Virtual switch issue

Ok, I’ve got two lights on a virtual switch. If they were both turned on simultaneously via the virtual switch, then the virtual switch also turns them off. But if they were turned on separately, the virtual switch doesn’t turn them off!
What step am I missing?

I used Smart Lighting app to overcome this. Works like a charm

What exactly have you done to link the switches? Is it smart lighting? Is it core? Is it dim and dimmer? Is it trendsetter? There are a lot of different ways to get to this end result, so we need to know a little more about your set up.

It’s simple. A basic automation turns off Light A and Light B.
That automation is triggered via a virtual switch, and that virtual switch is activating two home phrases. First phrase turns those lights on. Second one turns them off.
I sidestepped Alexa, and ran it in the app. The problem is this: if the individual lights are turned on, the virtual switch remains off. So touching the switch turns both on, and I have to then turn it off. Doesn’t matter whether I do this via SmartLighting or activating home phrases, I’m not seeing any way to fake it out.

When you say " A basic automation," do you mean a smartlighting automation?

If so, it depends on whether you always want them to act as a group. If you do always want them to act as a group, you would need to close the loop and have the virtual switch turned on when any of the other switches come on and turned off when any of the other switches are turned off. That’s a lot of work to do with smart lighting, but you can do it that way.

A simpler way might be to substitute a virtual momentary tile for the virtual switch, or actually two, one for on and one for off. A momentary button works more like a traditional doorbell button, it only goes on for a moment and then resets itself to off. So it’s always ready for you to turn it on the next time. ( if it helps, you can think of it as a virtual minimote)

It would probably be simpler in your case to do it with core.