Google Home — “Sorry, there was a glitch”
tl;dr Configure your router to disable IPv6 and use a 2.4 GHz WiFi band if you’re running into the same issue.
Background
I got my parents a Google Nest Hub Max about a year ago, and have been very happy with the purchase. We use it for setting timers, making calls, fact-checking each other over dinner, and listening to exciting interviews/podcasts when we all need to take a break from socializing.
While visiting my family for the holidays, none of the voice commands worked. The “Hey Google” or “Ok Google” hot commands were consistently recognized, but the speech-to-text wasn’t functioning. The responses I got resulted in either an “I’m sorry, there was a glitch” or a “Hmm, something went wrong,” prompting me to try again in a few seconds.
I tried the basics: turning it off & on, doing a factory reset, etc. It would work intermittently before settling back into its non-functional patterns.
Searching for a Solution
Having tried to use Google forums in the past, or opening tickets internally while working under the Alphabet umbrella, I knew that I’d have to figure this out myself.
There are countless Reddit threads, Google community forum posts, and articles covering potential solutions, so I figured I’d share mine to help someone in the future.
My Solution
Please note that this is what worked for me and is not a universal solution to everyone’s situation.
I logged into my router’s admin portal at 192.168.0.1.
I had to disable Band Steering, which creates two WiFi band frequencies (2.4G and 5G) under a single SSID. To have two separate network names visible when selecting a WiFi network, you may have to disable this feature as well:
This enabled me to force the 2.4G network to always use a 20 MHz Channel Bandwidth with the suffix -2.4G:
And the 5G network to always use an 80 MHz bandwidth channel:
I didn’t investigate why this was the solution, but I would guess that it has to do with how Google optimizes streaming data to/from its servers. Hopefully, it helps you out as well!
