Migrated to Zigate+, problem: the zigate plugin randomly has unreachable devices and then finds them back again?!

[atmfrenki]

I switched from Zigate v1 to the zigate+ usb stick a few weeks ago.
I had to reconnect all zigbee devices when i started using the new Zigate+ USB-Stick.

Then the problems started, randomly unreachable devices in the plugin.
When Domoticz and the plugin are restarted, the previous unreachable devices are often found again as "Live" devices (without reconnecting throug the plugin).
Finally as a last resort, I removed all zigbee devices in Domoticz and the plugin, and completely reinstalled the Zigate plugin on the Raspberry Pi. (stable5)
Then I added all the zigbee devices again. (Mostly: Ikea light bulbs and Xiaomi Powerplugs)

Unfortunately this was not the solution.
The clean start, and adding the devices went fine however the newly added devices still randomly are not reachable, also they randomly come back "live" again.
It also happens that all devices are live, but in the course of time devices lose their connection again.

I have the same setup of devices, same locations of the devices, did not change anything in that matter. So it cannot be a range problem.
Before with the Zigate v1, i did not have this problem.

It started all with the migration to the Zigate+ Usb-Stick
For example I have 15 light bulbs in my living room (no its not that big), and randomly 1 or 2 lights become "unreachable" when in fact they all are fisically very near to each other, some even in the same lamp. So i know it's not a range problem that they become unreachable)

At the moment I have connected 33 devices.
As a last resort i have added some zigbee range extenders (Ikea) to my network and set my wifi 2,4 Ghz accespoints from high to Low signal strength. (again, before this was never a problem interferance or someting like that)
Also I have put the wifi-channels to 11 and my zigbee is on channel 12. (i understand these channels are the furthest away from each other. (zigbee channel 11 = wifi channel 1)

Does anyone have experience with this, Can somebody point me in the right direction?
Is this a bug in the plugin or in the firmware of the zigate? (I have used the devices for years now in the same setup and without problems, that is why I think it could/should be a software problem?!)

Zigate Pluging version: 5.1.006
Zigate+ Firmware: 031f
Domoticz version: 2021.1

Thanks!
Regards

Frank

[pipiche]

hello Frank,

This looks indeed very strange and surprising.I guess you never had such issue with the previous Zigate V1 version ?

Could you give me a bit more insight of the Plugin Configuration ?

In Domoticz is the plugin configured with ZiGate+ as the Zigate model ?

Can you share the Conf/PluginConf-xx.json file , so I cross-check the various parameters ?

Do you see any error messages in the log ?

What the used zigbee channel 12 on the Zigate v1 model ?

When a light is reported "unreachable" are you still able to switch On or Off the light from Domoticz ? In other words, is the "unreachable" a wrong state ?

[atmfrenki]

Hello Pipiche,

Thanks for the responce!
No i did not have this problem with the v1 zigate, that is the strange thing about it.
I thought it would be a simple migration from v1 to v2, adjust the settings in Domoticz to Zigate+ en rediscover all the zigbee devices in the plugin.
Then the troubles started

Here are the answers to your requests:
-My domoticz settings:

msedge_2021-07-28_17-08-02.png (9.74 KiB) Viewed 1220 times

-Json config files (i had two of those) are uploaded and renamed tot txt.

-I see no error messages in the logs (not in plugin, and not in domoticz)

-To be honest, i think it was on channel 11 on the Zigate v1, i played around with some channel settings because first i thought it had interfearance with Wifi 2,4 Ghz. but it's not the problem. (because it would also have been a problem before). So when i started from scratch i guess the channel was on 12, so i have left it like that.
Could that be the problem? I did not think channel 11 or 12 is mutch difference, but at this point i suspect everything

Thanks for your help already!!

Regards

Frank

[pipiche]

give me some time, busy those days, but I'll investigate what could be wrong.
I agree with you this should have been a simple migration by just re-pairing all devices

Any idea why you have 2 PluginConf file ? What is the Hardware ID number of the ZiGate plugin you are running ?
Or are you running the 2 ZiGate V1 and V2 ? Give me a screenshoot of the Hardware list (from Domoticz) where all plugin are listed , we see the Zigate plugin and its Hardware ID

We need to understand which is one is running .

