Home Assistant Blue: First setup, fallen off network and not coming back

Andy_Allsopp · March 17, 2021, 4:42pm

Yes. I am connected to the mesh on my iMac, and my phone. The Blue is physically patched into the mesh node. When I try to ping Blue from the iMac, it says
ping: sendto: Host is down

When I try to connect to Blue from Safari on the phone the browser doesn’t connect.

When I try the HA app, it says ‘Uh oh’ and
Unknown errorL URLSessionTask failed with error: The request timed out

Finally when I ping 8.8.8.8 from HA command line, or any other IP that I can see on the network using the phone or the router, it fails. Oddly pinging its own address from the command line tells me its alive.

baz123 · March 17, 2021, 4:50pm

I feel your pain although it will not help to say I have just done the same (bought a Blue) and it just worked! Transferred from my Pi no bother. The only additional task I had to do was go into the Supervisor settings and set the Static IP address to what I used before.

Have you a WiFi Dongle you could try?

Andy_Allsopp · March 17, 2021, 5:08pm

That’s a good thought. I mean, no, I don’t think I do, but it may be easier to scrobble one of those and configure things through the UI than battle this ethernet connection whilst blocking the kids’ tv

Tromperie · March 17, 2021, 6:29pm

Why do you use a subnet of /32? It only allows a single IP address, that host using it but no other hosts. At a maximum, it should be 24.

Andy_Allsopp · March 17, 2021, 6:41pm

Sorry, I probably didn’t explain that well. When I used nmcli to set ipv4.address, I forgot it adds /32 if you don’t specify a subnet mask. That’s why I removed that address in favour of /24.

baz123 · March 17, 2021, 7:43pm

What is the address of the DHCP server? I think if it is different to the Gateway you start to get into difficulty and it is a DNS advertisment issue - it isn’t being passed through the mesh properly. Some devices are more forgiving than others.

For me (on a different device)

$ nmcli connection show "Wired1" | grep ipv4.
ipv4.method:                            manual
ipv4.dns:                               192.168.70.29,192.168.70.25
ipv4.dns-search:                        --
ipv4.dns-options:                       ""
ipv4.dns-priority:                      0
ipv4.addresses:                         192.168.70.31/24
ipv4.gateway:                           192.168.70.25
ipv4.routes:                            --
ipv4.route-metric:                      -1
ipv4.route-table:                       0 (unspec)
ipv4.ignore-auto-routes:                no
ipv4.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
ipv4.dhcp-client-id:                    --
ipv4.dhcp-timeout:                      0 (default)
ipv4.dhcp-send-hostname:                yes
ipv4.dhcp-hostname:                     --
ipv4.dhcp-fqdn:                         --
ipv4.never-default:                     no
ipv4.may-fail:                          yes
ipv4.dad-timeout:                       -1 (default)

I think the gateway needs to be the final router, DNS of 8.8.8.8 is fine (or/and use the router address) and an IP of the other subnet.

It could also be that HA does some funny stuff on boot to the network and just trashes what you have done.

You could create a separate ‘connection’ and not use the default one.

Do you have a spare Pi you could plug in and see what gets auto generated by that when plugged in?

Otherwise can you plug the Blue into the main router for the moment?

Andy_Allsopp · March 17, 2021, 10:33pm

Thanks. This bit I can do. Won’t have a screen there so might be a bit of a scurry to find it if it works. Had thought I’d always ssh in or go via web UI. I’ll set a static IP of 192.168.1.3/24 and a gateway of 192.168.1.1 and see if that gets me anywhere.

Cheers for the suggestions.

Andy_Allsopp · March 17, 2021, 11:34pm

Thanks for the detail. I followed your suggestions and set a static IP of 192.168.1.3/24 a gateway of 192.168.1.1, and shut her down. Then connected Blue directly to the second port on the back of the router. No TV there so can’t see what she’s doing. Plugged her in and no sign. App won’t connect. Browser won’t connect on 192.168.1.3:8123. The router’s admin screen shows the linksys velop node connected in the adjacent port, but no sign of Blue.

Can’t tell what it’s trying to do as can’t see output. Blue led heartbeat is there.

I’m stumped. Only common thing in this seems to be blue. Port, cable, address range, dhcp all verified with other kit. Could this just be a duff one?

Andy_Allsopp · March 17, 2021, 11:35pm

Here’s the config before I moved Blue into position

baz123 · March 18, 2021, 7:11am

Did you save the settings in nmcli before quitting? Seems an obvious question but…

[edit]

You could also set to auto and see what happens.

[edit2]

Try a different Network Cable or prove it with a different device?

baz123 · March 18, 2021, 7:12am

That is why I have a 30M network cable!

