STYRBAR Remote control (x2), tradfri motion sensor stopped working yesterday night

soel · December 19, 2023, 11:35pm

Yesterday night both of my STYRBAR Remote controls stopped working:
Bedroom Switch Identify became unknown
10:37:34 PM - 20 hours ago

Everything else is working as usual (ikea, philips lights, tradfri buttons, switches, etc…) so my best guess is that those two got an OTA update and bricked…
I tried deleting both of them from ZHA and reconnecting but they both are stuck on “Interview complete, Configuring”, obviously, tried changing batteries as well

Wondering if I am the only one experiencing this issue someone else is as well?

Also, looking for suggestions on how to debug/fix the issue.

UPD: tradfri motion sensor is showing the same symptoms and not working. tradfri buttons and switches are still working.

Home Assistant

Core2023.12.3
Supervisor2023.12.0
Operating System11.2
Frontend20231208.2

Thank you

soel · December 20, 2023, 12:01am

Log entries after failed pairing:

Error doing job: Task exception was never retrieved
6:59:51 PM – (ERROR) components/zha/core/cluster_handlers/__init__.py
[0x1EB6:1:0x0020]: 'async_configure' stage failed: Failed to send request: Request failed after 5 attempts: <Status.MAC_NO_ACK: 233>
6:59:34 PM – (WARNING) Zigbee Home Automation

Checked the debug log - it’s a timeout

jwhuttonleggat · December 20, 2023, 4:10pm

I had 3 of mine die on my last night as well, tried for a while today but no joy getting them back up and running, even tried roll backs of HA. After several dozen tries managed to get one paired again but shortly after HA stops seeing any events for button presses

soel · December 21, 2023, 12:03am

I managed to reconnect tradfri motion sensor after 2-3 tries, but the same symptoms - it became unavailable soon after and never registered motion.

Talking to IKEA customer support now as it seems they messed up with the firmware upgrade…

soel · December 22, 2023, 2:22am

I am puzzled. If this is a firmware issue, I was expecting a lot more comments here with it not working for folks but if It was something in my specific set up I did not expect anyone else to experience the same problems at exactly the same time.

On a topic - no solution so far on my side

soel · December 22, 2023, 10:51pm

More updates: Coincidentally found out that Tradfri shortcut buttons are dirt cheap at IKEA, bought a few for future projects. </good_news>
None of the IKEA zigbee devices connect to my coordinator (Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus). Tried newly purchased Tradfri shortcut buttons, Rodret dimmer, all fail with the same message:

New device 0x6bc1 (5c:__________:51) joined the network
[0x6bc1] Requesting 'Node Descriptor'
[0x6bc1] Got Node Descriptor: NodeDescriptor(logical_type=<LogicalType.EndDevice: 2>, complex_descriptor_available=0, user_descriptor_available=0, reserved=0, aps_flags=0, frequency_band=<FrequencyBand.Freq2400MHz: 8>, mac_capability_flags=<MACCapabilityFlags.AllocateAddress: 128>, manufacturer_code=4476, maximum_buffer_size=82, maximum_incoming_transfer_size=82, server_mask=11264, maximum_outgoing_transfer_size=82, descriptor_capability_field=<DescriptorCapability.NONE: 0>, *allocate_address=True, *is_alternate_pan_coordinator=False, *is_coordinator=False, *is_end_device=True, *is_full_function_device=False, *is_mains_powered=False, *is_receiver_on_when_idle=False, *is_router=False, *is_security_capable=False)
[0x6bc1] Discovering endpoints
[0x6bc1] Discovered endpoints: [1]
[0x6bc1] Initializing endpoints [<Endpoint id=1 in=[] out=[] status=<Status.NEW: 0>>]
[0x6bc1:1] Discovering endpoint information
[0x6bc1:1] Discovered endpoint information: SizePrefixedSimpleDescriptor(endpoint=1, profile=260, device_type=2080, device_version=1, input_clusters=[0, 1, 3, 32, 4096, 64636], output_clusters=[3, 4, 6, 8, 25, 4096])
[0x6bc1] Read model 'RODRET Dimmer' and manufacturer 'IKEA of Sweden' from <Endpoint id=1 in=[basic:0x0000, power:0x0001, identify:0x0003, poll_control:0x0020, lightlink:0x1000, manufacturer_specific:0xFC7C] out=[identify:0x0003, groups:0x0004, on_off:0x0006, level:0x0008, ota:0x0019, lightlink:0x1000] status=<Status.ZDO_INIT: 1>>
[0x6bc1] Discovered basic device information for <Device model='RODRET Dimmer' manuf='IKEA of Sweden' nwk=0x6BC1 ieee=5c:__________:51 is_initialized=True>
Creating cluster handler for cluster id: 0 class: <class 'homeassistant.components.zha.core.cluster_handlers.general.BasicClusterHandler'>
Creating cluster handler for cluster id: 1 class: <class 'homeassistant.components.zha.core.cluster_handlers.general.PowerConfigurationClusterHandler'>
Creating cluster handler for cluster id: 3 class: <class 'homeassistant.components.zha.core.cluster_handlers.general.Identify'>
Creating cluster handler for cluster id: 32 class: <class 'homeassistant.components.zha.core.cluster_handlers.general.PollControl'>
Creating cluster handler for cluster id: 4096 class: <class 'homeassistant.components.zha.core.cluster_handlers.lightlink.LightLink'>
Creating cluster handler for cluster id: 64636 class: <class 'homeassistant.components.zha.core.cluster_handlers.ClusterHandler'>
[0x6BC1:1:0x0020]: 'async_configure' stage failed: Failed to send request: Request failed after 5 attempts: <Status.MAC_NO_ACK: 233>

