The IKEA Fyrtur shade pairing dance of madness

[craigspree]

Wondering if anyone has some suggestions, as I’ve spent several hours over the last two days trying to re-pair an IKEA Fyrtur shade that fell off my C8 hub two days ago.

Details:

1. I have five IKEA Fyrtur shades that have worked well for the past 3 years. All shades were upgraded to the latest Fyrtur firmware one month ago.
2. on Friday Jan 12, at 12:30a one of my Fyrturs fell off the C8 network
3. Usually this means the battery is low and I’ll charge it up. The battery showed 98% but I charged it, put it back in the shade and it didn’t reconnect.
4. I reset the shade (held in both buttons for 5 seconds till the shade retracted, and the white light flashed quickly, then went out, then came back on glowing after 8 seconds.)
5. The shade kept getting stuck in initializing.

I believe I have a healthy Zigbee mesh. Around 70 items with a 70/30 split of mains powered to battery devices and 3 IKEA Tradfri repeaters (all on latest firmware) close to the shades.

I have no other issues happening with Zigbee or the hub at the moment.

I’m on firmware 2.3.7.145

Troubleshooting steps:

1. I tried regular Zigbee pairing, avoiding 3.0 repeaters, with exchanging keys in the clear.
2. My C8 Zigbee power is 12. I tried setting it to 4, 8, 16, 20. Each time I reset the Zigbee power I tried pairing regularly, avoiding 3.0, keys in the clear.
3. I’ve tried resetting the shade multiple times between pairing - twice, three, four, etc.
4. I’ve tried hitting pairing first on the hub, then resetting the shade, and resetting the shade first then hitting pairing on the hub
5. I’ve tried hitting pairing at the same moment as resetting, waiting up to 20 seconds after resetting before hitting pairing, and hitting pairing 20 seconds before resetting.
6. I’ve tried holding the button end of the shade on top of my C8 physically touching the hub while pairing (in all steps and power configurations listed above)
7. I’ve tried rolling back to hub firmware 2.3.6 and then following all pairing steps above
8. I’ve tried disabling all apps and then trying all pairing steps above
9. I’ve paired an additional IKEA Tradfri repeater and placed it on top of the shade (see photo and screenshots below)
10. I’ve rebooted the Zigbee radio.
11. I’ve done a soft-reset/restore of the hub
12. I’ve powered down the hub and disconnected from main power for 30 minutes
13. I deleted the original shade device in hopes that trying to pair it from scratch would work - and tried all steps above.
14. I’ve tried just tapping the up/down buttons and that makes the white light come on solid, but then nothing starts to pair at all with the hub.
15. Tried charging up batteries for the shade and starting fresh.
16. Took out the battery from the shade and let it sit overnight then tried again from scratch.

The shade operates fine using the up and down buttons.

The hub almost always sees the shade within 3-5 seconds of the white light glowing on the shade, but never gets past initializing. The shade light stays glowing for 90 seconds and always eventually goes out after not pairing.

Again, this shade worked well for months, is on the latest firmware, and my 4 other shades are fine. I just can’t get this one to reconnect and it’s driving me mad.

Any suggestions?

Device found and forever initializing:

Signal strength of the Tradfri repeater I have sitting on top of the shade in a sad dance of trying to get it to pair properly:

Tradfri repeater resting on top of the shade. Starting trying this on day 2.

[craigspree]

9 more days of trying and finally got the shade re-paired.

After repeatedly trying everything above, and removing the battery for 24-72 hours and then resetting, and pairing. I kept getting stuck at initializing no matter what I picked. Regular, avoiding 3.0, keys in the clear.

I had my old C5 in a drawer, so I turned off my C8.

I plugged in my C5 and reset the Zigbee and zwave radios. Updated the hub firmware and did a soft reset.

I set the C5 to Zigbee channel 25. Turned zwave off.

Turned my C8 back on.

I tried to pair the shade to the C5. The shade did the little up/down dance when it typically pairs, but the C5 was stuck initializing.

I then paired an IKEA Tradfri repeater to the C5. That also got stuck on initializing.

Rebooted the C5.

Paired the IKEA Tradfri repeater successfully.

Reset the shade one more time, and hit ‘pair’ (normally) on the C5 between the time the shade light was off before it came back on (so I reset, the light blinks, then turns off, then glows after 10 seconds. I hit pair while the light was off).

The shade went up/down and… paired to the C5!

I tried a firmware update on the shade and it just said firmware unavailable. I opened the logs and hit get info and configure on the device page to verify it could talk to the C5.

I then reset the shade, and tried pairing again to the C8. Same process. Reset shade. Light blinks and goes off. Hit pair (normal). Light for the shade comes on and pulses. The shade went down/up and it paired successfully! I changed the driver to my IKEA shade drivers. Configured and it worked just like always.

I reset the C5 and put it back in the drawer.

I have no ideas what finally got it to work after 11 days of trying. Nothing else I found online helped me out. Maybe this thread will provide ideas for someone in the future.