Echo & Alexa Forums
General Category => Amazon Echo Discussion => Topic started by: malliekm on April 30, 2017, 04:30:11 pm
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My mother is having a problem with her Fox News Skill. Alexa will say The Fox News Skill is not available right now.
All other aspects of Alexa work including other skills. She has two Dots and the problem is on both of them. When her Flash Briefing starts, it says something like, "In Fox News" (long pause) and then says it's not available right now. The skill is working just fine on my Dots. This has been going on for close to a week.
Here are the things I've tried to fix it...
Disabled and re-enabled the skill
Unplugged Alexa from the wall.
Googled to see if anyone else is having the problem.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Monica
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for a test, try moving the echo closer to the router. this will help determine if there is interference or a distance issue.
in addition try another news skill
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Thanks for your reply renegade. Both Dots work just as they should in all other aspects and with the other few Skills she has AND she has a wifi extender so I don't think it's a signal issue. As for installing another news skill, I'll give that a try when I'm back over there. But why would a "news" skill work any differently than a non-news skill?
Monica
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Thanks for your reply renegade. Both Dots work just as they should in all other aspects and with the other few Skills she has AND she has a wifi extender so I don't think it's a signal issue. As for installing another news skill, I'll give that a try when I'm back over there. But why would a "news" skill work any differently than a non-news skill?
Monica
the dots are in different locations so it could be affected by different things. It only takes a couple of minutes to try this.
news skills require a steady connection since they are constantly streaming content longer than other skills. It is like streaming on your computer where it plays then does the buffering thing, then plays...eventually if it buffers too long your browser could time out. that is what happening with the echo, it is taking too long for it to get the content so it is basically timing out.
one thing to remember you are asking us for help. we are not there in your home to make observations that would help with troubleshooting.
If you decide not to help us to help you, then you need to call amazon customer support. You can find the info in your app.
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Gee, did someone roll out of the wrong side of the bed this morning? :o
I thanked you for your reply and explained why
I don't think it's a signal issue. I said I would try your suggestion of
installing a different news skill and simply wondered what makes a news skill different
than a non-news skill and you explained why it could make a difference (makes sense btw).
I fail to see anything disrespectful or argumentative. I'm sorry if you did.
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if you dont want to move the echo to another location to check for a signal issue, then good luck. someone else will have to help from here.
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::) :o
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FYI Renegade...my mother moved one of her Dots to the office where the wifi is located. Still no Fox News. She called Amazon, they couldn't help her as we had already done everything they would have told her to try and nothing worked.
The only suggestion they had was to listen to a different news skill. That's not an option for her. I'm going over there tomorrow and will test a different news skill.
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Disabled and re-enabled the skill
The skill may be corrupted. "Delete" the skill and re-download/reinstall the FOX News skill.
FWIW....
I have the FOX News skill as part of my flash briefing which I listen to every day. To date, I have never had the issue your mother is having.
My DOT is connected to my iMac (desktop comp) & router network as I do not own a cell phone. On the first of every month, I reboot my DOT by unplugging it for 10 minutes and/or overnight. This works for me as I never have the issues/hiccups you read about in this message board.
HTH
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@AB
Your oversize replies take up A LOT of real estate here. Will you please ramp down the constant SHOUTING and humongous font size. Not good forum etiquette at all. Sheesh.
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The forum police is BACK ;) Have a good trip?
AB, I don't see an option to DELETE. As mentioned in my first post, I DISABLED and re-enabled the skill and unplugged the Dot. Looking around I found an "off" option but still no delete option. My Fox News skill is working too.
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Have you tried resetting the Dot back to factory defaults? A last resort measure, but maybe necessary in this case if your Dot works fine. Yjere must be a pesky gremlin in your mom's Dot.
Great visit with the little kiddles. See your personal mail for latest "cute pic".
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The forum police is BACK ;) Have a good trip?
AB, I don't see an option to DELETE. As mentioned in my first post, I DISABLED and re-enabled the skill and unplugged the Dot. Looking around I found an "off" option but still no delete option. My Fox News skill is working too.
Sorry, my bad. You are correct. There is no "disable" option. That being said, instead of unplugging the DOT from the wall, unplug from the DOT itself. As previously mentioned, as a last resort try rebooting to factory settings & start again. If that does not work, call CS 1-877-375-9365. Perhaps they have a few tricks up their sleeves we don't know about to fix your mother's issue.