[atmfrenki]

Hello Pipiche,

At one point I have removed the zigate plugin from Domoticz Hardware, and added it and as new hardware in Domoticz.

The IDX that is currently in use by the Zigatev2 = 27
I wil remove the other file, because in Domotix the v1 = IDX 21 is not there anymore.
Apperently this file has not been removed automatically when i removed the Zigate v1 (IDX 21 hardware) in domoticz.

Take all the time you need, i'm very glad you are trying to help!! Also it works 80% of time but it's not reliable this way.
So thanks in advance!!

Regards
Frank

[pipiche]

Ok, so as the Config file for 27 it is pretty good, nothing to say.
Normaly the ZiGate+/V2 should be more efficient with interference, so it looks bizarre that is becoming worst than the V1.

Are you using ZiGate Groups ? for instance for your 15 bulbs in the living room ?

Last to understand more the context, when you move from ZigateV1 to V2, did you update Domoticz ? di you update the plugin (from which version) ?

[atmfrenki]

Ok, Thanks!

I don't use the Zigate groups, the lights are grouped whitin Domoticz itself.
Everyday i lose different lights or switches (mostely the lights), but most of the time they come back on itself, somtimes in time, but mostely by rebooting the raspberry. In case they stay unavailable i reconnect them with the plugin.

When I moved from ZigateV1 to V2, i did not update the plugin. It was on Plugin: 5.1.005.
In time I updated is because i hoped it would be a solution.


Maybee this is also interesting, when I perform a topology scan I see separate groups of devices. Don't know if that is an indication of something wrong, or the topology just is not a good visual reference of the zigbee network? (some devices do not even show in the scan 22 of 33 devices)

msedge_2021-08-02_17-28-20.png (44.9 KiB) Viewed 1164 times

[pipiche]

Hello,

as the diagram is concerned, go to the Settings and enabled "displaySibling" in the Web Ui settings section, this will make the graph much complete.

So if I summarize it looks like you don't really loose the device, but it is more the WebUI which tell you that some have been lost. The fact that after a reboot they are coming back is also the same reason as at plugin start we query each device to know their presence or not.

Can you try to disable the following parameter "Get device status after action" in the Settings ? and we will see from that

[atmfrenki]

Thanks Pipiche!!
I enabled "displaySibling", after that started a new topology scan and got an error:

msedge_2021-08-02_18-53-53.png (16.28 KiB) Viewed 1159 times

Strange thing is, the device a62b is not known (anymore) in the zigate plugin, also in domoticz not to be found?

Exactly, the devices are not realy lost, they are unreachable, also in domoticz they don't work when that happens.
After another reboot i got a new list of light's that are not reachable whitin the plugin (and are not working as domoticz switches)
As an example:

2021-08-02_18-44-47.png (122.48 KiB) Viewed 1159 times

I did look for the setting "Get device status after action" in settings but could not find the option.
Is it in de settings of the plugin?

msedge_2021-08-02_19-01-48.png (123.28 KiB) Viewed 1159 times

Thanks!!!

Regards
Frank

[atmfrenki]

In addition, topology looks mutch better now !!!

msedge_2021-08-02_19-10-24.jpg (186.62 KiB) Viewed 1154 times

[pipiche]

disable "forcePollingAfterAction"

[atmfrenki]

Unfortunately, it had no effect.
I have reconnect the unreachable devices through the plugin, again and again, but every time seconds later 2 or 3 other devices became unreachable.
I have gone through this proces several times this evening, but i never get it to a state that 0 devices are lost.

This is the status it's in right now after the last reboot. 4 devices unreachable.

msedge_2021-08-03_00-01-26.png (26.45 KiB) Viewed 1138 times

When i reconnect them in the plugin, again others will become unavailable........

