We have all loved using our Alexa since it first came out. But all good things will have something bad as well; it is a natural law, and nothing can ever be completely perfect.
Our beloved Alexa, too, is no exception to this rule. The only difference is that there are several ways to fix whatever it might be that’s making our perfect home device a little imperfect.
Here’s the latest 2023 edition of “Alexa, sorry something went wrong.”
More often than not, your device is perfectly fine and is experiencing some connectivity issues or a technical snag of sorts… the following steps should help you get your Alexa devices back up and running in no time!
Further reading: Amazon Alexa Problems: How To Solve The Most Common Ones
Reasons Your Alexa Might Be Giving The “Something, Went Wrong” Prompt
There are several reasons why your Alexa device might give such prompts. It may be because your internet connection is slow, spotty, or just turned off.
It may be because your Alexa is failing to establish a connection with your internet.
Sometimes your device might be running into a software glitch due to the coding sent to it.
Other times, it just might be having a power issue, and you need to perform a power cycle to run it smoothly again.
If nothing else works and you cannot understand the issue, you just might need to reset your device.
Restart all your Alexa hubs
The one thing that hasn’t changed with fixes towards computers since the beginning of time is the simplest “restart” method.
Whenever a computer is acting up, you first simply power off the device, wait a minute and then power on the device again.
The same goes for your Alexa as well. Simply unplug your Alexa device, wait for one minute at minimum, and then start your device again.
Almost always, this is all your Alexa needs. If you have multiple Alexa hubs such as the Echo, Echo Dot, or any other Alexa device synced, you’ll have to unplug all these devices and then wait a minute or two to restart them all one after the other.
Every once in a while, it just might be that simply restarting once might not be enough.
In such cases, try restarting all your devices at least two or three times before you try the other methods listed in this article.
Reset your internet router
If restarting your Alexa hubs doesn’t do the trick, you might want to check your internet connection and see if it’s stable or acting up. Sometimes, the Wi-Fi router by itself acts up and becomes unstable.
In such cases, you must unplug your Wi-Fi router and wait for a minute before plugging it back up.
Depending on the model you use, it will take anywhere between 10 seconds to 2 minutes to start running normally and automatically connect to all the devices in your house.
Sometimes, if you can be sure that your Wi-Fi router is creating the problem, you might need to perform a hard reset on your router and remove all previous settings.
That way, your Wi-Fi router will return to its original factory conditions.
You will then have to set up a new password (or you can just repeat your old password) and manually connect all the devices in your home once again.
Troubleshoot your Alexa app to see if it’s running smoothly
Sometimes, it might not be your Alexa device that’s at fault here. Sometimes, it just might be your Alexa app that’s causing these issues.
Open your Alexa app and check if all the skills you need to run the particular task you are asking Alexa to run, but it is telling you that there’s a problem, are all downloaded well and installed.
Your requested tasks won’t run if you haven’t downloaded these skills. Sometimes, you might have to uninstall these skills and download them again to make sure they are downloaded properly.
Also, sometimes, we forget that we might have disabled the skills needed to run certain tasks.
Sometimes, even though we didn’t, they might be disabled alone. Check if the required skills are enabled/ disabled and run them again.
Sometimes, it might be that the logins associated with the particular skills are not correct. In such cases, Alexa will say, “something went wrong.”
In such cases, try logging in again and see if the problem persists. You should also make sure that you use the same email address for the skill and log into your Alexa app.
Having different emails won’t work. In some cases, all it takes is simply logging out of your Alexa app and then logging back in to make things work.
Alternatively, simply go to your app settings, find “Alexa” and click on “clear data” to remove all its stored data and cache.
You should press “Force stop” before you do that. It’s the same process even though your mobile is android or apple.
Wait for your internet connection to be set up
Sometimes, all your devices might be working just fine, and your ISP provider is causing the issue.
Check your other devices, such as your laptop and mobile devices, and see if your internet connection is down.
If it is, report the same to your ISP provider and wait till they come and fix the problem.
There’s rarely anything you can do to fix this issue yourself since it’s more likely that this problem originates from your internet service provider’s servers.
Check if Amazon is still running
While the probability of this happening is slim to none, it just might be that Amazon’s own servers are off due to any malfunctioning or some software update or any number of other reasons as well.
In such cases, there’s pretty much nothing you can do except wait for the company to fix the issue as soon as possible.
Factory reset your Alexa device
If nothing else works, you could just do the factory data reset on your Alexa device and reset it to its factory settings.
Maybe there is a software glitch that’s preventing your Alexa from functioning properly and not allowing it to fix the problem on its own. In such cases, a factory data reset is the only way you can fix your Alexa.
The steps to reset your Alexa are as follows:
- Go to your Alexa app on your mobile device and open settings.
- In settings, look for the Factory Reset option and press it.
- Once you press the Factory Reset option, you will be prompted to confirm that you want to do a factory data reset and will be informed that this action will wipe out all your data.
- Accept the prompt and wait for your Alexa to finish performing the factory reset.
Alternatively, you could just say, Alexa Open Settings and then say Alexa Perform Factory Reset, and your Alexa device will automatically start the rest on its own.
This would be the simpler way to perform your factory reset.
Contact Amazon customer service
If all else fails and there’s nothing you can do, it may be that your device is facing failure and isn’t functioning as it’s supposed to.
In such cases, there’s little to nothing you can do except contact Amazon customer service. You can choose between sending them an email, opening a chat to contact them instantaneously, or even choosing to call them on their helpline number, which varies from country to country.
If Amazon can help you fix your issue, you can have your Alexa back, else, your device just might be broken, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Unless your Alexa was subjected to reckless usage or particularly unfavorable conditions, the chances of your Alexa being damaged beyond repair are slim to none, so you need not worry much about it.
Even if it does, such cases usually arise while your Alexa device is still under warranty and Amazon would be happy to repair/ replace it with a brand new one in such cases.
FAQs:
Why Does My Alexa Say “Sorry, Did Something Go Wrong?”
First, why does Alexa say “Sorry” when something doesn’t work?
Most people who use the device now have the wrong idea that it can work well even without a fast internet connection.
I’m sorry, but this is really great! Experts say that your Alexa device can’t do anything for your business without the internet.
This is why: “Sorry, something went wrong because your Amazon Echo device is not properly connected to Wi-Fi,” is sometimes what my Amazon Echo says.
There are many other reasons why something went wrong, and the problem comes second:
Why is my Echo device saying something went wrong?
Voice-controlled When users asked for something, Echo devices gave them the option “Sorry, bug fixed.”
Users have reported problems on the related Down Detector website, and most of the hundreds of reports say that the problems were with connecting to the server.
Why Is Little Alexa Having Trouble Understanding?
The “I’m having trouble understanding you” error happens when the Amazon Echo device can’t connect to the Amazon servers to help interpret and understand what you are saying.
Today, people all over the world are saying they can’t connect to Alexa. This could be because you lost your carrier or because your internet service is down.
Fix Alexa’s “Sorry, Something Went Wrong” Issue
It sounds like Alexa doesn’t know what to say or how to answer your question right now.
Sometimes it’s also about how easy it is to use, what features it has, and if it can connect to the internet.
Conclusion
Getting the “Something went wrong” prompt is a nuisance and causes headaches more often than not.
Several people across the globe had similar, if not the same issues with their Alexa at one point or the other.
In such cases, this guide will almost always be able to help you resolve the issue to run your device smoothly and you will not need any major technical knowledge to understand this.
Simply be patient with your Alexa and follow the steps provided and you will be more than likely to resolve almost any problem that might be making your device any less than perfectly effective.