Hi all… I have a C-4 that has a new, maddening habit— becoming unreachable every time I leave town for a few months. Platform version 2.3.9.166. Using the Hubitat app it still shows up in the list of my hubs, but when I click it, it just says “Loading Mobile Devices”. After that it sometimes says “Timed out waiting for mobile app devices” and sometimes it says something like “No response from hub”. Clicking “Create New Device” just brings me back to the Settings page.
Is there a chance that the whole house is offline and that nothing is working like it should while I am gone? Or is this just a problem with remote access to it? Is my alarm still on? Is this the app having problems or is my hub starting to fail? How would I know?
Thanks for that thing to try. And I’d love to try it but I won’t be home for 5 months. That’s why this is so maddening… is there any way to figure out if the alarm is still on without getting on a plane?
Does anyone know of a VPN gadget (not a VPN “service”) that works with Hubitat? I once bought a thing called Firewalla, but I could not figure out how to get it to work as a VPN. But if I had a VPN, that would tell me if the hub itself is off, right?
Would signing up for HE Remote Admin be the answer?
Personally I haven't subscribed to it but if you did and you could get in, you may be able to see what's going on.
If you do subscribe but still cannot get in then I'm not sure what to suggest to get you out of this hole.
Sounds like a reasonable approach to me. Espeicially for someone away from home for months, remote access to the hub (via Remote Admin for now, maybe VPN later) seems like a necessary thing.
It would be quite a coincidence if your hub went offline each time you leave town.
If you have signed up for Remote Admin, then rule out a faulty app by using a web browser to connect to my.hubitat.com and attempt to login via that route. While you are on that site, you can check the Hub Details for the last "check-in time".
If you have not signed up for remote admin, then test if you have access to your hub using the mobile app to access just the dashboard, rather than the console.
With regards to a simple VPN, you might look at TailScale. You can install this software on any device inside your home that can be left running 7/24. Install another copy on your mobile device (phone, tablet,laptop, etc). After choosing a few options, you are up and working. Also the Personal Plan has no cost.
I have a C7 that was locking up every few months. I couldn't connect to it at all and had to pull the power to restart it. It then started doing it every few weeks, then about every ten days. At that point I set it up to reboot once a week. It then started freezing in less than a week so I changed the reboot to three times a week. Now I'm up to every day it reboots.
I haven't tested to see if the latest fixes solve my issues. It is a hub I'm migrating away from so I wasn't too worried. I've been thinking about turning off the reboot to see if it still happens with the updates.
Unfortunately this doesn't help your current situation. When you get back I would definitely update to the latest firmware. As mentioned above there have been a few updates related to rare lockups. Then you might create a rule that reboots the hub every couple of weeks.
You could also look at getting a remote plug you can control outside of Hubitat. Then if it fails you can cycle power on the hub. Not the best solution as it is not recommended to shutdown the hub like that, but if it is already down and you have no other way to restart it it might be worth the risk.
As a side note, I only have this issue on one hub out of five currently running.
So the hub probably lost cloud connection. It was a bug somewhere in the 2.3.9.166 to 180 versions. Updating will likely fix it. If you could get someone to pull the plug on it and restart it, it should come back long enough to get it updated.
A VPN can be setup many ways, you don’t need a special gadget. Many home routers can host a VPN server and there is also a newer tool called Tailscale you can install on about any always on system.
If you had VPN access to your LAN and the issue was just the cloud connection then yes you could access it via the VPN and reboot it.
I would also suggest getting a Wi-Fi smart plug of some sort and plugging the hub into that. Then you can remote restart the hub from that plugs app as long as your Wi-Fi is operational.
I would second that suggestion. Very brute force solution, but might make the difference in whether the system is running.
Hubitat strongly suggests not using the hub for critical security application or life saving devices. I would agree that if this is a critical application, I would want secondary monitoring and/or redundant systems.
I put a dual plug where I can also reboot the cable modem in addition to my Hubitat, but that probably won't work if the cable connection is down.
What usually happens in my case though is my speed goes to 1M download or something slow like that, and I can reboot to restore things for people who are at home wanting the normal faster speed.
My only concern with that would be if the smart plug goes like one of my Kasa one's did, continually toggling on and off. Haven't got a good alternative that I can quickly think of....
When I read that about the Kasa, I immediately tasmotized a sonoff S31 to replace my Kasa, and connected it to my HA. (I also have VPN in case).
On a related note, I then asked @thebearmay if he could add the shutdown URL function to his Hub Information Driver which he so kindly did. Using a simple tasmota rule initiated by this shutdown URL, this allows for a hub-initiated power cycle sequence. The rule waits 3 minute to allow the hub to shutdown, powers off the sonoff for 5 minutes and then powers it back on.
For mine it was a physical defect on the smart plug, so not so much an issue with the connection method or where it was connected to. So I was thinking something other than a smart plug or at least selecting brands / models that do not commonly have these kinds of defects.
Agree with this premise, but I was just wondering. If you have multiple hubs in a remote location (as do I), why not just use a zwave/zigbee (HE compatible) plug? Hub A plugged into a device controlled by Hub B. And Hub B plugged into a device controlled by Hub A.
Was about to set this up, so wondering if there’s some downside I’m not considering.
I used to do this with an old C7 monitoring the new C8.
I'm not sure what my logic was, at this point.
I have the C8 on a backup battery, so that's a wrinkle.
I think I had the 5 vdc running through a ZEN16, battery to C8.
If the C7 detected a C8 radio crash, it would use endpoint commands to shutdown and then power cycle the C8.
If the C8 wouldn't return a ping, the C7 would use the ZEN16 to just power cycle the ZEN16.
This setup would be autonomous-downside, I'm not sure at this point if I had remote access to the C7 to do the power cycle the C8 remotely.
It did actually work once when I was home.
I stopped using it during a "simplification" phase I had.
I don't travel much anyway.
Even though I have a VPN, I also have all of my hubs on Wi-Fi plugs that work both locally and via cloud. Belt and suspenders.
