Troubleshooting a Matter device

Hi all! I am very new to home automation. I just got my HA Yellow set up, and it is already inviting me to dig deeper. I would really appreciate some guidance with this.

To test things out, I paired HA with a Nanoleaf lightstrip using Matter over Thread. This part was easy. I simply enrolled the lightstrip into my home-assistant network using the Nanoleaf app, it launched the HA app, and then showed up on the dashboard, where I could control it. Great first experience!

But, then, for unrelated reasons, I needed to disconnect the Yellow from power and connect it again. After it restarted, the lightstrip device was grayed out. It was still listed as enrolled in home-assistant network in the Nanoleaf app, but HA could no longer do anything with it. So, I thought deleting it and adding it back might work.

The adding back part is not working. I can control the lightstrip from the Nanoleaf app. The app still lists it in the home-assistant network. However, it does not show up anywhere in Home Assistant.

Please help me diagnose and fix this problem. I am a software developer by profession and fairly comfortable with Linux (even if it is not my main OS). I searched around and found some discussions about how adding back a deleted device required editing configuration files, but it feels like grasping at straws.

Thanks for reading all this!

Not certain if it might help, but have you tried to remove the Matter Server add-on and add it again. Not certain if it will clear the configs, but worth trying IMHO.

The adding back part is not working. I can control the lightstrip from the Nanoleaf app. The app still lists it in the home-assistant network. However, it does not show up anywhere in Home Assistant.

Which step exactly is not working?

Do you see anything in the Matter Server add-on logs when you try to re-add?

Thanks. There is nothing to re-add. The device does not show up in HA anymore. I can’t add it to the Thread network through the Nanoleaf app again, because it is already on it.

I am hoping that I can use this as a teaching moment by finding out what’s wrong and fixing it. But plan B will be to start reinstalling things.

I have tried restarting HA when the device was greyed out and after deleting it. It did not make any difference either time.

I seem to recall having the same problem…the NanoLeaf got commissioned successfully by HA Matter but the interview process failed. NanoLeaf thought it was good to go, but HA-Matter removed it, so NanoLeaf had no interest in recommissioning. I had to factory reset the bulb in order to try a recommission, but in the end the same problem occurred again and again.

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Judging by the “State of Matter” presentation, diagnosing something like this would not be easy.

Stefan (@agners): I had, basically, devices being not reachable from time to time. I don’t know why, currently. We need to dig into the reasons why these devices go offline

Also, learned about the Thread-only configuration for the Yellow from the presentation. It allows using the newest Open Thread Border Router. This is in documentation for the SkyConnect, but not the Yellow*. I’ve switched my setup to this.

I have set up a Putty connection to the Yellow and learned that I still can’t access logs other than through the web UI, since they are kept in journald, and journalctl is not accessible.

* Now fixed.

Big thanks for the new diagnostic tools in the 2024.2 update!

2024.2: More voice, more icons, more integrations, more… everything! / Matter diagnostics and actions