Conbee II fails to integrate

Suddenly, my Conbee II stopped working after restart. I am a newbie on HomeAssistant, running it in Virtualbox on a Windows 10 computer. These records appear in the log indicating that the “serial port” is absent. When checking in the system there is for sure no /dev/serial present. I have seen other threads indicating edit of a .storage file - but which change should be done?

“serial.serialutil.SerialException: [Errno 2] could not open port /dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2194450-if00: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘/dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2194450-if00’”

“2022-01-01 18:10:22 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.config_entries] Config entry ‘ConBee II - /dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2194450-if00, s/n: DE2194450 - dresden elektronik ingenieurtechnik GmbH - 1CF1:0030’ for zha integration not ready yet: [Errno 2] could not open port /dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2194450-if00: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘/dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2194450-if00’; Retrying in background”

“2022-01-01 18:10:25 ERROR (MainThread) [zigpy.application] Couldn’t start application”

"2022-01-01 18:10:25 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.zha.core.gateway] Couldn’t start deCONZ = dresden elektronik deCONZ protocol: ConBee I/II, RaspBee I/II coordinator "

Assuming you setup a filter for the stick in VirtualBox.

Check windows device manager to see if it is listed when the VM is running. If it is, that means VirtualBox could not capture the port (many many reasons for this) when it started.

You can pull the stick and reinsert it to see if VB can recapture it and pass it to HA

Thanks. So, basically the issue was in Virtualbox not being able to capture the USB-stick… Restarted Virtualbox - and it worked again…

Fantastic!

Now the same happened again. Running HA in Virtualbox on Windows, at least when using Conbee-stick appears very unstable… I am considering using my NUC with native HA-OS - would that be a more stable solution?

I can’t answer your question re the NUC.

I had the same exact problem and worked through this thread which gave me great insight on VirtualBox’s USB pass-through functionality.

In my case, It was the windows driver I had installed (the latest driver for ZST10 700). Once I deleted the newer drivers and started using the default windows drivers, VirtualBox consistently captured the USB port on VM restart.

Do you have a screen capture of the filter for the device?

My problem was related to ConbeeII firmware. Was eventually able to flash updated firmware, and it now works OK. Also swapped to RPi4 instead on NUC…

I run a NUC with native HA-OS, use a conbee ii with Deconz add on. Never had a problem or ever had to think about anything other thank plugging it in (via usb extension!)

Had a similar issue when I migrated my set up to a NUC - turned out it was a VirtualBox issue (or more to the point a stupid thing that I didn’t do when I re-installed the VM). When I originally set it up I’d added the USB extensions pack from the VB site, and I’d forgotten to re-install them.
Can’t take credit for this - thanks to LinuxBabe - see this post: How to Access USB from VirtualBox Guest OS - LinuxBabe)].

Anyway - Conbee II was immediately found once I’d added them in and no connection issues.

Regardless of computer be sure to use a USB 2.0 port and not any USB 3.0 ports as those cause serious EMF/EMI/RMI interference to 2.4GHz low-power radios such as Zigbee, Thread, and Bluetooth. If your computer does not have a USB 2.0 port then buy and connect a powered USB 2.0 hub and that will in practice convert a USB 3.x port into a USB 2.0 port, then connect USB extension cable to it. Also read and follow these generic best practice tips on improving Zigbee network range and general stability https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy/wiki/Generic-best-practice-tips-on-improving-Zigbee-network-range-and-general-stability