Hi, I have this weird issue with my sonoff zigbee dongle. Everything have been working great for more than half a year using zigbee2mqtt, but recently all my addons stopped working giving all sorts of errors (seems like it’s the supervisor breaking), i cannot take backups (or see recent), or do updates or anything.
I did a reinstall from a backup from 2 months ago, but the issue still persisted. I managed to narrow it down the the sonoff zigbee dongle. If i unplug the usb and restart HA everything is fine (besides ofc zigbee) and whenever i plug it in supervisor dies…
I tried doing a new flash, but still no change. The dongle is connected to my pi using a 1.5m long extension cable.
I’ve only managed to find 1 dude here on the forums with the same issue, but he solved it by plugging in the usb properly, which is not my issue.
Yes it does show, just flashed the latest firmware unto it successfully.
As for the psu, i use the stock rpi4 psu.
also if i plug in the usb while HA is running it usually works for a little while before everything starts chrashing.
Forgot to mention, i run on HAOS, recently switched from supervised, but that did not solve my issue
I used to run a RPi4 + Sonoff Zigbee v3.0 on a stock RPi official PSU fine, but adding the SSD might well be the issue. The trouble is likely to be how to get the current to all devices - the RPi4 on-board regulator may also be an issue, as well as the mains PSU.
I suspect that’s why someone suggested a powered USB hub - that way you can power the RPI4 from the official PSU, AND power peripherals from a second supply via a hub. That way you’re sharing the load.
Now, Argon cases have a good reputation but I don’t know how it feeds 5V power - e.g. does the M.2 board get power from the RPi, or do you power the case itself?
A cheap USB-C tester might help here - these can show both the voltage (should be close to 5V) and the current (from memory, RPI official PSUs are rated at about 2A?).
The other thing to try is to move the Sonoff Zigbee to a USB-2 port (USB-3 causes interference), and add a 0.5m USB extension cable for the same reason (e.g. check the contents of a SkyConnect - a long extension cable is included).
The point of the powered USB hub is that there’s no “sufficient PSU” if you need more power to the USB devices than the Pi can provide. Even if you’ve got a 50A PSU, the Pi can’t use all of it.
Hmm, only thing is that i had the same issue before buying the argon (with the m.2) hence the zigbee dongle was only peripheral i had connected. Also everything had been working well for roughly 6 months, so i don’t see why it suddenly doesn’t get enough power. The PSU is rated for 5V 3A (15W).
As for the extension cable i already have a 1.5m extension and the usb itself is around 1-1.5 meter from the closest electronical device.
I still use only the stock rpi psu to power everything, so with the Argon it might be good to upgrade anyways. But it still doesn’t answer why the issue was there before the Argon
Also if i plug in the dongle while the pi is off, it won’t even start. Or it will but there is no video output and can’t ping it.
i might just try to buy a powered usb hub, although the sonoff dongle is only rated at 100 mA max load at 5v. Shouldn’t the Pi be able to provide that? I’ve read that it is able to output 1.2 A across all usb ports, and since i’m only using the one, it should be plenty.
Which RPi USB port though? Try a black USB-2 one, not blue USB-3? (Hmm, this is complicated by how the case attaches…)
100mA is indeed trivial compared to 3000mA, unless there are spikes in demand from other items.
Looking at the Argon case, it looks well engineered (which explains the good reviews):
Northern or Southern hemisphere? (e.g. heatwave needing cooling?)
Still sounds a bit strange and inconclusive - which this sysadmin usually takes as a sign that backups need to be taken and tested even more regularly than usual just in case.
It’s almost always a power issue on RPi as modern uSD are a lot better than 5 years ago. RPi are tested extensively for RF compatibility, but that of course depends on what you think the interference is coming from (e.g. don’t share a PSU with motors and thin cable).
Check:
and…
Note the RPi doesn’t crash - the USB extension cable reduces the impact of USB3.0 noise on the Zigbee radio rather than Zigbee having enough power to .
this post!