Done with Hubitat Homekit for now

thanks for this. I have created this rule and have added an automatic reboot in the event HomeKit Integration is dead by creating a virtual push button and using Hubitat Rebooter app. My updated rule isn’t the cleanest solution and I don't really like it but will see how it works out. For those interested, I include it below.

Coupled with this rule, I also included a simple notification rule to notify me that hubitat booted up and disabled the notification (in red below) that "HomeKit Lives!" so that I do not get a notification if HK integration is working every 15 min (but I will get one when HK Integration is dead and hopefully another once once my system boots up again after rebooter is triggered).

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So what is the official response from Hubitat about this issue? It's a rather big deal since it's a native and not user-based app correct?

I am still having the same issue - randomly throughout the day the HomeKit devices through my Hubitat all say "no response" while a few other directly connected HomeKit accessories are still alive and fine. Clicking the button to restart the integration in the hubitat settings does nothing from a working standpoint - but I still try occasionally. If I reboot my hubitat - a few minutes later everything is online again.

@Holmes what device or system are you pinging or getting acknowledgement of homekit's readiness? My hubitat and Apple TVs are still online and pingable - what does your pingack variable in your automation actually do or contact?

The team’s response has been to try to resolve this issue and push updates to the hub firmware.

So far it hasn’t been totally resolved, though.

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I just followed my guy TArman's post here. You can see his rules (1 automation in HomeKit itself and 1 rule in Hubtiat). I used his Hubitat rule to create my own. My rule merely checks whether a HomeKit switch can be triggered by Hubitat and if not, reboots Hubitat. Today alone, this rule has rebooted my Hubitat 5 times...

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My integration has been performing pretty well for the past couple of weeks... until yesterday. Now it's down more than it's up. I haven't made any changes to my setup, no firmware updates, nothing out of the ordinary at all.

So I have had nothing but issues with my c8 and HomeKit, constant reboots to fix the issue but what it boils down to for me is that the Hubitat c8 stops updating MDNS for _hap._tcp. What I ended up doing was setting up a docker container with avahi that essentially inserts an MDNS entry for the Hubitat hub into my LAN 24/7.

That has solved all my issues and everything just works 24/7 now. I had to insert an entry into /etc/hosts and a service entry for avahi to inject a dns-sd entry.

My Hubitat ip is 192.168.69.82


<service-group>
  <name>hubitat</name>
  <service>
    <host-name>192-168-69-82.local</host-name>
    <type>_hap._tcp</type>
    <port>21063</port>
    <txt-record>c#=17</txt-record>
    <txt-record>ci=2</txt-record> 
    <txt-record>ff=00</txt-record>
    <txt-record>id=CA:BD:84:7F:84:E0</txt-record>
    <txt-record>md=C-8</txt-record>
    <txt-record>pv=1.1</txt-record>
    <txt-record>s#=7745</txt-record>
    <txt-record>sf=0</txt-record>
    <txt-record>sh=wdKIgQ==</txt-record>  
</service>
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@gopher.ny Victor?

Id be happy to work with anyone to prove/show the c8 mdns entry’s stop being sent out by the hub and only a reboot fixes it. Sometimes it fixes it for an hour sometimes a day but it always stops updating. My work around allows the hub to be completely stable with HomeKit and works 24/7 now but for some people running a docker container isn’t realistic and it should just be fixed on the hub.

There is a mdns thread with others complaining about the same thing.

The $64,000 question is WHY only on some hubs?
… and why did my “hack” work and why do I no longer need it?

No clue. I am a network engineer so I pursued it from that angle since it’s an area I know very well. I performed packet captures and the Hubitat eventually just stops sending those frames. If I had access to a shell on the Hubitat I could investigate more. It’s hard to tell what the Hubitat is doing once it’s broken with just access to the gui.

Does it stop sending service records, text records, or both?

All of them it seems. Only a reboot of the hub fixes its and then it will work for 5 minutes or 14 hours.

I auto reboot daily, since downgrading the firmware ive had to reboot the hub manually outside my daily schedule 1 time because of HomeKit disconnecting.

Having to auto reboot the hub to fix a major issue is just another workaround like mine. I had the hub auto rebooting every night at 1am and still had issues during the day.

I've been using this for a while now and I've noticed things are a lot worse after the latest beta.

yes the past two updates have broken my fix now. There is still an entry for the hubitat under the _hap service but everything is showing up as non responsive.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the latest beta 2.3.9.190 has really broken HomeKit Integration for me. I have this rule set for 15 minutes and I'm getting a reboot every 15 minutes. The last couple of betas were working much better with a reboot once or twice a day.

Sorry to hear. I’m on 2.3.9.180 and haven’t had any problems for a while now. Will stick to this version for the foreseeable future.

Good to know. Perhaps I'll roll back and see if that improves it.

This should be posted in the beta forum. Create a new topic. @gopher.ny