ConBee II with HA on Synology DSM 7.0 (Virtual Machine)

Having a Synology DSM 7.2.1-69057 Update 3 on a DS920+ with an ConBee II Zigbee USB dongle (Dresden Elektronik). On this Synology nas i’m running Home Assistant in the Virtual Machine manager package: 2.6.5-12202.

This virtual machine manager on which the Zigbee dongle is configured, run the HAOS virtual machine with version Core 2024.1.6, Supervisor 2023.12.1, Operating System 11.4 en Frontend 20240104.0 and Zigbee2MQTT 1.35.2-1

At random intervals (around once every 2/3 days) the Zigbee device stops working and the path /dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2288768-if00 is gone, after which (ofcourse) my zigbee devices stop working.

I currently get it working by going to the Synolgy Virtual Machine Manager, on which i remove the usb-dongle, press “ok”, add the usb-dongle and again press “ok”. I then enter Home Assistant and go to the Zigbee2MQTT addon and start it.

Is there a way to get my enviroment stable?
Or maybe some hints on how to debug this issue?
If i really should buy other hardware i also would like to know

The earlier suggested fix by installing an docker for forwarding the serial communication to network on the Synology sounds strange to me. Why would docker work and the virtual machine manager is giving met problems.

As far as I could understand this setup is not fixable in a reliable way. I switched with my Conbee to a seperate RPI with Z2M.

DSM 7 doesn’t officially support non-storage USB devices. ZigBee dongles are a legacy feature. Have you tried with /dev/ttyACM0 instead of /dev/serial/by-id?

Ser2Net is alternative route and is necessary when dongle unmounts from VM and has to be remounted manually, but may help with other mounting issues as well and is rock stable.

As far as Synology is concerned and you don’t want to deal with mounting issues, your best bet is to ditch legacy USB and switch over to LAN gateway. You can place it anywhere, doesn’t suffer from USB interference, has better antennas, OTA firmware updates and useful web UI. If you don’t need thread and stability is preferred, get CC2652P over EFR32.

https://smlight.tech/product/slzb-06/

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I have HA running in a VM on a Syno NAS with DSM 7.x
exaclty the same issue, after rebooting HA (after oine of the regular updates)
I alwasy have to manually mount the Conbee Stick to my HA VM again.
But that happens, AFAIK, only when I reboot my VM or the NAS itself.

Did anyone solve that issue?

I also do’nt see the Conbee USVB stikc under /dev/ttyX
nothing nada.
Only with lsbusb I can see it,
so moving to a seperate container with Zigbee2MQTT probably also no option in moment…

Any hints, tips?

Cheers
Marcel

Thanks for that suggestion.
But maybe I understand it wrongm,
but when I do:

sudo /sbin/modprobe cdc-acm

I stil dont see the Conbee USB adapter under:
/dev/ttyACM0

so thats why I dont understand how thta should help?
M
Marcel

For the people who have problenms with loosing the Conbeen even without Reboot
of NAS or VM, it could be connected with the Conbee Firnmware, see this thread:

[Conbee II firmware upgrade, zigbee devices offline - #2 by VDRainer)

Might be a cdc_acm driver issue? No idea why it wouldn’t work, but I’ve seen people having different issues using DSM7 on different units. Try running it at boot as root user (not the sudoer) from Task Scheduler, that’s how it works for me.

Hey,
I tried that out,
to laod that module via Task scheduler and user root.
Still the same result, no ttyACME device
under /dev

Is the cdc_acm module driver included inn the Synology SW, or do I need to install it?
The task manager shows status interuppted, which is probaly also not correct?
:slight_smile:

Yeah it should be Normal (0). Try to setup output log as stated in the note, it may tell us more.

image

Morning,
stupid question, in the Synology help for setting user scripts, Synology suggest,
to provide the shell before the actuall script.
Is this in that case needed to?
I mean to setup in the task manager like this:

bash /sbin/modprobe cdc-acm

Sorry what such stupid question.

I tried it out and answere my question by myself.
Correct way is like you wrote:

/sbin/modprobe cdc-acm

no bash before.
Task scheduler runs it now.

And I have now the device in /dev:

nas01:~$ ls -la /dev/ttyAC*
crw------- 1 root root 166, 0 Feb  5 10:12 /dev/ttyACM0

Hurray!
One more step close.
Now I will add Zigbee2MQTT container.
Another stupid question, its possible to have multiple zigbee2MQTT instances?
Im asking because I have in a rmeote location a Zigbee2MQTT container running on a Vyos router, which works great, so locally I can add without any problem another Zigbee2MQTT instance?

Thanks
Marcel

No, they are both gone

Ealier i was using the hue-bridge of philps, since they are a working with required cloud login i no longer want to use this. This sollution was stable and worked fine for my family.

I no longer have a stable system en from what i read, i can best get myselve an network-attachted-zigbee device like the by @Xeevis suggested SLZB-06 Zigbee Ethernet PoE LAN USB WiFi Adapter CC2652P | Zigbee2MQTT | Home Assistant | SMLIGHT | SMLIGHT Official Homepage device.

Hope that i can easily migrate the devices later.

So, i dont know why, but i have problems only if i connect the usb stick in a rear port of the synology . May you can try your luck with the front usb port.

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Also be sure to buy and connect the Zigbee Coordinator radio adapter via powered USB 2.0 hub and/or via a long USB extension cable if your Synology has a USB 2.0 port, but do not connect the Zigbee Coordinator radio adapter to a USB 3.0 port, and also make sure to keep it away from any external USB 3.0 peripherals/devices such as example external USB hard drives. Read and follow → Zigbee networks: how to guide for avoiding interference + optimizing using Zigbee Router devices (repeaters/extenders) to get best possible range and coverage

Thanks for the reply, i’ve tried that but i ran into the same problems