Recurring HomeKit Bridge Failure – C-7, Firmware 2.5.2.135 – Possible mDNS/Bonjour Issue

Get Help Integrations
1

'm experiencing a recurring issue with the native HomeKit integration on my Hubitat C-7. Approximately every four to five days, all devices exposed through Hubitat become unresponsive in Apple Home.

I've performed some troubleshooting and collected diagnostic information that may help identify the problem.

System information

  • Hub: Hubitat Elevation C-7
  • Platform version: 2.5.2.135
  • Connection: Wired Ethernet
  • Local IP address: 192.168.50.193
  • HomeKit integration: Native Hubitat HomeKit Bridge
  • Apple Home hub: Apple HomePod

Failure history

October 10, 2026:

  • Hubitat devices became unresponsive in Apple Home.
  • Hubitat itself remained accessible and operational.
  • Devices continued functioning directly through Hubitat.
  • Other Apple Home bridges and devices continued working normally.

October 14–15, 2026:

  • The same issue occurred again overnight.
  • Approximately four to five days elapsed between failures.

Troubleshooting performed

  1. Checked the Hubitat HomeKit integration. It showed no active HomeKit connections.

  2. Restarted the HomeKit integration within Hubitat. This did not restore connectivity.

  3. Restarted the Apple HomePod by disconnecting and reconnecting power. This did not resolve the issue.

  4. Tested Bonjour/mDNS discovery from a Mac using:

    dns-sd -B _hap._tcp local

    Other HomeKit devices were discovered, including ecobee devices, but Hubitat did not appear in the discovery results.

  5. Tested TCP connectivity to Hubitat's HomeKit service:

    nc -G 3 -vz 192.168.50.193 21063

    The connection succeeded, indicating that the HomeKit service port was accessible.

  6. Tested the HomeKit accessory endpoint:

    http://192.168.50.193:21063/accessories

    The server returned HTTP 200.

  7. Finally, performed a complete reboot of the Hubitat C-7.

    This immediately restored HomeKit functionality.

Observations

The evidence suggests that the HomeKit service remains accessible over TCP while its Bonjour/mDNS advertisement becomes unavailable to clients on the network.

This could indicate an issue with the HomeKit integration's mDNS advertising process, although I recognize that network multicast behavior could also contribute.

The particularly interesting finding is that restarting the HomeKit integration alone does not resolve the issue, while rebooting the entire hub does.

Questions for the development team

  1. Is this a known issue with firmware 2.5.2.135 or the native HomeKit integration?

  2. Are there known conditions that could cause Hubitat to stop advertising its HomeKit service through Bonjour/mDNS?

  3. Are there engineering logs or diagnostic procedures I can run during the next failure, before rebooting, to help identify the cause?

  4. Is there a way to restart the underlying mDNS service without rebooting the entire hub?

  5. Is a fix being investigated for an upcoming firmware release?