I have a new Echo Dot. When giving me a reply, I've found that Alexa will sometimes stop abruptly, possibly in the middle of a word.
Sometimes when she stops, she remains silent until I prompt her again. At other times, however, she continues after a pause of ~1 to 5 seconds. When she continues, she doesn't continue where she left off, but at a point further along in her reply. It is as if she is delivering the reply properly, but her speaker is failing intermittently.
This dysfunction seems to occur most often when the Echo Dot is not "warmed up". I've only had the product set up for two days, but the problem seemed to be worst on both mornings. As a test, I ask Alexa for the weather forecast. Yesterday morning and this morning, I had to ask about 4 or 5 times before Alexa could deliver the entire weather forecast without dropping some portion of the reply.
Although worst in the mornings, the problem can occur at any time during the day; it just seems less frequent at other times.
Notably, I've never experienced this problem when streaming radio. I've asked Alexa to play WBUR for many hours over the past two days, yet I can't remember a single interruption to the radio stream.
Is the behavior I'm seeing a known failure mode for the Echo Dot? I could find no mention of it on the Amazon Echo Dot help pages. There are a few posts on this forum where people say their device is "stuttering" or "stopping", but in every case, the exact nature of the dysfunction is unclear.
Whether I can pinpoint the failure mode or not, my problem seems to fall in the broad category of performance problems, and my research on this site shows that the same advice is given again and again on how to resolve performance problems: 1) make sure the power supply is consistent; 2) make sure the wifi signal is strong; and 3) make sure there is no interference. I've done the best I could on these three items by wiggling wires and moving things around; I'm not sure what else I can do. If anyone can propose concrete troubleshooting steps, I would be grateful for the advice.
-TC
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