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@AB
Your oversize replies take up A LOT of real estate here. Will you please ramp down the constant SHOUTING and humongous font size. Not good forum etiquette at all. Sheesh.
SHOUTING IS TYPING IN ALL CAPS! SOMETIMES IN BOLD. :P
As for my large font, not large on my end as I am on an 27" screen iMac. I did go down one size. Any further, I would need a magnifying glass and/or a microscope to read this message board. And this is on top of putting on my reading glasses. ::)
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I did also unplug it from the device it's self. As mentioned, mom also called ts but they couldn't help her. They said we'd tried everything they would have suggested she do. I'm going to take MY Dot over there, connect to her wifi (altho we've ruled out a wifi issue) and see what happens. If my FN works, I'm going to call Amazon and request replacements. Oh, I'll cancel the Dots first and start over with their setup before calling Amazon.
Does it help if I make the font a little bigger on this end?
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@ malliekm
Does it help if I make the font a little bigger on this end?
Perfect on my end. No need for my reading glasses.
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@AB
There is a way in Windows browsers to enlarge (zoom) the screen display over 100% so I, too, see the whole thing better, but I do not adjust the font size of the text editor of this forum This is what I believe you have done, i.e. enlarge the font size of this message editor so that your posts end up much larger than all the other posts here.
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One thing you could try is to enable the NPR skill as the defaut flash briefing. Have Alexa tell you the news and then switch back to Fox. Maybe jar something loose.
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I'd just like to throw this out there in case no other ideas or solutions come around.
There are several versions of Fox News, many of them localized. Perhaps the one that your mother is using has been abandoned or is no longer being updated. Or perhaps for some odd reason, her WiFi router or ISP is not allowing the connection to the particular server that Fox uses to stream the audio.
Being that there are several versions, you might consider enabling one of the other Fox News skills.
These are my search results:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dalexa-skills&field-keywords=fox+news&rh=n%3A13727921011%2Ck%3Afox+news
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One thing you could try is to enable the NPR skill as the defaut flash briefing. Have Alexa tell you the news and then switch back to Fox. Maybe jar something loose.
I'll give that a try Jim. Thanks!
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I'd just like to throw this out there in case no other ideas or solutions come around.
There are several versions of Fox News, many of them localized. Perhaps the one that your mother is using has been abandoned or is no longer being updated. Or perhaps for some odd reason, her WiFi router or ISP is not allowing the connection to the particular server that Fox uses to stream the audio.
Being that there are several versions, you might consider enabling one of the other Fox News skills.
These are my search results:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dalexa-skills&field-keywords=fox+news&rh=n%3A13727921011%2Ck%3Afox+news
Ah ha! It's a liberal plot! Oops, can I still say that in this millennium? Well of course I can <g>
Thanks! I had no idea there were so many FN skills. Another round of company company coming. This time from Houston and California. May be be a week or so before I can try these latest ideas.
Monica
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Ah ha! It's a liberal plot! Oops, can I still say that in this millennium? Well of course I can <g>
Thanks! I had no idea there were so many FN skills. Another round of company company coming. This time from Houston and California. May be be a week or so before I can try these latest ideas.
Monica
Just wait... Fox News is now being taken over by the liberal son of the last guy who ran it... and he's getting rid of conservatives as quickly as he can...
I have one Fox News on mine and it seems fine as well... I hadn't realized there was a list either... Now I know another way to check things out if mine dies a slow death as well... I'm glad your mother had this problem so the rest of us can learn from it... not that I want your mother to be out her FN skill... just ... somebody had to lose for everyone else to win... right?
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I am reporting that ALL IS WELL WITH MOM'S FOX NEWS SKILL. She did nothing...we don't think. She got an email from Amazon a couple days after her phone call to them about the problem. The next time she tried the skill after reading the email, the FN skill worked! AFAIK, the email didn't have any instructions on how to fix the issue. Ask me how glad I have THAT'S over! LOL
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I am reporting that ALL IS WELL WITH MOM'S FOX NEWS SKILL. She did nothing...we don't think. She got an email from Amazon a couple days after her phone call to them about the problem. The next time she tried the skill after reading the email, the FN skill worked! AFAIK, the email didn't have any instructions on how to fix the issue. Ask me how glad I have THAT'S over! LOL
Thanks for the update.