Could there be a hardwareproblem with the Zigatev2 USB-Stick?
If i go migrate back to the zigate V1, and leave all settings like they are now, is that a good test?

[pipiche]

If you can indeed re-pair all devices to the V1 this would be a good tests.

When you have the problem, is that when you are commanding a group of bulb ( how large is the group) ? Or you even have that when switching on/off only one single bulb ?

[atmfrenki]

Ok thanks i'm going to do that, switch back to v1, and see what happens.

For clarification the process i'm in:

-The problem is first visible @ the plugin: unreachable devices.

2021-08-03_11-51-32.png (37.02 KiB) Viewed 1127 times

-Than, in Domoticz the bulb or switch becomes "red" and wil not switch on/off

msedge_2021-08-03_11-45-31.png (114.06 KiB) Viewed 1127 times

If the Bulb or Switch is commanded individually or in a group does not matter.
In a group the Bulb's all switch exept for the one's that are unreachable.
Individually the bulb also won't switch.
Also the plugin turns to a "Busy" state, orange color, and devices switch very slowly. It can take up to a minute before a Bulb or a switch responds.

2021-08-03_12-01-34.png (71.37 KiB) Viewed 1127 times

Than I "re-provision" the bulb or switch in the plugin, and it is "live" again (also in Domoticz).
But on the other end, some other bulb or switch has become unrechable instead.

-Also sometimes the bulb or switch is reporting "live" again after a reboot of the raspberry, but this is not happening often.

[pipiche]

One thing is that I would definitely recommend to use the Zigate group instead of the domoticz one.
It will allow you to switch on or off a group of bulb in once Zigbee command. So the 15 bulbs will switch immediately together.
It will drastically reduce the load in zigate and in the network

[atmfrenki]

Hi Pipiche

I switched from v2 to v1. However, I ran into problems with the zigate plugin, which didn't want to rediscover devices. Then I started all over again by removing the zigate plugin in domoticz and reinstalling it completely.
I also reused and reset the v2. (did not want to give up on it)
After that everything went pretty smoothly. I added devices in phases/segments.
In the end it turned out that the same problem arose with the last 5 devices i added.
As soon as I added these devices (2 plugs 2 lamps and 1 motion sensor) random devices started appearing unreachable again.
I then removed these 5 devices.
Now the system has been running for 24 hours and I haven't seen any more outages/unreachables.

Perhaps 1 of these 5 devices has a hardware failure that causes the zigbee network to mailfunction and also the plugin.

But, it is also possible that these 5 devices are just,just,just..... too far away (in my garage) about 2/3 meters from the house/zigbee device that acts as a router.
The funny thing is that these devices in the garage often did work.

I have the feeling that there is a faulty device.
I will investigate this in the coming days by adding them 1 by 1.

I now have one other problem, errors have arisen when removing the devices. Can I correct this manually?

msedge_2021-08-05_15-39-31.png (112.61 KiB) Viewed 1100 times

It seems after removing the devices they stil are listed in some files.

Thank you very mutch for your time and efford!!!!!!!

Regards
Frank

[pipiche]

the error message is not a big deal, it will with the time disappear, it looks like the Neighbour table in some routers are not yet up to date. Don't worry much on that and for sure the only issue that can trigger is a wrong Topology Report , but it won't impact the behaviour of the network.

The fact that you have one device far away can create issues due to the fact that the system might have to rebuild is routing table quiet often .
Basically when you use device command ON or Off it uses the unicast communication path, which means that the Zigate needs to determine the path to reach the end device and then send it to the next router, which is then doing the similar ...
If you use the ZiGate groups, then it is an other story and it will broadcast to ALL routers, and ALL routers will also broadcast. Then only the devices which belongs to the group (for which a command has been sent) will execute the command.

I had personally an issue with a Philips Hue Motion Sensor which was putting my Zigbee network down. I have leave it off during a while, change the battery and reset it and since no more issue.

If you have the possibility to test those 2 plugs and 2 lamps in the Zigate area (for test purposes).