Unable to connect to the ESPHome Devices. After upgrading to Home Builder 2025.5.1

ESPHome
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1

Recently ran into this problem when I updated to ESP Home Builder 2025.5.1. Once installed my ESP32 devices wouldn’t connect, although they showed “Online”. I tried everything including settings in my Router with the “DHCP” and “DNS” settings and still no connection or able to reinstall the devices. Finally after a couple of daze working on this the solution… was to remove 2025.5.1 and install an older version ESPHome 2025.2.

ESP32 Errors
ESP32 Errors910×998 26.9 KB

It now all works fine but I would rather use a more current version of ESPHome Builder. It was REALLY frustrating and hours of installing devices. I have new ESP32 devices and tried those but no luck. I just installed the ones that worked originally after I downgraded and they came back on-line. Here’s an IMPORTANT note to everyone! Before you upgrade MAKE SURE you create a solid BACKUP. I had one a couple days old so once I reverted to an older version of HomeBuilder I got all my devices back. But I did have to do a lot of reconfiguring.

I have four light strips running ESP32 devices hooked up through the house and outside my garage. The YAML is solid and all the same on each, I use “Fastled” as the light code rather than WLED.

So if you are getting difficulties with error message such as these…

*** WARNING Can’t connect to ESPHome API**
*** Unable to connect to the ESPHome device. Make sure the device’s YAML configuration includes an api section.**
*** [Errno -5] No address associated with hostname**
*** [Errno 111] Connect call failed**

Then the only answer I have for a solution is to install an older version of Home Builder. I found 2025.2 seemed to have fixed the problem. This took days of figuring out for me and was pretty frustrating. And yes, I did a LOT of searching with no solid solutions. I’ve been running HA on a PI 4 for over 5yrs so I have a LOT of experience plus I have over 20+ years working on systems. So it’s not like I’m new with any of this. Hope some of this info helps someone else with this difficulty. Thanks for any comments.

2

No problem with 2025.5.1 here.

3

Yeah, I could try again but this time I’ll have to try it on a Test install rather than my active HA. And… make sure I have a more recent FULL backup. The error messages I received were rather cryptic so it was a lot of work just to get back to my ESP devices working. When I have the chance I’ll try again. Thanks pal.

4

I am also facing the same issue.

5

Suffering from the same thing. Cannot understand it is not solved, even in ESPHome Device Builder 2025.10.4

6

Which WiFi power_save mode You using ?
Had troubles when using LIGHT on ESP32 devices - massive ping lost, etc. etc.
NONE solved all the issues.

7 
wifi:
  networks:
    - ssid: !secret wifi_ssid 
      password: !secret wifi_password
    - ssid: !secret wifi2_ssid 
      password: !secret wifi2_password
  domain: .lan

This section you mean?

8

I added power_save_mode: none to the WIFI section, but that did not help.
I can see (through the logfile, as the device is connected to the system ESPhome builder) that it connects to WIFI and I can ping the DUT. It looks it just not allows HA to communicate on port 6053.

9

Can suggest to check ping anf 6053 port from HA console.
Install SSH add-on, login and try

  • ping xxx.lan
  • wget xxx.lan:6053

Then You will see - is name resolution working and 6053 port is accessible.

10

In my experience is better to use statics ips with esphone

11 
$ ping -c 3 blegw30.lan 
PING blegw30.lan (192.168.178.30): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.178.30: seq=0 ttl=63 time=10.192 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.178.30: seq=1 ttl=63 time=3.116 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.178.30: seq=2 ttl=63 time=6.933 ms

--- blegw30.lan ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 3.116/6.747/10.192 ms

$ wget blegw30.lan:6053
Connecting to blegw30.lan:6053 (192.168.178.30:6053)
wget: can't connect to remote host (192.168.178.30): Connection refused

$ ping -c 3  hw364.lan
PING hw364.lan (192.168.178.76): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.178.76: seq=0 ttl=254 time=2.355 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.178.76: seq=1 ttl=254 time=2.543 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.178.76: seq=2 ttl=254 time=2.328 ms

--- hw364.lan ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 2.328/2.408/2.543 ms

$ wget hw364.lan:6053
Connecting to hw364.lan:6053 (192.168.178.76:6053)
wget: error getting response: Connection reset by peer

per your suggestion , BLEGW30 is a device that does not work, HW364 is a device that does work.
The response of both ESP’s is not the same.

12

Sofar it has not bothered me but will keep it in mind. But see above the response is different when port 6053 does/nt work.

13

In my experience, I use DHCP on everything except my servers. And I have 50+ ESPHome devices around the house.

14

I see. Just checked couple of devices running 2025.9.3 (all my devices upgraded recently from 2024.12.4) - they answering on tcp/6053 like seen below:

➜  ~ wget sns-gate.local:6053
Prepended http:// to 'sns-gate.local:6053'
--2025-11-07 15:26:29--  http://sns-gate.local:6053/
Resolving sns-gate.local (sns-gate.local)... 192.168.1.134
Connecting to sns-gate.local (sns-gate.local)|192.168.1.134|:6053... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 No headers, assuming HTTP/0.9
Length: unspecified

AFAIK ESPHome builder detects Online status by mDNS, Logs working through API port.

➜  ~ netstat -ap | grep 6053 | grep 134
tcp        0      0 ha.local:48942          192.168.1.134:6053      ESTABLISHED -
tcp       33      0 ha.local:60640          192.168.1.134:6053      ESTABLISHED -

^^ same time HA integration connected to device and ESPHome biulder getting Logs.