Homekit + HA = No Response (sometimes)

Configuration
1

I know there have been a lot of posts like this, but I feel like I’ve read all of them with no luck. I’m having frequent issues (50% of the time) where homekit cannot communicate with HA. All of my HA homekit accessories show up as “No response”. I have an ecobee that is connected directly to homekit which always works. Because of this, I’m starting to think this might be an issue with Home Assistant.

Here is some info about my set up:

  • 1 Bridge configured with 48 accessories (lights, fans, switches, alarm, and garage door)
  • Apple TV as the hub (connected via ethernet)
  • UniFi Networking Gear (3 APs, 4 Switches, and a USG) (I do also have 3 MoCA adapters that are not unifi)

I’ve tried disabling IGMP snooping, enabling it, putting everything on the same VLAN, enabling/disabling mdns reflector, changing the Wi-Fi settings, removing the current bridge, adding a new bridge, and much more with no solution.

This exact same set up worked for me for about a year. The only change I made recently was updating the firmware on my Unifi equipment.

I don’t think it’s WiFi because I have this issue when I’m away from my house and my Apple TV(ethernet) cannot communicate with HA, though it can communicate with my Ecobee.

I did notice that things will start working again when I reload the homekit service in HA. But this is only temporary.

The only thing that stands out to me in the logs is this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/data_entry_flow.py", line 131, in async_init
    result = await self._async_handle_step(
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/data_entry_flow.py", line 214, in _async_handle_step
    result: dict = await getattr(flow, method)(user_input)
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/homekit_controller/config_flow.py", line 225, in async_step_zeroconf
    status_flags = int(properties["sf"])
KeyError: 'sf'

I asked about this before but Homekit worked for a year with this error in the logs.

It’s incredibly difficult to debug this because I’ll make a change, everything will work for 30 min, and then stop working for a while. Any suggestion is very much appreciated.

2

do you have any devices or entities that will go unavailable for a period of time? I experience the No Response but only on my watch and not on my phone. Every time the devices go No Response, I have been able to correlate it to when my MyQ garage doors go unavailable. I then either have to reload HomeKit service or reboot HA for it to come back. The whole time my HomeKit certified devices (Lutron, Ecobee, Arlo) work just fine. Also I have pretty much the same setup as you, UniFi (USG recently replaced with UDMP, switch and 2 APs), AppleTV HD as hub, 2 HomeKit bridges (1 for sensors, switches, lights, garage doors configured in YAML and 1 for a TV configured from integrations).

One thing I might recommend is splitting HomeKit by domain into different HomeKit bridges. You can do this in YAML or the GUI depending if you need extended config or not. Then you can see if maybe just one of the bridges and associated devices goes unavailable or if all of them still go unavailable. Might also point you more towards troubleshooting network or HA or HomeKit bridge.

3

I might have some devices that have gone unavailable (old lights that I don’t use any more). I’ll try removing them and see where I get. Thanks for the idea!

When Homekit worked, I also had the cameras domain added, however since then I only have lights, switches, fans, alarm, and the garage door. I had also created a bridge for a remote, but that has been extremely unstable and only works 5% of the time. Thanks for this idea too, I’ll try that

4

Splitting up the domains seems to be helping. While my “main” bridge still has issues, an individual bridge does not. Thanks for the suggestion!

1 Like
5

I’m experiencing same thing but tried this and sadly not helping, any new ideas? Thanks!

6

Unfortunately you have provided very little or no information. We do not know what devices you have tried adding to your HomeKit. We do not know how you are running HA or HomeKit devices. We do not know what Apple devices you use for HomeKit. We don’t even know what isn’t working just that you “tried this and sadly not helping”.

Sorry my crystal ball is broken.