Zigbee Devices Behaving Badly

cdikland · November 20, 2022, 1:23pm

I have 8 Hue Motion sensors included directly to my Hubitat hub. Yesterday afternoon, within minutes of each other, they all either stopped working or were super slow to respond. All other zwave, etc devices were working fine, I did notice that one of them showed 0% battery left. I replaced the batteries but it did not respond even after a reset. But here is what is strange, as soon as I pulled the batteries from this sensor the remaining 7 sensors started working again.

My question is, how can one bad/defective sensor cause such problems with all other sensors?

UPDATE: The one Motion sensor that I believed was causing the problems is not, I think, This afternoon all my Hue motion sensors stopped working again. I checked to see if any of my zigbee contact sensors worked and none responded. It seems my problems are more than one sensor. I seem to be having zigbee problems but have no idea how to resolve this. I havent added a zigbee device in ages

Rxich · November 20, 2022, 7:38pm

under settings, check zigbee and be sure it is enabled

cdikland · November 20, 2022, 7:39pm

Yup, enabled. I even tried Disabled/Update option followed by Enabled/Update. Didnt help.

I removed the battery or unplugged all my other zigbee devices leaving only the Hue motion sensors. Nothing...

Rxich · November 21, 2022, 6:02pm

I'm stumped now, especially since it was all working before. Since you haven't added any new devices I don't know what might cause this.
With one of the motion sensors brought near the HE hub, try resetting the sensor by holding the setup button for about 10 seconds, then start pairing on the hub. Let us know what happens.
Also provide a list of all your zigbee devices.

cdikland · November 21, 2022, 6:30pm

I did that for about half the sensors and that brought evrything back to life for about 2 hours. Now everything is back to chaos Some work, some sort of work while other dont work at all.
For example, I can send an on/off to a zigbee switch and it may work but the delay is insane (30+ Sec). The switch may turn on/off but then I cant turn it off/on.
Some motion sensors work for a while then stop altogether. This goes for all other zigbee devices as well.

This morning after excluding/factory resets/including many of these devices everything seemed normal. A couple of hours later and I am back to square one.

Rxich · November 21, 2022, 6:45pm

Interesting. My thought is something is overloading your hub, and when that happens the Zigbee radio is the first thing to get trashed.
Take a look at your logs, check fro any errors.
Then look at device stats & app stats, see if you can locate an item consuming a large portion of resources

also post the output of http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo by substituting your hub's IP address for the X's

cdikland · November 21, 2022, 7:16pm

Parent child parameters
EzspGetParentChildParametersResponse [childCount=3, parentEui64=0000000000000000, parentNodeId=65535]

Child Data
child:[Hue Motion 2 in Foyer, EDA5, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[Hue Motion in Fam Room Office, 1EE1, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
No information for Child 2

Neighbor Table Entry
[Washing Machine, BEBF], LQI:251, age:5, inCost:3, outCost:0

Route Table Entry
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Hue Motion in Fam Room, FE4A] via [Washing Machine, BEBF]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Hue Motion in bFoyer, 9938] via [Washing Machine, BEBF]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [null, 98E3] via [Washing Machine, BEBF]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [null, 9082] via [Washing Machine, BEBF]
status:Unused
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Patio Door, 7533] via [Washing Machine, BEBF]
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused

cdikland · November 21, 2022, 7:25pm

I cant find anything unusual in the log files. As for the device/app stats, seems typical of past history.

I have removed all my Hue Motion detectors and will include them onto my other hub. If I still have problems with zigbee on my main hub I'll remove each device one by one. Given that it may take hours between each change it may take a while before I can actually find the problem.

Hatallica · November 21, 2022, 8:05pm

Curiously, what make/model is the Washing Machine outlet?

It is clearly the linchpin of the ZigBee mesh, but I recall reports of flaky behavior from certain models. May or may not be a factor here.

shawnx1 · November 21, 2022, 8:06pm

How long has your Zigbee network been setup for? It looks like you only have one repeating device? What channel is your zigbee radio set to? Pull the air gap on the zigbee outlet or turn the breaker off however you can cut power to it for a few seconds.

cdikland · November 21, 2022, 8:47pm

Network has been up for at least 2 years. The last zigbee device I added, at least 1 year ago, would have been a Hue motion sensor. Never had any issues. All devices and hub in the same location since as far back as I can remember.

The zigbee channel is 20

I have removed every device so far as the last one, a ST Multi sensor appeared to die and is completely unresponsive. Now I will try to add one device at the time. If that doesnt work I'll try a zigbee radio reset

cdikland · November 21, 2022, 9:26pm

Going from bad to worse. I removed all devices, factory reset each one, tried to re-include but none would join, reset the radio, changed the channel from 20 to 15 and all effort failed. None of my devices would join except for one. That particular device joined but did not respond.

I then tried to add these same devices to another hub sitting right next to me. They would not join. I dont know how many times I did a factory reset on these suckers yet they just will not join.

I am totally out of ideas

rlithgow1 · November 21, 2022, 10:23pm

When you are joining them, are you joining them in place or next to the hub? Do you have any zigbee bulbs in your mesh?

shawnx1 · November 21, 2022, 10:24pm

Did you cut power to the zigbee outlet?

cdikland · November 21, 2022, 10:32pm

I tried both. I had “better” luck near the hub only in that the device joined but didn’t work

cdikland · November 21, 2022, 10:34pm

Yup. I ended up removing it from the network.

rlithgow1 · November 21, 2022, 10:39pm

Your entire issue from everything you've said seems to be a seriously weak mesh. On the device that joined but didn't work, how did you pair it? Through the manufacturer or classic zigbee pairing? I recommend only using classic zigbee pairing. Then check that the driver is correct after pairing. Pair right next to the hub.

shawnx1 · November 22, 2022, 12:27am

So you have two Hubitat hubs? If you have the zigbee radio turned on on both try turning off one of the radios. Also make sure to factory reset the outlet and include that one first. Don't know if you're using hub mesh on your hubs but if you are turn it off for now. Might sound dumb but if you actually have two hubs make sure your using the correct hub and your not dealing with hub mesh issues from reseting and all that junk.

cdikland · November 22, 2022, 1:28pm

I think (& hope) I have fixed my problems. A couple of days ago I was getting error messages from Blink and Acurite hubs (can't connect to cloud error) both of which are "hard-wired" to one of my AP routers. Because it had nothing to do with Hubitat and all my other wifi devices were working fine I ignored the error.

This morning I was ready to throw everything in the garbage as no zigbee device would connect to either hub. Grasping for straws I decided to try one more thing. Turn off my wifi radios. reboot the routers and turn wifi back on. I then tried to include the powered zigbee socket and it connected immediately. The Hue motion detectors added with ease and atm all seems to be working.So far so good. Here's hoping it stays that way. By the speed each zigbee device joined the network I am optimistic I found/fixed my problem

I believe now that my original loss of my zigbee devices started this weekend due to wifi interference. One of my AP routers had wifi issues this weekend and I turned off the radios. Obviously not soon enough as the remaining wifi was still raising hell.

Thanks everyone for all the great help you provided.

LosinIt · November 22, 2022, 3:34pm

FWIW, I had a very similar issue with a couple Netgear routers (R7900P from Costco) that I had put into AP mode. Though I had assigned a channel to them they didn't honor the assignment and were channel hopping which caused interference with my Zigbee mesh, but not nearly as badly as your experience. After these routers were replaced with Unifi APs the problem went away.

I regret not associating my experience with yours much sooner as I might have saved you time and grief.