I just H/W installed the dongle-P and added it as a USB device in my Proxmox VM running Home Assistant. So far, so good, it is visible there. So the plan was to install zigbee2mqtt and I looked up some tutorial in youtube. As a first step in the process, I looked up the dongle via system->hardware and copied the path (/dev/serial/by-id/usb-Silicon_Labs_Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus_0001-if00-port0). So the dongle appeared in the hardware section…once.
Then I installed Mosquito broker via Add Ons, this works and still works. Hereafter the problems started; the MQTT card was not visible under integrations, also not after refreshing the page. The ZHA card was visible and I clicked it (stupid enough). Hereafter nothing happened anymore; it seems the HA system restarted, the dongle is not visible anymore under hardware, only in the VM it remains visible. All gone leaving me desperate. I rebooted several times, no result. Anything I could do rather than recover a backup ? (which I would prefer not to do since it is 4 months old).
The dongle was btw installed out of the box and I am rather new in this Universal Zigbee world. I`m trying to get away from my current Hue Bridge
If it was seen under hardware but is not anymore then the problem will sure sure be in either Proxmox virtual machine configuration or the underlying OS that Proxmox is running on. Probably better to ask in a Proxmox forum than here.
So yesterday, I took it out of the Proxmox server to update it with the latest firmware. I installed the TI flash programmer, pressed the bootloader button and connected the device to my laptop. It was not recognised to flash at all. I`m startig to think there is something wrong with the device.
Yes it was there with ttyUSB0. It showed nicely that it was Sonoff and a path to it: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Silicon_Labs_Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus_0001-if00-port0
The tutorial asked me then to look up the MQTT card. It wasn`t there but the ZHA card was. I made a mistake there to try to submit that one. Hereafter the ttyUSB0 was gone.
I used it out of the box so don`t know. It is supposed to have coordinator S/W flashed by default. So yesterday I tried to flash new firmware using this tutorial (which is the hardware way and not the Python way). It was not recognised at all by the flash programmer software.
So ì`m running from one issue into another, complete disaster untill now
If you’re asking yourself “Why won’t my dongle or adapter show up?” when you are using (for example) Flash Programmer 2, chances are that your OS can’t communicate with your device over VCP (Virtual COM Port) serial port, causing your dongle not showing up as a flashable device. To fix this problem, be sure to install a USB-to-UART bridge/converter VCP driver for your operating system like the one at Silicon Labsopen in new window, FTDI Chipopen in new window, or WCH (CH34x/CH91xx)open in new window.*
When flashing the firmware you need to install Silabs CP210x USB to UART Bridge VCP Drivers (and reboot is usually required) on the host where plug in the ZBDongle-P to flash it for COM port to work.
Adapters based on CC1352 or CC2652 chips can be flashed by putting them in the bootloader. See your adapter manual on how to do this. After you have done this one of the following tools can be used to flash it.
Then you should however uninstall the Silicon Labs device drivers from the hypervisor host that Proxmox is running on.
That is, while drivers for Silabs CP210x USB to UART Bridge VCP should be installed in the operating system running on the virtual machine, those drivers should not be installed in the hypervisor host as then it could be that the hypervisor host reserve the serial/com port instead of using USB passthrough for the USB port as it should.
Also otherwise wondering why it is seen as USB 1.x in Proxmox when it should be listed as USB 2.0
Thanks so much @Hedda & @m4v3r1ck for your extensive replies on the issue. Need some time to digest. What makes me a bit hesitant on the approach here is that the hardware did show up in first instance exactly as in @m4v3r1ck `s screenshot.
I installed and used the Python script method on my Windows 10 machine (VM) and strictly followed the instructions in the video created by @BeardedConti. It was a one shot direct hit and the ZBDongle-P was flashed successfully and using it for ZHA on SynologY VMM. *Note: without opening the dongle to press the boot-loader.
Also check the rest of this video for more information about Z2MQTT / ZHA using this dongle.
Good luck digesting all info provided in your thread. Keep us posted.
Thanks @m4v3r1ck . I`ll give it a try. The comment from @hedda about the Silabs drivers make perfectly sense (running in VM-OS rather then in Hypervisor). I need to look into that as well.
