Zigbee Frustration

Configuration Zigbee
1

Hi All
I have HA running on a small form factor PC running in a VM (VMWare).
It has a Sonoff 3.0 Dongle Plus that was working fine.
In preparation to getting a load of new devices installed and programming my controls for IR panels I moved the PC to a new location in the house (It had been doing nothing for about 3 weeks).
After putting everything on I noticed all my Zigbee devices were disabled, checked the dongle and the aerial fell off as soon as I touched it so figured that must be it. Ordered another dongle, this one refused to go into bootloader mode so I could upgrade the firmware, it gets picked up in device manager (In Ports rather than other devices though). I tried Python method to update firmware but did not work, I feel it was struggling to find the dongle even with the correct comm port number.
So, next I tried creating a new fresh VM, still not being seen in HA. Decided it must be faulty and ordered another one from a different supplier. This arrived but is doing the same thing and I am no further forward.
To get in bootloader I hold the boot button then put it in USB port holding the button, even after 20 seconds the LED does not turn white.

I am desperate to get this back up and running, any ideas where I am going wrong?

2

Are you sure you have the Plus and not the Plus V2 ?

if the plus, you can flash without the button using

And the button is very sensitive, I always had to try several times.

1 Like
3

The original one is model number ZBDongle-P. I had updated this and was working fine until the aerial came off, but I would add I could not get to to add again after I deleted it, I did expect it to do it even without the aerial.
The second one has a model number ZBDongle-P, the most recent one is a ZBDongle-E, I notice the buttons are in a different orientation on this one.
All three look the same as say Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus on the front.

4

The E can’t be flashed with Zstack firmware, so I would try your other P again.

1 Like
5

Just flashed that one OK
Plugged it into the PC but does not show up in hardware even though I see it in device manager, I think previously it had been showing as something starting with ttyusb. The old dongle did not show up either there but certainly used to. Maybe an issue with the PC or HA rather than the dongle itself.

I am starting to wonder if it would be less hassle to just buy an Odroid N2+ and start all over again.

6

More tips in these topics; just note that there are seperate topics for “ZBDongle-P” and “ZBDongle-E”: