I have a Home Assistant Green that sporadically becomes completely unreachable (2-3 times per month) over night. The Fritzbox shows it under "unused connections" with the correct IP and MAC, but no ping is possible and all automations stop working.
After finally connecting a monitor while the system was in the crashed state, I found the root cause:
rk_gmac-dwmac fe010000.ethernet end0: NETDEV WATCHDOG: CPU: x: transmit queue 0 timed out xxxxx ms
rk_gmac-dwmac fe010000.ethernet end0: Reset adapter.
This repeats in an endless loop every ~9 seconds. The system is alive (LEDs normal, HA CLI prompt visible) but the Ethernet adapter is stuck and keeps resetting without recovering. The filesystem becomes read-only, making it impossible to save logs.
Setup:
- Home Assistant Green
- HAOS 17.3 / Core 2026.5.0
- Connected via LAN to Fritzbox 7530
- ZBT-2 connected via USB
- HomePod Mini as additional Thread border router
- IPv6 enabled (required for Thread/Matter)
Has anyone else seen this? Is there a known fix or workaround for the rk_gmac driver on HA Green?
Same problem with another cable.
After many reboots and tries... ich saw that in network info no ipv4 address is visible (mode is auto) but status "ready=false".
I installiert a pi and tried to Connect. Not possible in Network Info no ip is displayed. Seems to be a FRITZ!Box sw Problem?
How's the ethernet cable feeding it?
Any nearby sources of RF to mess with the device?
Pi is connected via LAn cable to Fritzbox (same as green before). Hue Bridge and Sonos arc Ultra is near by.
all other devices work as expcted (hue, ...)
I disconntect all other LAN cable from Fritzbox (Hue Bridge, Bravia TV and PS5). Now it works ...
icb have no idea... All devices are on DHCP per default.
I'm sorry I was not clear.
Did you try a different cable in case you have an intermittent connection?
Maybe a different port on the fritxbox?
This may be the root cause of your connection errors, with dynamic IP address allocations changing, well, DYNAMICALLY.
Setting all your network devices in your router to fixed addresses (Static IP) can often make troubleshooting far easier and result in a known operating environment where luck does not play a role.
Strongly recommended and may fix your problem of connection timeouts and watchdog restarts.
As well as the suggested check of your cabling, check you have the latest firmware updates on your router as well.
The FRITZ!Box has actually already been replaced, as it was assumed that a port was defective. The LAN cable was also replaced.
The setting to always assign the same IP address to Home Assistant has already been enabled in the FRITZ!Box (with latest firmware).
The AI suggests that the Hue Bridge might have sent so many requests to the FRITZ!Box that the latter subsequently had trouble assigning an IP address to Home Assistant. That sounds strange to me, though.
Is the FritzBox Zigbee aware? What model? Any ZigBee traffic shouldn't be interfering with IP Address allocation unless there is deep radio interference overloading the FritzBox radio receivers. How close are the two devices?
The FRITZ!Box is the router that connects to the internet and features four LAN ports, to which both the Hue Bridge and Home Assistant were connected. The Hue Bridge is located in close proximity to the FRITZ!Box.
How close? Yes, both are on 2.4Ghz.
At times, the Hue Bridge was sitting on top of the FRITZ!Box. Right now, it is about 20 cm away.
Who can influence whom, and how?
Home Assistent was not connected via WLAN.
Sonos Arc ultra (incl subwoofer) is also very near by.
It was also using WiFi? I hope your Ethernet cable is snugly connected from your HomeAssistant server to your Fritz Box now.
How long is your Hue Bridge cable? Can you move it further away to see if things improve?
I'm concerned your issue may be radio overload in a crowded space causing interference and packet re-tries as part of the error correcting process of wireless transmission.
Try re-orienteering the Hue Bridge at right angles to the router. Does the problem improve or get worse? This may take a while to determine of things have changed.
If it gets worse, try again. moving it 90 degrees so it faces the router. The antenna orientation may affect interference.
Thanks, but could that still cause problems, even though all devices were connected via LAN rather than Wi-Fi?
Turn your FritzBox router off completely at the power point. Leave it off a five minutes. This should give the ZigBee network time to reshuffle if it needs to re-establish connections, and when the router comes up again, can automagically select the best channel for WiFi, unless you have turned that option off and fixed the channel.
What is the purpose of your Hue Bridge? Does it speak ZigBee to any/all your devices? If not, it is redundant and can be disconnected. It is using similar frequencies in the 2.4Ghz range to your WiFi, and the constant radio transmits and receives may be overloading the internal radio receivers/transmitters inside your Hue Bridge and WiFi connection.
An example that may help you understand: imagine everybody shouting at a party and you cannot understand anything your friend is telling you , even though they are right next to your ear. Move away from the noise is the better solution there, rather than your friend shouting louder than everybody else, turn down the volume, or have less people in the room.
If you do not use your FritzBox for any WiFi access, try turning off the 2.4Ghz WiFi band on the router, and see how this affects the problem (cut down on the shouting on the same band). Check carefully as you may isolate your self from the network if you turn ot off and you need to to turn it on again later.
Try a longer cable between your Hue Bridge to increase the distance from your router. Two meters should be sufficient for problem isolation purposes.
Have you applied the latest HomeAssistant updates/fixes released in the last day or so?
Let us know if any of these steps resolves the issue, otherwise it may not be noise and interference issues and we can look at other options.
You do know it’s his Ethernet driver which crash , and there’s no mention of Wifi/Zigbee issues ?
@pingi_pongo I found a suggestion to look at the Fritzbox setting for the specific port HA is connected to, seems like Fritzbox has a “green-mode” / and powersaving, which which could cause a ethernet-driver to crash , suggesting solution could be setting this port to 1 Gbit istället för "Green Mode" and/or using a good quality shielded cat6
Yes, excess noise and faulty packets can bring a router to its knees and affect other connected devices - after all the router has it's own computer onboard. Packet checksum comparison, rejection, and retries all can exact a heavy toll on the router, especially in high packet corruption scenarios. Systematic problem isolation to get to the core of the problem looks like it may not be entirely necessary if the power saving mode is causing issues and looks like this could be a valid path to explore to get to the root of the matter.
Which im sure he would have “experienced” as i doubt his HA-Green is the only Device which are connected to his Fritz-box
Fritz-Box seems apparently have some Issues with i.e. Ha-Green and in particular Pi’s which uses Rockchip
I'd be curious as to the discussions with Fritz tech support, especially if the router had already been replaced, and they may have some advice to offer and possible research and problem isolation prior to updating their firmware to remedy the issue.
The Usual Network/Router “precautions” , update to latest software versions, use quality cables , Reserve IP for “Important” Devices etc , and i.e Green-Mode vs Power-mode im sure also is covered in the manual
All of these points were taken into account. Green Mode was disabled the entire time. The firmware was up to date. The option to assign a fixed IP address was also enabled for both HA and the Hue Bridge.
To me, the underlying cause—or the culprit behind this problem—remains unclear.
I also find it somewhat difficult to grasp how the HA driver could encounter an issue that is supposedly being caused by the FRITZ!Box.
However, an IP address was successfully assigned later on, after I disconnected the Bravia TV, PlayStation, and Hue Bridge from the LAN.
I also noticed that the Bravia TV and PlayStation likely had their Wi-Fi connections to the FRITZ!Box enabled in addition to their LAN connections. This may have caused issues with DHCP.
