This is a request for help and not a how to yet (maybe later in the thread)!!
Issue Summary: Have had four Zigbee integrations failures over the last 3 years. Two with Zigbee2MQTT, that never worked. Two with ZHA. Both worked for a significant amount of time and then failed unexpectedly!! Suspect it might have occurred at the first Z2M attempt (1 below) and be channel issue or ?? Power loss/recycle may have been the trigger event.
Environment: HAOS on NUC10i3/16GB/500GB. Currently:- OS 17.3, Sup.: 2026.4.0, Core 2026.5.0. 80+ Zigbee devices, also have two Hue Zigbee controllers (will migrate at least one) with 107 devices - Pro Hub (Ch. 25) and Old Hub (Ch. 11). Lots of ESPHome and Wi-Fi devices. No Z-Wave or Matter. Strong Unifi network with multiple APs (Ch 1, 6, 11). NUC and network on UPS.
Objective: Would like to go into HA and clean-up any residual Zigbee integration related issues. Would appreciate any guidance on where to look, what to look for, and edit or delete as appropriate. Then will setup a Z2M integration using a separate server (smartlight SMHUB Nano) separate from the HA NUC and interconnect with HA mosquito broker) – have a guide on that. Will look to use Ch. 15 or 20. Any guidance on a “clean-up” would be much appreciated. Could prefer to do a thorough HA “clean-up” rather than a “nuclear” option. OK with having to redo the zigbee devices but not have to recreate everything.
Issue Details: (Chronological order – oldest first)
- Zigbee2MQTT with Sonoff ZBDongle-E (SiL EFR32MG21)
Followed numerous YouTube and online guides and got lots of HA Community guidance – back a few years. Of course, lots of variations! All to no avail. Got a mqtt log error of “503 Bad Gateway error” and an online message that just pointed to a MQTT error page [no long there!] of every possible Z2M error!! Tried various efforts to simplify the configuration.
Almost all the guides show everything works right the first time [Nice short video, but not reality, for me] and nothing about the messiness that can occur. Frustrated, moved to ZHA.
- ZHA with Sonoff ZBDongle-P (TI CC2652P)
Ran for maybe a year and then failed (similar) to 4 below, all of a sudden and while I was on an extended trip. Not sure if there was a power loss involved. Tried multiple ways to recover – backups, reloads and reconfigure. Tried to reflash the Sonoff dongle but failed that effort too. Moved to smartlight ->
- Zigbee2MQTT with smartlight SZLB-06 (TI CC2652P) on POE
Followed the smartlight instruction but it failed instantly with a cryptic (to me) error. I do not remember the exact wording but similar to 1 above but it had a specific reference. I’m not a programmer but is obviously written for someone of a coding background. It might have as well been in siSwati. Had simplified the configuration to the bare minimum based on DigiBlur guidance. Now, suspect some residual issues from 1 above.
Frustrated, moved to 4 below.
- ZHA with smartlight SZLB-06 (TI CC2652P) on POE
The setup was straightforward based on the smartlight instructions with no modifications or issues. Worked for 1-2 years.
The most recent failure. Occurred after a power loss, including a UPS failure. Get the error message below. Tried recovering both ways and tried several vintages of backups, all to no avail. Not sure where PAD ID and Network key are located or the perils of messing with them. I suspect some residual Z2M setup issue from 1 above, that conflicts somewhere with the ZHA integration. Obviously, I did lots of HAOS and HA reloads in that time, but this may have been the first full power outage in a year or two.
Gerry
Frustrated Old Man!!! Would like to fix this before it's too late!!!!!!!!