetooth in my car. I've been trying to find a solution to this for almost a year. I've seen other people having similar problems but no solid solutions. I can leave the house and stream music for 15 minutes and then all of a sudden it stutters like crazy. Sometimes it happens right away in 1 or 2 minutes. But once it starts stuttering, it doesn't stop. I've basically given up on streaming music in the car. One other crazy thing is that Bluetooth phone calls through my car stereo works perfectly every time. I think the problem (at least in my case) is something with the Bluetooth on the Galaxy S7. 

[vertigoelectric]

I also have a Samsung Galaxy S7, but with stock firmware. I attempted to root it once and nearly bricked it. But I was able recover it with the stock firmware.

When you say that only the Alexa app on your phone has this problem, do you mean that when Alexa speaks from your phone, the audio is coming out of the Galaxy S7's internal speaker? Or is the audio going through the Echo Auto, your car's stereo, or something else? I want to try to establish if Bluetooth is the culprit.

I ask this because my Galaxy S7 has a huge problem with Bluetooth in my car. I've been trying to find a solution to this for almost a year. I've seen other people having similar problems but no solid solutions. I can leave the house and stream music for 15 minutes and then all of a sudden it stutters like crazy. Sometimes it happens right away in 1 or 2 minutes. But once it starts stuttering, it doesn't stop. I've basically given up on streaming music in the car. One other crazy thing is that Bluetooth phone calls through my car stereo works perfectly every time. I think the problem (at least in my case) is something with the Bluetooth on the Galaxy S7.

Oh yeah I forgot to answer that before.  The Alexa voice problem occurs whether it's through the phone's internal speaker or a bluetooth device (such as the echo auto).  I actually don't have any bluetooth problems.  I did originally have some problems getting the Echo Auto to connect to the phone properly via bluetooth, but other than that, it's been working fine.  I frequently use a bluetooth headset with the phone without any problems at all.  We also use a bluetooth FM transmitter with an old car we have because the radio is about a thousand years old and when I connect to the transmitter with my phone I don't have any problems.

But anyway... no it's not a bluetooth issue because even with bluetooth turned off the problem is the same.

[renegade600]

I have had it happened to me a couple of times over the years but it usually went away on its own.   the only other thing I can think of is to do a power cycle on your dot.  pull the power cord for about 40 seconds then plug back in

[vertigoelectric]

I have had it happened to me a couple of times over the years but it usually went away on its own.   the only other thing I can think of is to do a power cycle on your dot.  pull the power cord for about 40 seconds then plug back in

It's not a problem with an echo dot.  It's the Alexa android app.

[jwlv]

Well, I'm out of ideas. Sorry.

[renegade600]

I have had it happened to me a couple of times over the years but it usually went away on its own.   the only other thing I can think of is to do a power cycle on your dot.  pull the power cord for about 40 seconds then plug back in

It's not a problem with an echo dot.  It's the Alexa android app.

sorry lost track  --  getting old.

so did you restart the phone?   also did you try wiping the cache partition on the phone?

[vertigoelectric]

I have had it happened to me a couple of times over the years but it usually went away on its own.   the only other thing I can think of is to do a power cycle on your dot.  pull the power cord for about 40 seconds then plug back in

It's not a problem with an echo dot.  It's the Alexa android app.

sorry lost track  --  getting old.

so did you restart the phone?   also did you try wiping the cache partition on the phone?

I restart the phone every day.  I'm not sure if I've wiped the cache recently.  I'll give it a try.