[Update: June 22] Google Home/Nest devices display "Something went wrong" error when given voice commands, workarounds inside

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on February 06, 2021) follows:

There has recently been a slew of complaints from Google Home/Nest owners about their devices not responding to voice commands and instead throwing a “Something went wrong” error.

Now, as everyone is already aware, Google Home devices are all powered by Google Assistant and Assistant has had a troubled history with this particular error message.

In the past, we highlighted how the Lenovo Smart Clock ran into a similar issue and giving out the same error. There was also the curious case of many Google Home devices failing verification, and of course, throwing the same error.

My google home mini speaker (speaker-A) responds with “Something went wrong” when anything is spoken to it.
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My Google Home devices started failing today (Wed Jul 29) as well, responding only with “Something went wrong” to every prompt. This goes for both my Google Home Mini (older) and my Nest Mini (newer). Casting to the devices does not work, either.
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Coming back to the issue in question, users say that notorious error pops up on almost every Google Home/Nest device intermittently. Many have also stated that their smart home devices have stopped working completely.

The affected device list includes Google Nest, Nest Mini, Nest Hub, Google Home Mini, and quite possibly many more Assistant-enabled devices.

Moreover, the issue has been doing rounds for quite some time now with initial reports dating all the way back to September last year. It is just sad to see that the issue has still not been acknowledged.

The good news is that are a few workarounds at hand given out by the users and cherry-picked by us.

1. Disable IPv6: At least ten users have stated that disabling IPv6 has solved the issue for them. Hence, this should be the first thing to try if you are bumping into this problem.

I logged into my google wifi, and blocked IPv6. (“settings” -“network & general”- “advanced networking”-“ipv6” THEN TURN IT OFF.
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2. Change Google Assistant language: Alternatively, you can also try changing your Google Assistant’s default language. Obviously to not something other than English, but to the same language from another region. To do so, just follow the instructions given below:

Try going to the google home app, click your account in the top right corner, at the bottom there should be an ‘Assistant settings’ button. Click that and it should bring you to your account page, from there click the ‘Assistant’ tab to the right of the ‘You’ tab, click ‘Languages’ and change the language to English UK.
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3. Reset Google Home devices: Unfortunately, if none of the above workarounds helped, then your last resort could be resetting your smart home device, if you haven’t already.

According to Google support, rebooting the affected Home up to 10 times apparently solves this issue, so be sure to try it.

The Google Home “Something went wrong” issue has been escalated and a fix is already in the works:

Judging from some recent reports, it seems like the issue is back again:

I have similar issue on mini nest but not on google lg speaker. I always have to restart nest mini to work it properly and it has started recently only.
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The music stops for no reason. And it still shows playing on my phone. And if I ask google to play it again it simple says “something went wrong”. Takes about 4 songs to start playing up.
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Google has recommended the following workaround for now:

Responding to a user’s complaint regarding the issue on Twitter, Google support suggested that the issue might be popping up due to the Nest Wifi point not being in sync with the mesh network.

To resolve the problem, Google recommends removing the Wifi point by resetting it via the Google Home app and adding it again. This appears to have done the trick for the user who was facing the problem.

In case you’re unable to reset the Wifi point, you can check out the steps here.

IST 14:02 pm: It is now coming to light that this issue also afflicts users of Android Auto as outlined in the reports from users here.

Whenever I give a command, Google recognizes what I say, but then says “something went wrong, please try again”. It says the same when I touch the weather app. It was working for months and then suddenly stopped last week. I tried uninstalling the android auto app and reconnecting my phone as well as clearing out the cache on the Google apps.

We shall continue to keep an eye on this and update as and when we get more info so stay tuned.

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