Sonoff ZigBee devices always falling off the network - what can I do?

And a common core firmware for the twelve devices.

You’ve enabled zigpy debug logs in HA or zigbee-herdsman debug in z2m?

Fair play.

I’ll look into enabling debug for Z2M since I’m not using ZHA anymore.

I’ve got 24 sonoff snzb-04 and 02, and many silently get out of the zigbee network, again and again.
The only way to get them back is to re-pair them, which is a hassle.
Some of them fail several times a day and are completely unreliable, even when they’re just next to the supervisor (like, 2 meters away…).
My other zigbee devices work flawlessly on this network.

I use the ZBDongle-E (plugged on the front-top of the machine, not at the back), HAOS over Proxmox, and Zigbee2MQTT.

There is no log related to these disappearances. I don’t know how to fix this.
Can anyone help me on this ?

Hey @steveoriol,

I have also experienced the same issue with my Sonoff Dongle E since I installed it in December 2022. Last week, I updated my firmware from this repository: zigbeeFirmware/ncp-uart-sw_6.10.3_115200.gbl at fb955a14dae0e7e5f84dd0c0a81d4b736cfc5d83 · xsp1989/zigbeeFirmware · GitHub. The release was committed on January 31, 2022. Since then, it has been working fine for me and my Sonoff devices are always connected.

I advise you to follow this tutorial to update your firmware: Update the Sonoff Zigbee Dongle-E Easily - How To - YouTube.

I hope this can help all of us.

PS : my serial adapter has the value : ezsp

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I have the same issues with Sonor SNZB-02, despite an LQI of over 100. Updating my Coordinator firmware hasn’t helped. Anyone got further ideas how to fix this?

Same problem here. I have a Sonoff Zigbee Bridge Pro flashed with tasmota. My network now exists for one week and had to repair my snzb-03 motion sensor three times already. It just keeps falling out of the network. LQI = 123. The temperature sensor snzb-02 does not seem to experience the issue, which kind of rules out the bridge as cause…? Starting to believe the motion sensor is just poor quality. Any other thoughts are welcome…

Thanks for sharing, I’m going to give this a go. Have other people applied this update?

I had this problems with ZBDongle-E and ZigBee2mqtt. Now I use ZHA and I did not have any problems so far

I purchased my Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus ZBDongle-E (V2) on April 4, 2023, along with 1 x SONOFF SNZB-03, 1 x SONOFF SNZB-04, 1 x SONOFF SNZB-02D, and 5 x Sonoff Zbmini L2 devices. Initially, it worked fine with Zigbee2mqtt for a few days. Controlling it from Domoticz was fine but often had delays. Afterward, some devices became unreachable, and eventually, none of the devices were reachable. I experienced the same issue with Homeassistant when I connected the dongle there. All recognized devices were added to HAS, but they all appeared offline. I removed alle devices and reconnected all the devices again, and it worked for about half an hour before they went offline again. The devices are only a few meters apart, and the signal strength was good during the initial pairing. Today, I flashed the latest firmware “ncp-uart-sw_EZNet6.10.3_V1.0.1.gbl,” on the dongle but the result is the same. This dongle is a terrible product. There is definitely something wrong with it. I’m going to look for something else.

@Braveboy what was the outcome you got from the new dongle? which did you chose? I am curious.

I’ll add my experience with Aqara door/window sensors and the ZBDongle-E. I have recently migrated from a Conbee II+deCONZ setup to ZBDongle-E+z2m, my network has 118 devices. I had major issues pairing my Frient/Develco smoke/heat detectors in the new setup, it was simply impossible when I ran the 6.10.3 firmware on the dongle. I flashed the 7.1.1 firmware (the same version that the SkyConnect ships with), you can find a long thread about the dongle and z2m with instructions for flashing here. After that I was able to get all my devices connected but I also experienced some of the problems described in this thread. 3 of my 13 Aqara sensors became unresponsive after a couple of hours, re-paired multiple times with the same result. I then tried “allow join” from specific routers to see if I could get a better result (I tried IKEA repeaters, Sunricher switches, different lights).

