Ditto! I must say that I agree.
A couple of days ago I made some device adjustments on Alexa and then rescaned for new devices, Hey Presto a miracle. I no longer get Alexa say āhum I am having trouble reaching smartthings.
And believe me, myself and the rest of the community are grateful that you are here and serve in the capacity that you do!
As far a technology and modern medicine go, itās the world we live in, so there isnāt taking any of it back. All I was saying is whether any of this is/was good, right, wrong for the planet we live on in the big picture. As a society (Human race) we are programmed / hardwired to think that all of this is us advancing or improving things. From an evolutionary standpoint is this what we are supposed to do (because we are doing it). Is this part of normal evolution? Or forced in a way that changes the overall end game of the planet was intended to be used for, whether for good or bad. Just because we can, does it mean we should have? Itās a much larger conversation. Iām for technology because itās my career, lol, and I have to adapt in order to survive on the planet with our so called advancements, but I donāt necessarily think it is the right thing that was done. That sounds contradictory or hypocritcial, but the damage (my opinion), was already done and now I just continue to adapt and evolve in the world the way it is. Itās one of those conversations that has many sides and endless hypotheticals and theories. Lol not trying to stir up a debate out in the ST community. Was just throwing out my opinion on the way I see the world thru my own eyes. 
I got notified this was fixed. It isnāt. I worked with Samsung for 2 hours, then they assured me it was going to techs. Asked I call Amazon - an hour + with them. They donāt seem to know there is an issue. Iām about to hang up on Amazon. I trust the techs will address it. They assured me they would let me know.
I received the following from SmartThings today:
An Incident Update Has Been Posted
Thank you so much for your patience. With the latest release of Amazon Alexa, the issues that users were experiencing in executing Routines have been addressed. However, if you continue to see issues controlling Routines via Alexa, please let us know.
While the Routine execution issue has been addressed, some users may also see a duplicate device list in the Alexa app. We are working with Amazon and investigation on this issue is being treated as high priority. We will post updates as soon as we make progress on the resolution. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.
Nov 11, 12:06 EST
We started noticing last night that things were improving (we were finally hearing āOKā for several the routines I call up from Alexa to SmartThings to Harmony Hub.) And I just tested and things that werenāt working the past couple of weeks are working now. Still have more testing to do. --Kal
This is not resolved for me either.
And just like that, Iām back to getting the āCanāt reach SmartThingsā message. Itās broken again. I just replied to the open trouble ticket Iāve had with Smart Things, and let them know itās still broken for me. Also, if any of you still have the same problem, and if you already have a SmartThings trouble ticket open, consider replying to your ticket to let them know the problem persists. If you hadnāt opened a trouble ticket yet, you may want to. Thatās the only way the SmartThings group will know the problem still exists. Thanks! btw, since Iām a new user, the SmartThings forum only allows me to have a certain number of replies, and it looks like Iāve reached my limit (per a message it just gave me) for the current topic (this one.) So, I might not be able to reply again with a status. Anyone know how to attain regular user and not ānew userā status? Iāve been on here for a couple of weeks now an have posted several posts to this topic. Thanks! --Kal
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Something strange. I added the harmony skill back to Alexa and scanned for scenes. It added duplicates for all my harmony activities. I then disabled the duplicates, disabling the SmartThings versions and leaving the harmony versions. Now everything is working, though I suspect Alexa is now connecting directly to harmony rather than using SmartThings as a hub ā¦ I guess it doesnāt matterā¦ odd though.
sdbg, if you have Alexa use the harmony activities directly through the harmony skill, it will do that activity directly. (Harmony should then, itself, communicate with SmartThings for the devices.) So, yes, that works if you use the Harmony skill. Problem for me is that running the activity through the Harmony skill activates slower (longer for the activity to launch and hear āokā) than when alexa triggered the harmony activity through its call to SmartThings instead (which is whatās broken now.) Hey, it looks like Iām able to reply again to this topic (see my prior message.) I had used the harmony skill as a stopgap measure until the SmartThings - Alexa issue was corrected. And since itās not corrected, I have to go back using the harmony skill again. --Kal
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Thanksā¦ I will.also wait until they fix the SmartThings aspect of it. Iād rather have Alexa make the call to my hub first. It seems that when Alexa goes to harmony first, SmartThings is slow to update or doesnāt update what devices are on/off. This causes issues with Core rules if device status is not accurate.
sdbg, did you already have an open ticket with SmartThings? If so, could you reply back to their emails for your ticket to let them know itās still a problem? Strength in numbers! 
Iāve got one with them. Amazon was no help! Go for it!!!
Ging257, you should probably contact SmartThings instead and open a ticket with them. They seem to be much more responsive. Iāve gotten regular emails with statuses from the people handling my SmartThings ticket. SmartThings is pretty good about getting together with Amazon to get problems resolved. Problem is, SmartThings might think the problem is resolved, but, clearly, itās not. The more trouble tickets SmartThings gets regarding the problem (or, in our case, a non-resolved problem that was thought to be resolved), the better chance SmartThings will be able to reopen the issue. --Kal
Done. Hereās hoping they figure out the issue
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kalel, I did and youāre right, they are! Hoping they fix it soon!
Ging257 and sdbg! Thanks so much!
Still experiencing the issue at my end. Routines mostly work, but Alexa still states that it canāt communicate with SmartThings for some routines (that ultimately run through Harmony Hub.) I say " routines mostly work", because sometimes, Alexa will give that SmartThings communication error without running the routine, and I have to try again. But, most of the time the routine runs. Has anyone heard further from the SmartThings support team? or have there been additional announcements? They probably need to hear from more people before re-opening the issue. --Kal
I reported on Saturday, they (Samsung) are aware and know it needs fixing. Never hurts to have more people complaining!
The Alexa issue is still an active issue on status.smartthings.com
WB70, thanks! Yes, thatās the update we received last week. But, the first part of it that says that the issues regarding āexecuting routines have been addressedā is seemingly not completely addressed yet, since thatās the problem Iām still having. The 2nd paragraph about a duplicate device list is not the problem Iām having. So, I want to make sure that SmartThings re-addresses the first part about routines properly running (and in our case, Alexa giving the ācanāt communicate with SmartThingsā error message.) --Kal