CODEWITHSUNDEEP
amazon-web-servicesamazon-s3aws-lambdaalexa-skills-kit
ElGauchooo
ElGauchooo

Reputation: 4646

Echo Spot sometimes takes minutes to start playing a video

I'm currently developing a custom skill for the echo spot. I'm using AWS Lamda functions in .net core, using the Alexa.NET SDK. One of the intents lets Alexa play a video, which are hosted on a S3 bucket, but sometimes (randomly - once after opening the skill, once after the 4th or 5th video), Alexa immediately understands the command, but takes ages to play the video. According to the cloudwatch logs, the command is parsed and the lambda function executed within a couple of milliseconds, but the video starts playing very delayed (up to two minutes).

REPORT RequestId: xyz Duration: 366.44 ms Billed Duration: 400 ms Memory Size: 576 MB Max Memory Used: 79 MB

The videos being returned by the lambda function are rather short (5-15 seconds) if that could affect the issue. The wifi itself is stable with more than 30mbit available, alexa is not too far away from the wifi router.

We've tried different video encodings (MP4, H264, ...), different audio codecs, samplerates and framerates - the issue remains. Any clues what could cause this issue? We've read the recommendations for videos and applied all the recommended settings to the video. Can i somehow access the device's logs to see if there's another issue with the video?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 36

Answers (1)

ElGauchooo
ElGauchooo

Reputation: 4646

Turns out, videos are being streamed when combined with a plain text output speech. If your output speech is empty, the echo spot will download the whole video and start playing once the video is completely loaded. Hence, i recommend adding a speech reply to all of your videos to ensure a smooth loading of the video.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions