I added 2 more Sengeled lights to my zigbee network and moved 2 other bulbs around.
Now my device groups work inconsistently! Sometime a few devices respond. Sometimes none at all. Each seems to work when commanded are sent directly though. I don't feel like I have too big of a network with only 6 Sengeled Color Plus bulbs, 2 Classic and 4 Nue switches.
Yesterday, to diagnose I tried shutting off the hub for 20 minutes to see if the Zigbee mesh would self correct, but this morning seems to have having the same problems still.
What suggestions do you all have for trying to correct this further?
Inconsistency would suggest to me a mesh problem, as in not enough devices. I would try moving your bulbs back to their original location and then try a Zigbee repair again.
I agree with mesh problems however I don't see how this is a solution since end of project I want the bulbs in the new positions. Also the placement is more centralized (unless there is lead in the walls) AND they aren't the only bulbs experiencing problems. Every Single Bulb Group now is acting up.
Then you need more repeating devices. I suggested moving your bulbs back to where they were, to test. Zigbee devices need to have solid communications paths between individual devices and the hub. If the communications are weak then you have devices not responding. You will either need more bulbs to fill in and repeat signals or other line powered Zigbee devices to fill in.
I think you have answered your own original question.
Are the introduced devices repeaters?
Bulbs are notoriously bad repeaters as has been documented in numerous posts already.
Zigbee and Zwave are very low powered radios. They don't penetrate walls very well. They are subject to interference. You can't tell radio waves where to go or how to get there and because of that you need to provide as many opportunities and pathways to and from the hub as you can. In a situation, where there aren't many devices, it is easy to have inconsistencies. At some point, as you add a device and like magic, every thing works well. That one device will be just what is needed for a strong mesh. After that every device will make the mesh more resilient.
I've had Groups get wonky after a change. I found that rebuilding the group helps. I would basically just open the group, open the bulb drop down, hit update and done.
This seemed more likely. But I'm not jazzed that patching may cause me to have to rebuild configuration =/
Regarding the mesh. I was lucky to have choose Sengeled bulbs at first. Cuz I discovered in my research it seems they are one of the good ones that don't act as relays. They also realize that when they regain power they should turn on, letting me use normal switches!
Anyway the outlets are my relays and I ran around my house when I got them seeing how far out I could put them without requiring intermediary relays. The range is actually pretty good or my walls pretty thin.
But @zarthan I did leave my hub off today while I'm at work just in case rebuilding the Zigbe network is the problem. Lets hope you are right.
FYI, Sengled bulbs are not repeaters, so adding more of these (unlike most directly or indirectly mains-powered devices--not that I'd generally recommend bulbs for this purpose anyway) won't help strengthen the mesh. In fact, because the hub has a limit of 32 directly-connected "end devices" (i.e., non repeaters), if you have a lot of Sengleds (or Zigbee end devices in general), it's actually quite important to have repeaters to extend the network's total device capacity, regardless of range (though if that's the issue, that will undoubtedly help here, too).
...so given the above, these outlets are indeed a good idea. I'm not sure how you determined how far away you could place them; if you're going with theoretical Zigbee range, I'd at least look at RSSI or LQI from Zigbee logs (or possibly a repeater driver if any you're using expose these as commands or respond to them) rather than relying on that. Especially Zigbee, more repeaters can rarely hurt (and regarding the 32-device thing above, keep in mind that each repeater also has its own limit, often far less--I think I've seen people say around 4-6 for some devices, though I've seen ones like the SmartThings 2018 outlet with a few more and special-purpose devices like the Xbee with even more).
Unfortunately, because you changed two variables at the same time, it's hard to say exactly what may have caused this. Zigbee bulbs directly connected to Hubitat have always been a bit difficult in my experience if you have a large number of them and send commands to lots of them around the same time without using group messaging (an option for Groups in Groups and Scenes)--one reason I went back to a Hue Bridge after a brief experiment. Clicking "Done" in the each group app shouldn't be necessary but certainly can't hurt for troubleshooting. Moving now-problematic bulbs back to their old locations (and waiting a bit for them to find good repeaters--something you might also want to do in their current/new location if you attempted to control them right away) also couldn't, but since you really do want them there, finding the real issue--mesh or otherwise--would obviously be better.
Well I'm experiencing this as well all of a sudden. I'm also using Sengled Color Bulbs in my Group and on 2.1.9.114 as well.
In my case all I have connected to the hub and powered on atm is 3 RGBW lights(2 Sengled Bulbs and their light strip). Hub is setup about 5 feet from the devices as well.
Using groups is very much inconstant. It's anyone guess as what the lights will do.
Had my bedroom lamp group(bulb 1, bulb 2) sub nested into the Bedroom group ex: (bedroom lamp, led strip) which I don't think hubitat likes. Grouped all the individual Sengled devices into the new Bedroom group as(bulb 1, bulb 2, ledstrip).
@srwhiteHE documentation says, "24 hours." But we are only a few hours away from 48 so I can easily see if the problem has fixed itself by tonight.
You may have overlooked...
Now that you know, how long do you think it would take to heal a mesh with a depth less then 2?
Furthermore the reconfiguration I did was to move 2 bulbs from the edge to near line of sight with the hub and add 2 bulbs within line of sight with the hub. Then the problems I experienced involved EVERY SINGLE group, including those that would be on an entirely different side of the building and thus hopefully not effected by changes. Pretty sub par if a change like this can take down the entire network...
These problem occurred after the update (yes and adds & moves), continued after the reboot "for optimal routing", continued after the 10 hour shutdown, and now only those groups I have rebuilt are working....
Would you like me to let you know tonight if this was clearly a mesh issue? Do you suggest I wait an additional 48 hours after the last time I turned the hub on before we can eliminate the mesh as the source of this problem?
We should probably pursue this in that thread though... re-posting there.
If you control the devices individually, do they respond consistently each time?
Are you using Zigbee group messaging in the Groups app?
If the answer to both is yes, then you have a mesh issue.
Zigbee group messaging is essentially a multicast. The hub sends out a message addressed to a specific group ID.. Each device that receives the message, processes the message, and if it's a routing device, forwards the message to all of the neighbors in its route table. The process repeats itself until the message propagates throughout the mesh.
There are no communication re-tries if a device fails to receive and/or act on the message. The device either gets the message or it doesn't. So device responsiveness/control issues arising from the use of Zigbee multicast are almost always an indicator of a weak/poorly performing mesh.
I see you are using nested subgroups.. If I am reading your post correctly, you have 5 nested levels of groups. If you have all of them enable for Zigbee group messaging, then you're creating a broadcast storm on your mesh, since all of those groups can potentially each cause a multicast message to be sent.
Actually it turned out to be zigbee group messaging with both nested groups. Removing the one subnested group took care of that. As @srwhite mentions it created a broadcast storm which can overload the devices with messages. I have a feeling Sengled devices are prone to this anyways.
Hmmm... I may have group messaging turned on for one group or subgroup but certainly not all...
I hadn't experienced anything I would name "popcorn" so I had it on for a test group to try to see what this feature did. The documentation was a bit... brief. Groups and Scenes - Hubitat Documentation
Not 5 level nested...
There are 2 bulbs in a group called Overhead Lights.
Overhead lights is a member of Bedroom LIghts.
Bedroom Lights is member of House Lights.
I'm not sure how you determined how far away you could place them; if you're going with theoretical Zigbee range, I'd at least look at RSSI or LQI from Zigbee logs (or possibly a repeater driver if any you're using expose these as commands or respond to them) rather than relying on that. Especially Zigbee, more repeaters can rarely hurt (and regarding the 32-device thing above, keep in mind that each repeater also has its own limit, often far less--I think I've seen people say around 4-6 for some devices, though I've seen ones like the SmartThings 2018 outlet with a few more and special-purpose devices like the Xbee with even more).
