I have 2 SkyConnect USB devices. I used one for ZHA and one for Zigbee2MQTT. I often lose the Z2M and constantly get those errors: How can I fix it? Should I buy new mini PC for just home assistant or can I fix virtualization issues?
What usb version is set in the passthrough settings? have you tried 2.0 vs 3.0 for passthrough to test? also you should only really be using one skyconnect per instance.
I am using USB 3.1 but now that you mentioned it @TH3xR34P3R I changed it to 2.0 so hopefully this fix it. Why using 2 SkyConnects is a problem? Before moving my Home Assistant into Virtual Machine I was using an old PC with both SkyConnects together, again 1 for ZHA and 1 for Zigbee2MQTT and it was working fine.
Does anyone else runs HA in virtual machine-like VMware Workstation 17.5 Pro?
Generally when you want to setup multiple zigbee networks you want to use a remote instance as a client or use multipan but as long as you are able to get things working that’s what matters as since you are not having them fight over one integration it’s allowing dual use.
I currently have my HA installed in a VM via Virtualbox with a batch file to have it launch in headless mode when my nuc powers on with my skyconnect plugged into a mbeat 7 port usb hub passed through in 3.0 mode.
In your case I suspect that 3.1 mode is the issue so try just 3.0 not just 2.0 if you have the option to validate.
Yeah no other issue besides those errors I have posted. It is usually the Zigbee2MQTT one that stops working. After system reboot it is working fine, both networks are not having issues with each other. I dont have the option to change to USB 3.0 only 1.1 or 2.0 and 3.1, therefor I put 2.0 and I will be keeping an eye on it.
I hope your workaround works fine! 
Otherwise, I may try VirtualBox. You are not having any issues with it? Everything works fine for a long time?
I had the odd issue early on in the setup after getting it where it would not get detected but that’s not been an issue for a few updates now and I just turn off the usb port then turn it back on and reload HA after, it’s something that has happened with my BT adapter so its not limited to the skyconnect just seems like a general passthrough issue that can crop up I suspect prob due to how things load up at time from a full restart.
Here is what I have with Virtualbox for usb passthrough:
USB3.1 is USB3.0. There is no difference.
USB3.0 was renamed to USB3.1 with the release of USB3.2.
Yes, but the main concern here is how its being handled in this case and if there is an update needed to resolve an issue with the vmware version of the passthrough hence why I asked if they have 2.0 or 3.0 just to validate since as you can see its listed as 3.0 in virtualbox at this time.
if the issue is resolved by swapping to 2.0 mode then we can wait for updates to revalidate.
Not sure if this is useful, but I had some early problems between my Sonoff Zigbee and SZT10 Z-Ware sticks in VMWare. I had to quantify the connection string in the .vmx file.
Example:
usb.autoConnect.device0 = "name:Silicon\ Zooz_ZST10_700_Z-Wave_Stick vid:10c4 pid:ea60 path:1/1/3/6/2"
usb.autoConnect.device1 = "name:Silicon\ Sonoff\ Zigbee\ 3.0\ USB\ Dongle\ Plus vid:10c4 pid:ea60 path:1/1/3/6/1"
You can read about it more here.
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That may explain some of it if that resolved it in your case, it may be swapping the order on restart and making them static assigned would be helping tell it which is which to prevent issues.
You’ll notice both the VID and PID’s are the same for both sticks… I don’t think VMWare knew how to handle them.
Whatever you do, DON’T move the VBox… 
Yea having those the same would def confuse it. I have my HA install restart every 6am and 6pm to refresh the FGLair custom integration for my AC Unit as it stops working randomly sometimes (cloudbased api shrugs) until I do but everything has been working fine with my setup so far in VBox, I update my snapshot backups and slap a copy on the NAS and a USB stick in rotation after major changes I make to the automatons and every few updates they release.
I could never get any real reliability from VirtualBox. I was about to give up on HA, until it was suggested that I use VMWare instead. The difference, not only in stability but also in speed was impressive.
That said, I am glad your instance is stable.
I have used both as well as proxmox and and hyper-v I don’t really notice that much a difference other than what features you get based on the version/license installed and UI design choices.