Andy_Allsopp · March 18, 2021, 8:10am

Yes. A valid question, assuredly, but yes

Another good call, but I’ve tried that above. Removed the gateway and DNS addresses and then set mode to auto, saved, still no show.

Another ‘nother good call. I’ve tried that above as well, though. Plugged an Xbox in using the same patch lead and port and watched it immediately auto detect the dhcp server, gain an IP address (in the expected range) find the gateway and the DNS without issue. Router saw that, and the Xbox saw the world.

When auto failed on Blue, I used the values the Xbox had detected (and then tried again incrementing the ipv4 addresses’ final dotted decimal incase the router was holding on to it) and still nothing. The connection appeared green, home assistant showed eth0 as having that address. Router didn’t see Blue and Blue couldn’t see any other devices or the web.

Thanks for your ideas, as everything is a valid suggestion at this point. So far as I can work out, I’ve tried just plugging it in on auto (no), manual with known good values (no), another patch lead (no), another device on the same patch lead (fine), another device on the same port and patch lead (fine), plugging into a different mesh tower (no), plugging into the router (no), factory resetting the router then trying all again (no), factory resetting the mesh (not so much fun, still no) and I’ve still not managed to see Blue do anything with the network except tell me the link is down when I remove the lead, and that it’s back when I plug the lead in again. Seems everything works, but not blue.

I’m really stuck here.

samnewman86 · March 18, 2021, 8:14am

Is there a router seeing on, along the lines of network seperation?

baz123 · March 18, 2021, 8:26am

I was thinking of auto in the main router.

[edit]
The other thing is disable IPv6.

Andy_Allsopp · March 18, 2021, 9:26am

Ah, done that then. It was auto, and I’ve factory reset it since then also. I can’t add a reserved DHCP because my router needs a device to connect before I can reserve an address for it, and Blue just doesn’t.

@cogneato guided me through that. Didn’t make any difference that we could ascertain.

Sorry. Im not quite sure what you mean here. Router does not see Blue plugged into a port on it and assigned auto or manual ipv4 values of 192.168.1.3/24. Router does see any other device plugged into adjacent or same port on auto or at 192.168.1.2/24. Any other device sees router. Blue does not.

When Blue was plugged into the mesh tower, the same behaviour was seen. Every other device picks up an ip in range 10.212.1.x (before factory reset of Velop) or 10.13.1.x (after factory reset) but blue does not. Blue on auto gives me an orange eth0 line. Setting Blue to a manual IP in the valid range gives me a green line for eth0, but still no ping in or out, no device detected on the router or mesh side, and nothing accessible via :8123

Does that answer it?

baz123 · March 18, 2021, 10:45am

@Andy_Allsopp - do you have a WiFi dongle you could try?

samnewman86 · March 18, 2021, 10:50am

Is your router handling DNS or your mesh?

Andy_Allsopp · March 18, 2021, 11:06am

I’ve tried it with all of the below with no result:

DNS as 192.168.1.1 (router)
- No joy plugged into router directly.
- No joy plugged into mesh tower.
DNS as 10.13.1.1 (Mesh)
- No joy plugged into router directly (as expected).
- No joy plugged into mesh tower.
DNS as 8.8.8.8 (Google)
- No joy plugged into router directly.
- No joy plugged into mesh tower.

I like your thinking, but even if Blue didn’t pick up a DNS, surely it would still show on the network as an attached device? Everything else physically connected shows up in the router or mesh admin screen. Even without DNS, I should at least be able to plug it into the router directly (192.168.1.1/24) give it the static IP (192.168.1.3/24), a gateway of 192.168.1.1 and be able to ping the devices from each other, no?

That’s a good call, and I’ve ordered one. It’ll be about a week before it gets here Not knocking you at all, but I was under the impression that people on the forums didn’t really rate HA solutions connected via WiFi, and that was why “the perfect home automation hub” didn’t include it. Spending more to downgrade the reliability (admittedly from a start of zero reliability, so perhaps an upgrade after all) and move away from a standardised bit of kit produced for Home Assistant felt counter productive, but I’ll try anything

baz123 · March 18, 2021, 12:27pm

If it connects via Wi-Fi then it might suggest a faulty ethernet port. BTW, does it flash at all? You need to remove the plate to see it (which is a bit of a design fault IMHO).

Andy_Allsopp · March 18, 2021, 12:37pm

I can see the LEDs it in the dark if I’m at the right angle. The port was flashing green, IIRC. The terminal notifies when the patch cable is removed, so I’m guessing the port is live, even if not quite behaving

I’ll have another look tonight. Too bright here currently and I don’t want to conduct any warranty voiding type operation if this one is going back

Ps. I’ll be gutted if it goes back. I’ve waited months for this thing to be back in stock and have been having far too much fun making floorplans on my iMac.