Dashboard inaccessible after ip address change

Hubitat device has whatever ip address the router assigns to it. Now that ip address can change. Then when you go to the new ip address everything keeps working with exception of dashboard pages. For some reason when clicking on the dashboard icon it tries to get to the old address and of course fails after a while. After some period ( days ) it fixes itself but you cannot use it till then.
I am in a situation now that one of the water leak detectors closed the valve on the water mains and I cannot open it back on without jumping through hoops.

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What most people do is assign your HE hub a static/fixed (whatever you want to call it) address on your router.
This way whenever your HE hub or router reboots/powers up, the HE hub will always be allocated the same IP address.
This saves a lot of aggravation.

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That's definitely not the way to go. Not everyone has access to the router settings, and not every router allows you to assign static ip address. A presence of a WiFi extender is one of such situations.

Can you talk to the person that does have access to the router’s settings? DHCP reservations are a pretty basic function (and a little different than setting a static IP), even among most consumer routers these days.

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I agree, but OP also has a valid point.

If you accessed the hub via a 'new' IP and launch an app from it, it's reasonable to expect that the app should also use the new address.

@vadim_c, maybe rebooting the hub would be a workaround? It's kind of heavy handed, but if it works then may be a good option.

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I just told you, if you have an wifi extender that will not work

I’m not 100% clear from the OP how the dashboard is being accessed.

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But something’s assigning an IP address to the hub isn’t it?

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With my Wifi extenders, I still set a static address in the main router. You shouldn't have multiple devices assigning IP addresses within your network.

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Why? I used to use a WiFi extender I got a mesh network, and all my DHCP assignments still worked.

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Good point. @vadim_c, are you launching the dashboard from the Hubitat hub web interface, from the Hubitat mobile app, or from a bookmark (perhaps by hostname)?

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@vadim_c

Do you have a situation where you don't control the main router, but only the WiFi extender? So addresses are assigned by a router that isn't in your control?

If so, can your WiFi extender be configured to be a Repeater and not a Repeater Bridge (using dd-wrt terminology ....)?

That would permit you to use a static IP address for your Hubitat within the subnet created by the Repeater.

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With my setup i can assign an ip address to a device in the main router. However it is not respected when the network changes. and the device happen to connect via the extender An extender makes a fake mac address for the device
In any case that is a moot point and the behavior is a bug.

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In my opinion no.
Oh well. I was only trying to help. :man_shrugging:
I have range extenders and my devices still use their router assigned address.
This works for me. Obviously not for you.

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Can you clarify what you mean by that?

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What?

Which WiFi extender is this (brand/model)?

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I know recent phone OS do this MAC randomization, but I have never heard of a router or routing device do so.

:+1:

This isn't anything I have ever seen, but admittedly I am not a network admin.

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Older TP-Link extenders do this in Proxy mode. But there are config options to prevent that behavior. For example:
https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/927/

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I think everyone’s trying to understand OP’s LAN setup better to see if we can help.

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I disagree with a couple things you've said:

  1. No one has suggested that @vadim_c not use DHCP. To the contrary, both @bobbles and @marktheknife have suggested using DHCP address reservation, using different terms.
  2. This is not a DNS issue. This is a DHCP issue. @vadim_c has clearly pointed out that the cannot use DHCP address reservation because his WiFi extender substitutes a virtual MAC address for the real MAC address of each device connected through the extender. We don't know the brand/model of his WiFi extender, but the link I posted goes to TP-Link's suggested solution for their WiFi extenders. I chose TP-Link because I think it is a common brand of extender,
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