More about the hardware you also host the VM on, I mainly went with Vbox since they already had a vhd for it and wanted a ready to go system to slap on my nuc without doing a bare metal install since I also use it to host my camera feed from the NAS to the connected monitor through surveillance station.
I’ll play more with proxmox or go esxi I think once I can get a more dedicated server for VM’s (prob when I convert my current desktop to 2u server chassis come upgrade time for the platform).
I just changed from USB 3.1 to USB 2.0 and will wait a few days to see if everything works fine.
Here is the line from the VMX line I have added before. It is just 1 line:
usb.autoConnect.device0 = "vid:10c4 pid:ea60"
is this enough?
Here is the information from the RegEdit but I am not sure how to write those 2 lines for autoConnect:
Can you help me write the 2 lines for autoconnecct?
Each line is for ONE device. So you’ll need 2 lines, one for each device.
The easiest way to find the device connection strings is to search the vmware.log file for vmx USB: Found device
Here is what mine looks like:
2023-11-08T20:37:18.130Z In(05) vmx USB: Found device [name:APC\ Back-UPS\ RS\ 1500G\ FW:865.L9\ .D\ USB\ FW:L9 vid:051d pid:0002 path:1/0/5/0 speed:full family:hid instanceId:USB\\VID_051D&PID_0002\\4B2127P01978__ serialnum:4B2127P01978__ arbRuntimeKey:3 version:5]
2023-11-08T20:37:18.130Z In(05) vmx USB: Found device [name:HP\ Wireless\ Optical\ Mobile\ Mouse vid:03f0 pid:8207 path:1/0/0/1 speed:low family:hid,hid-bootable instanceId:USB\\VID_03F0&PID_8207\\6&247BCF91&1&2 arbRuntimeKey:1 version:5]
2023-11-08T20:37:18.130Z In(05) vmx USB: Found device [name:HP\ Link-5\ Micro\ Receiver vid:03f0 pid:d407 path:1/0/0/2 speed:full family:hid,hid-bootable instanceId:USB\\VID_03F0&PID_D407\\6&247BCF91&1&3 arbRuntimeKey:2 version:5]
2023-11-08T20:37:18.130Z In(05) vmx USB: Found device [name:Dipl.-Ing.\ Stefan\ Kunde\ DFU\ device vid:0b9b pid:0904 path:1/0/5/5 speed:low family:hid,hid-bootable instanceId:USB\\VID_0B9B&PID_0904\\6&637BD8F&0&6 arbRuntimeKey:4 version:5]
2023-11-08T20:37:18.130Z In(05) vmx USB: Found device [name:Silicon\ Sonoff\ Zigbee\ 3.0\ USB\ Dongle\ Plus vid:10c4 pid:ea60 path:1/0/5/6/1 speed:full family:vendor instanceId:USB\\VID_10C4&PID_EA60\\2CC5F45BFE3AEC119E269E957A0AF07F serialnum:2CC5F45BFE3AEC119E269E957A0AF07F arbRuntimeKey:5 version:5]
2023-11-08T20:37:18.130Z In(05) vmx USB: Found device [name:Silicon\ Zooz_ZST10_700_Z-Wave_Stick vid:10c4 pid:ea60 path:1/0/5/6/2 speed:full family:vendor instanceId:USB\\VID_10C4&PID_EA60\\0001 serialnum:0001 arbRuntimeKey:6 version:5]
2023-11-08T20:37:18.130Z In(05) vmx USB: Found device [name:Virtual\ Bluetooth\ Adapter vid:0e0f pid:0008 speed:full family:wireless,bluetooth deviceType:virtual-bluetooth info:0000001 version:5]
Like my post above, index each by 1, starting from 0 and remove the keys you don’t need. Only add the info that’s needed.
usb.autoConnect.device0
usb.autoConnect.device1
I don’t really know, but they look like hardware errors SSD?
Are you saying you don’t get these error when the stick are not plugged in and passed to VMWare?
Correct they look like they are write errors at the time of start up, I would ignore them if the machine is working as is and you are not having issues else it would be prudent to move it to another virtual drive to validate.
Check in the logs of HA to see what may be linked to it at startup and what errors are showing up. @alexvaltchev