HA virtual machine loses Z-Wave USB stick

[rtbrown560 (Riley)]

Hello there,

I have a PC running HA in a VM (set up with virtualbox) with an Aeotec Z-wave usb plugged directly into it.

Home Assistant 2022.12.6
Supervisor 2022.11.2
Operating System 9.4
Z-Wave JS version 0.1.74
Z-Wave integration:

• Driver Version: 10.3.0
• Server Version: 1.24.0

Every few hours my Z-wave USB is disconnecting from the VM where HA is running. When this happens in HA Settings > Hardware > All Hardware, the ttyACM0 port that usually has the USB in it doesn’t show anything.

From what I can tell, the host itself still sees the USB even if the VM doesn’t.
In the host, if I do lsusb I still see:

Bus 008 Device 002: ID 0658:0200 Sigma Designs, Inc. Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 (ZW090) - UZB

I have tried moving the USB to another port, but that didn’t help. Usually some restarting of HA (from the host) or the host and the USB is recognized again and I see in ttyACM0 the /dev/serial/by-id/usb-...

Here’s the error I see in the HA logs:

Failed to set the Z-Wave JS add-on options: not a valid value for dictionary value @ data[‘options’]. (Followed by the configuration)

Anything I can do to keep the USB recognized in HA/the VM without down time?
Seems like this is a recent development for me.

[tmjpugh]

Try setting Virtualboxto use USB 3 (read this somewhere so dont ask me what or how). Also had below info

The log shows messages when the USB devices are connecting and disconnecting through the Virtualbox USB filters. If such messages occur when the device disconnect occurs, it would mean Virtualbox is losing hold of the device somehow. If the log does not show the expected messages, then it may be the VM OS or some such that is losing the connection.

[aceindy]

or move to vmware

Windows 11 - Virtual Box is crashing after some time

Getting my BT dongle to work with virtual box was really hit and miss all the time. Especially on a reboot of HA it would 8 times out of 10 not work and I had to manually remove the dongle and re-insert, - restart the VM etc. etc. With VMware, once I plugged the dongle in, it asked me if the dongle should work with the host or with the VM - I confirmed the VM and it has been rock steady ever since.

( and this applies to all usb devices)

[RickKramer (Rick Kramer - Jansen)]

Somebody had success by disabling the watchdog, might help?

[rtbrown560 (Riley)]

This appears to have solved it, thank you. Do you know of any issue that has been logged for this I can track?

[RickKramer (Rick Kramer - Jansen)]

Not that I’m aware of or am able to find

[loucks (Jason Loucks)]

Any chance you can specify which watchdog was disabled? Is it in the host os, virtual box or HA?

[RickKramer (Rick Kramer - Jansen)]

The watchdog for the addon when using HA OS.

[bobloadmire]

I have a USB bluetooth adapter that is being used by AirThings integration, I assume that doesn’t have a watchdog because it’s an integration not and add-on right? My USB bluetooth adapter in virtualbox keeps falling off for some reason randomly, have to reboot the entire VM to get it back.