This morning, I discovered that most of my 38 ZigBee devices were not functioning. Upon checking the ZigBee details under the Hubitat settings, I noticed that many devices did not have a recent "last message" timestamp. I tested several devices, including door contacts and buttons, and found that they were unresponsive.
In my setup, I have two ZigBee plugs—one in the middle of the house and another at the front (my Hubitat hub is located at the back). Additionally, I have several powered ZigBee Smart Human Presence Sensors, which have been reliable repeaters. My ZigBee network has been stable for about a year with no prior issues. My network topology has also remained unchanged during this time, with no additions or modifications. The last ZigBee device I added was approximately one to two months ago.
Steps Taken:
Initial Logs Review:
I checked the live log files, but only standard "info" messages were present. Reviewing the past logs, I found a "warn" message for the plug in the main bedroom, stating: "No response received (device offline?)." On the device page, this was confirmed. However, the other plug appeared online and was controllable, albeit with slow response times.
Hub Reboot:
I rebooted the hub and waited 20 minutes for the system to stabilize. Unfortunately, there was no improvement. Door contacts were still not reporting properly, buttons were only intermittently responsive, and many ZigBee devices remained unresponsive.
Hub Power Cycle:
I powered off the hub completely and unplugged it for 20 minutes to reset the ZigBee network. After powering it back on and waiting an hour, the situation remained unchanged. ZigBee details showed no improvement, and testing devices yielded no responses.
Reboot with Database Rebuild:
I also tried rebooting the hub with a database rebuild. Unfortunately, this did not resolve the issue either.
Device Rediscovery:
I attempted to rediscover a few of the ZigBee devices using their previous configurations. After testing them, the responses were either very slow or failed entirely.
System Stats Review:
I reviewed my system "Stats" and did not notice anything abnormal. The reported values were as follows:
Devices: 15m 38s / 1h 51m 36s total (14.0%)
Local apps: 24m 25s / 1h 51m 32s total (21.9%)
Observations:
The hub's overall response seemed slower than usual, although there were no reports of high resource usage in the logs.
Despite previous stability, most ZigBee devices are now failing to communicate effectively.
I would appreciate any guidance or troubleshooting steps to resolve this issue.
If you go to Settings | Zigbee Details | View Logs (these are "live" logs so no history unless open) does it appear that anything is spamming the network? If you're not seeing anything try toggling a few devices.
Since the logging appears endless, I’m considering disabling these devices, rebooting, and then checking if I can recover most of my Zigbee devices. Do you think this approach makes sense?
Unfortunately, there are at least two different firmware versions for these devices, maybe even more.. The newer firmware should be better, but still have problems.
Probably the best approach is to get one of the Tuya Matter Gateways (Zemismart, Moes, AVATTO, no-named - they are all the same) and bring the existing mmWave sensors to HE via the Matter bridge.
It’s a bit of a bummer because you’ve put so much work into developing the Zigbee drivers for the 3.3.4 (2024/11/17 7:42 PM) (TS0601 _TZE200_kb5noeto) (C-7 2.4.0.151) and the 3.3.4 (2024/11/17 7:42 PM) (TS0601 _TZE204_ya4ft0w4) (C-7 2.4.0.151), only for the Distance Reportsenable/disable attribute to stubbornly refuse to update properly. It’s like that one bug that keeps reappearing no matter how many times you think you’ve fixed it. Wouldn’t it be nice if that attribute could behave like radarSensitivity and staticDetectionSensitivity? Fortunately, I’ve whipped up a pretty sweet Webcore piston to work around it—so it’s not a complete disaster! Also, the Tuya Human Presence Detector YA4FTOW4 (T2E204) seems to be working for the device that requires the (T2E200), well, mostly.
As for moving to Matter, I’m afraid it’s not something I have the bandwidth for right now. From what I’ve seen, Matter is almost there, but I’ve spent so much time riding the bleeding-edge tech rollercoaster that I’m starting to feel a little dizzy. I think I’ll sit this one out for a bit.
Thanks again for all your help and the fantastic drivers you’ve written. Honestly, I’d still be stuck in the dark ages without them.
I would also suggest looking at two other sources, for clues as to what is going on:
Settings | Zigbee details: Look at the second last column, headed "Msgs". Are there devices there that have 0 messages? Are there devices that have an extremely large number? (Sort the column both ways).
The incredible program by Dan Danache : Zigbee neighbours map V2.2.1 If you have any key Zigbee repeaters that are shown in Magenta - that could be a reason for slow and intermittent transmission of Zigbee signals.
Good Luck!
Thanks, jtmpush18, for your insight—I really appreciate it!
That’s exactly what I was referring to earlier:
I’m very familiar with it and use it frequently, especially in this case, thanks for the suggestion.
I think @thebearmay and @kkossev have cracked the case. Turns out these Tuya Zigbee mmWave Sensors from AliExpress are the chatterboxes of the Zigbee world, causing all sorts of issues. I just need some time to unplug them, remove them from my Webcore pistons, and do some testing—but right now, other fires need putting out first.
I’ll report back once I have results… assuming the Zigbee gremlins don’t cause more chaos in the meantime!
I am marking this issue as resolved, as I have addressed the excessive Zigbee traffic. I replaced the three Zigbee human presence sensors, and while Zigbee devices are still communicating, the logs are now trickling in rather than flooding. However, I am still experiencing Zigbee issues and will be opening a new issue to address the new problems I am encountering.
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