Thanks for the info.
Most of that i have read pretty thouroughly already to be honest, includuing all the Home Assistant ZHA documentation, and a lot of the zigbee2mqtt docs too.
Whilst i understand that the CC2531 are not recommended, nowhere do any of the docs say they are unsupported / do not work…infact, the CC2531 adapters are listed as being known working radios
(All taken from currently published and valid documentation as far as i see)
I have indeed followed all the guidance and tips and best practices, but i still see really flakey connections and little reliability…to the point of none useability.
So i am starting to think that either the adapter i have is garbage, or the integrations / add-ons do not fully support CC2531, which imho, is different to not being recommended
A quick google, and it seems many CC2531 users have experienced similar difficulties in the wake of recent HA updates.