Cannot get any Zigbee devices to stay online (ZHA)

[Hedda]

@AndySymons

I am looking for a way of diagnosing a working network that suddenly stopped working. Almost, but not quite, completely. Practically the whole network is down and I do not know how to go about diagnosing the problem. The debug log seemed the obvious answer, but I cannot make head or tail of it.

Does the debug log extract that I posted not give any clues?
Would a different part of the debug log help more?
Is there a way of adding a zip file (of the whole log) to a post on this forum?

@AndySymons probably best if you open an issue to Home Assistant core and provide debug logs from ZHA as judging by the short snippet of debugging messages it might be a problem with the new OTA update features → https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#reporting-issues (i.e. create a new issue to Issues · home-assistant/core · GitHub and post all your details there so that ZHA developers can properly analyze the full logs).

As this is not the right place to post full debug logs and ZHA developers do not hang out here

However if you wanted then you could upload the full logs to pastebin.com and post the URL to it.

@AndySymons

In a possibly related problem, I cannot get my Zigbee network to move away from channel 15 If I try to change the channel it goes busy for a long while, then shows the channel as still 15. This is odd because I set up a different network before on channel 25 using the same type of dongle

That could be related so you should definitely mention that when you start the issue as per above.

@AndySymons

Maybe I need to do some kind of reset on the dongle?

It is possible to backup your Zigbee network to a file and then reset the Zigbee Coordinator before restoring the network from the file, (you can do all that by using zigpy-cli and as a stand-alone command line tool on a different computer or with the ZHA integration disabled), but I would advice to first open a new issue to Home Assistant core and wait to get a reply from ZHA developers after they analyzed your full debug logs.

That procedure would work similarly to migrating to a new Zigbee Coordinator adapter inside ZHA, with the difference that you reset the adapter instead of switching to a new adapter → https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#migrating-to-a-new-zigbee-coordinator-adapter-inside-zha

Understand that the way a Zigbee Coordinator NCP (Network Co-Processor) adapter works is not just a dumb radio adapter but instead, the Zigbee stack for the Zigbee Coordinator is running locally on that adapter and it controls the whole Zigbee network, while the host application running on the computer is more or less just keeping presenting the objects and only sending commands to it telling the Zigbee Coordinator what to change.

@stevemann

I don’t recall if you said what Zigbee controller you are using, but if it’s a Zigbee Dongle, do not plug it into a USB 3.0 port.

Yes if your computer only has USB 3.x/4.x ports then it recommend to buy a powered USB 2.0 hub for connecting Zigbee, Thread, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio adapter dongles, because USB 3.x/4.x is infamously known for causing serious interference for all of those low-powered radios that use the 2.4GHz frequency range.

Read and follow → Zigbee networks: how to guide for avoiding interference and optimize for getting better range + coverage

That includes making sure all Zigbee, Thread, and BLE radio adapter dongles and devices are not located physically close to any other sources of EMF/EMI/RMI (like WiFi router/access points, alarm-system, electric appliances/Philippians/devices, power supplies, power cables/wired, etc.). Best to put on a tin-foil hat and overkill this whole task

@AndySymons

I have a Zigbee network based on the SONOFF 3.0 dongle

If you have the ITead’s “Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus” (model “ZBDongle-P” based on Texas Instruments CC2652P) then you should upgrade the Z-Stack Zigbee Coordinator NCP firmware on it → ITead's "Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus" (model "ZBDongle-P") based on Texas Instruments CC2652P +20dBm radio SoC/MCU

If you instead have [Tead’s “Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus V2” (model “ZBDongle-E” based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG21) then you probably do not need to update as the older Zigbee EmberZNet 6.10.x firmware they still ship on them is known to be very stable, however, if you can not solve your problems by other means then you should consider upgrading to the latest Zigbee EmberZNet 7.3.x bug-fix version (but not EmberZNet 7.4.x or later yet) → ITead’s “Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus V2” (model "ZBDongle-E") based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 +20dBm radio SoC/MCU

@AndySymons

the Deco M5 does not have the facility to set the channel or restrict the choice of channels. It is supposed to find a channel that is not busy, so should work around Zigbee traffic

FYI, unfortunately, Zigbee is low-energy, and thus the signals are so weak that your Wi-Fi channels will not even notice that they are there. That is, Wi-Fi can jam Zigbee/Thread/BLE but not vice versa.

PS: This was just one of the many reasons that made me migrate from having six TP-Link Deco M5 WiFi mesh routers to four Unifi U6 Lite access points (and the Unifi Dream Machine) a few years ago.