I discovered that if I joined the sensors through a Hue plug or an Aqara plug they seem to stay connected.

Everything in my network is now stable and very responsive. I can’t say if what worked for me will work the same for anyone else but I would recommend upgrading from 6.10.3 and also try some different routes when pairing to see if you can get a stable connection.

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Thanks, I really appreciate your feedback! I’ll the firmware upgrade soon and hope for the best.

I did the firmware update to 7.3.1.0 and my Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus finally started to work with Z2M without any issues with looking devices, literally 0 issues in last 10 days. I tried before with the lower software version without luck, some of the devices get disconnected over and over. For me looks like the issue with the dongle itself.

Finally took the plunge and did the update.
Let’s see where this goes!

Not sure why everyone is expecting solid performance with Dongle-E with Z2M as it’s still not officially supported.

I tested it about six months ago and found it very unreliable so went back to my Conbee II. I would like to try again and tempted with this newer fw (not checked if on it already) but only once it’s officially supported.

I totally agree with snzb-03 drop off issues. I have 126 devices consisting of mainly tuya lights, aqara wall switches, aqara motion sensors, ikea motion sensors, sonoff zbminis and the only devices that consistently drop off after a few days are the two snzb-03.

The only caveat is that they are the last devices i’ve added to my setup but I’m convinced they’re just naff.

In general i’ve had the odd issues with many types of child devices dropping off originally but it’s been solid for (6-9 months), now ignoring the odd power cut or ha hw failure. That messes with my refined mesh :slight_smile:

Child devices can be picky about what they pair with and where they live, as you all know.
They don’t mesh like routers so Experimenting by Moving them around, even slightly where possible and pairing them with different types of routers really helps. It can also take time for them to decide the best route. If they become unreliable, i.e. intermittent (not complete drop off), I always restart HA first and see if it resolves itself over a couple of days. And by restart, I mean shutdown and kill power to ha, ensuring dongle clears. This helped me early on with pairing issues

Not sure why you mention this? From beginning of this thread on we are talking about Sonoff ZigBee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus. Just to be sure I checked my dongle, and it’s written “ZBDongle-P” on it’s backside.

How did it go?

To add my experience, the issue ended up not being about my Zigbee dongle at all. I recently upgraded from the Conbee II to the Sonoff Plus-E after experiencing random drop offs of devices. I thought it may be the limited signal strength of the Conbee or its limited number of devices supported. But after setting up the new Sonoff and pairing all of my devices again, I would still experience random drop offs of devices at medium-ranges from the dongle. Then it dawned on me that my Zigbee network is operating on channel 11. Ch 11 coincides with wifi channel 1. In my home I have three AP’s operating on wifi channel 1, 6, and 11. The two closest to the Zigbee dongle are on channels 1 and 6, and the furthest in the garage channel 11. The issue that was occurring is that the wifi AP on channel 1 was clobbering and drowning out the Zigbee dongle signal. Even with the +20 dBm power of the dongle, the +23 dBm of the AP is going to win out.

Then I considering moving to Zigbee channel 25 to move as far away from wifi channel 1 as possible, but I didn’t want to re-pair all of my devices over again. Instead I opted to rotate the channels on the AP’s. The AP closest to the Zigbee dongle is now channel 11, and second closest 6, and furthest in the garage channel 1. This way I can provide as much SNR to the Zigbee network as possible. After making this change, my Zigbee network is solid without any dropped devices.

If I did this on my network where woudl the router one go near mmy location and the other downstairs or the router downstair? I have a spare sonoff thats doign nothign at mo!

Just to add my 5 cents.

It seems the issue is still there, at least for me with SNZB-03 motion sensor and SNZB-02 temperature sensor.

Motion sensor falls out almost instantly, temperature one might hang for a few days and then drop out.

Strange thing that door sensor SNZB-04 works flawlessly for weeks without fallouts.

I’m using latest Z2M with Sonoff P-dongle (recommended one) with latest firmware flashed on it. My WiFi channel isn’t overlapping with Zigbee, so interference should not be an issue (and door sensor works).

If the device drops out it’s enough to permit joins and hold the button on the device for it to reconnect, but it will drop out again soon anyway.

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