Last row is key: they are all added to the home assistant but fail to configure.

I tried with a different brand: sonoff motion sensor SNZB-03, paired without problems.

Looked at Ikea’s release notes, they did not update the firmware of those devices for more than half a year, so that is also out of the question.

It seems that something changed in Zigbee itself then, but I have no idea which way to even start looking to. Any help is appreciated…

soel · December 25, 2023, 5:01pm

So, after almost a full day of trying different options:

Rolling back multiple versions behind,
Removing and repairing all 40+ devices
Changing Zigbee channels, reverting the changes back, repairing everything again

…it just started working on the latest version of HA core. I still have no clue what could have caused it but it works now.

The only interesting thing is that the amount of connections between Zigbee router-type devices decreased significantly. Here is how it looked before:

And here is how it looks after pairing all the devices back:

UPD: the next morning it looks a lot better:

Happy holidays, everyone!

watschenbaum · December 27, 2023, 5:41am

Was this a temporary fix, or have things been working ever since? And did you unpair and repair only the affected devices or other devices, too?

I am facing the same problem with several remotes and haven’t had any luck so far.

soel · December 31, 2023, 5:37am

I first tried unpairing all the affected devices and could not repair them after.
Then I tried unpairing only router-type devices, all of them but the coordinator itself, to check if some of the router devices were misbehaving and causing these issues, I could not repair affected devices still but was able to reconnect all router devices without problems.
Then I tried drastically recreate everything, even Zigbee network altogether. I could set up the router-type devices back, but I lost all connections to automations, scripts, scenes, groups, etc. Moreover, I was not able to repair ANY IKEA Tradfri devices, so I had to restore everything from the backup I made earlier the same day to at least have existing things working and right after restoring from the backup, affected devices connected to my network without problem.
So all in all, it seems that the reset of a zigbee coordinator was a solution. Note that there is a way to back up zigbee network details separately from the main backup from your dongle configuration page. I was happy to learn that Home Assistant is storing Zigbee network configuration backup automatically for such cases and prompted me to restore from it, but it’s worth doing it manually just in case.

It’s been 6 days and everything seems to work just fine.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Hedda · January 9, 2024, 3:28pm

Very likely that you are having EMF interference issues with the Zigbee Coordinator or Zigbee Router, or simply not enough Zigbee Router devices in your Zigbee network, so before you do any deeper troubleshooting (as in digging through debug logs) be sure that you are first following these best pracise tips → Zigbee networks: how to guide for avoiding interference and optimize for getting better range + coverage

After you done that then try re-pairing/re-joining the device again to re-interview it.

Note! That best practices applies regardless if using ZHA integration or Zigbee2MQTT.

The same is also more or less covered in less detail in these three ZHA docs sections: