Zwave autodiscovery stops working after Domoticz restart

[Nautilus]

Hi,

I have a strange problem. Whenever Domoticz restarts (this happens usually once a week or so, I have monit in use so I don't always know right away when it happens), the zwave mqtt autodiscovery stops working. If I try to e.g. press a zwave switch after restart I get message with like something "incorrect ID" in Domoticz GUI. After I go to zwavejs2mqtt settings and press "Save" I can see in the log all the devices discovered and they start working again. So there are no new devices created, just the old ones start working again.

What do I need to do to keep them working through restarts (preferably without the need to recreate any devices)?

These are my settings:

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[mgugu]

Try to set on "Retained Discovery"
The configuration which woeks for me:

[Nautilus]

Thanks - maybe I should try it as well. I was trying to follow these instructions:

MQTT config: best to switch OFF the retain flag (otherwise, deleted devices keep reappearing until you manually delete the messages from the broker)

https://www.domoticz.com/wiki/ZwaveJS2MQTT

And actually the retained flag was something I was fighting with in my early attempts to get things running:

All in all I have to say I'm very impressed about some of the changes with regards to stability and overall functionality observed now after running zwavejs2mqtt together with Domoticz for about a week. Maybe someone can help me with one question. Initially when zwavejs2mqtt discovers the devices, they do not have a name (of course). After adding some names, I noticed the devices stopped working in Domoticz (sort of - some did, most did not).

I configured zwavejs2mqtt with the help of these recommendations:
https://github.com/moroen/ZWave-MQTT-pl ... avejs2mqtt

Gateway configuration:
Use node names instead of numeric nodeIDs: Off
Ignore location: On
Include Node Info: On
Note: Specifying node names and locations in zwavejs2mqtt is not required, but recommended. This will generate somewhat sane names of the devices when they are added to domoticz.

But as mentioned couple of posts above:

Now, when I look at the topics in mqtt explorer, I can see only one ID under discovery node, yesterday I saw several of them. I can see them under zwave node though. Why have they disappeared from discovery? Can it be the fact that I enable OZW for a while to get my old device names? Since then I've restarted the system and everything so shouldn't it recover? Can I force the discovery topics to be populated somehow again?

edit. I turned the "retained discovery" switch on in zwavejs2mqtt to "on" and now I have the nodes back under discovery topic. Not sure if this is the right way to do as it was mentioned to best to keep it off...

So my retained flag was on. I took it off and everything started working again. I thought this was it. But then I needed to do one more change and when testing the device in Domoticz after the change, it did not work right away. And I'm not fully sure what I did to make it start working again

Now I wonder which is the best practice to change device name in zwavejs2mqtt and keep everything working in Domoticz. Is it just this:

Hint: To add all devices at once, enable the plugin in domoticz, and press "Save" in zwavejs2mqtt preferences. This will generate status messages for all devices.

So do I need to save preferences once after each name update to re-generate status messages? Or something else?

[Nautilus]

Well, I wanted go through the setting one more just in case (I think I did this already a few times ) to see if there is anything to explain this. And yes, I could not find any justification on having the "clean" flag true under mqtt settings. So I disabled that and let's see if that changes things. I did not find any particular documentation about it's significance (except: "Sets the clean flag when connecting to the broker"), but it kinda sounds that any disconnect from mqtt broker might result into to the kind of behavior I am seeing...

[rezzalex]

Hello,

I had a big struggle with the same symptoms... but I am using DZ MQTT Auto discovery hardware, not the same as you.
in ZwaveJs2MQTT, I have the "clean" option checked (ON), and it works well. Also, the retained discovery is checked (ON).

Maybe there is an attention to have on connexion to your MQTT broker by observing its logs, crossing that with DZ logs. In my case, DZ MQTT AD used to always lose its connection to the broker and restart a discovery that did not work well... now it seems to be solved.

Hope it can help a bit

[Nautilus]

Hello,

I had a big struggle with the same symptoms... but I am using DZ MQTT Auto discovery hardware, not the same as you.
in ZwaveJs2MQTT, I have the "clean" option checked (ON), and it works well. Also, the retained discovery is checked (ON).

Maybe there is an attention to have on connexion to your MQTT broker by observing its logs, crossing that with DZ logs. In my case, DZ MQTT AD used to always lose its connection to the broker and restart a discovery that did not work well... now it seems to be solved.

Hope it can help a bit

Thanks for the reply. Sorry, but what do you mean with "DZ MQTT Auto discovery hardware"? I thought this is what I am using too, "MQTT Client Gateway with LAN interface" hardware with autodiscovery topic set to correspond what I have configure in zwavejs2mqtt?

I was just thinking that when it specifically says in wiki that retained flag should not be on, it would be best to avoid setting it on. At least it will then require old devices to be manually removed with mqtt explorer. Which is manageable, of course, in case it solves other issues.

Also, I did not find anywhere reference for setting "clean" as checked. Maybe it is checked by default and I just left it like that. But let's see, I will report back if clean = off, retained = off works for me. If not, will try to put both on...

[rezzalex]

as you can see, not the same hardware :

Sans titre.png (56.67 KiB) Viewed 1601 times

[Nautilus]

Ah, indeed - it was split into separate hardware a while back: https://github.com/domoticz/domoticz/co ... b9267bab6d

I wonder if this changes anything? At least the harware still works (except the restart thing) and the config seems identical.

I have not updated my Domoticz since beginning of this year due to changes in the Python plugin framwork which was causing issue with some plugins (viewtopic.php?t=38086&start=60). But maybe it would now be time to update...

[Nautilus]

Well, Domoticz got restarted again today and zwave stopped working through autodiscovery. I have not set the retain flag on, clean on ==> let's see if it makes a difference....

[Michalux]

I've made some tests on this. It looks like every MQTT Auto Discovery device change, that restarts the worker and makes it disconnect/reconnect to MQTT generates this problem. For what I've tested, either of below things fix it:
1. Save ZWavejs2MQTT config in GUI, which generates auto discovery broadcast to MQTT
2. Set Retained discovery to ON (against docs suggestions), that makes all auto discovery info available for MQTT Auto Discovery device on reconnect.
It seems, that MQTT Auto Discovery needs to get all discovery info after each restart (or even reconnect). So either it has to be available on MQTT server, or generated again (by zwavejs2mqtt).

BTW - setting Clean -> ON doesn't seem to make any difference.

[Nautilus]

Thanks, good info. My observations support your finding of restart of the worker (which disconnect/reconnect it from MQTT) generates the problem. I have mostly observed it when whole Domoticz is restarted, but I've noticed that it is not always the case - happens sometimes without a Domoticz restart so worker disconnecting must be enough...

As said, I too have the set the retain flag on. Deleting old devices additionally from broker via MQTT explorer is much less of a hassle than finding few times a week that your zwave devices are not working

[rezzalex]

are you using Mosquitto as mqqt broker ?

take a look at my experiments here : viewtopic.php?p=289477#p289477

[Nautilus]

Yes, using Mosquitto. Interesting, will take a look...

[Nautilus]

So I enabled the retain flag and at first things looked very promising. Z-wave was stable for about a week though I must add that during this time Domoticz did not restart. But unfortunately when the first (unplanned) restart came, Domoticz again lost all z-wave devices. Saving zwavejs2mqtt settings again brought them back.

Now I am thinking is there a way to automate this in someway. Domoticz restart would be the trigger and action would be basically equivalent to pressing the save button in zwavejs2mqtt settings. Has anyone tried something like this?

[Nautilus]

Some progress, after two Domoticz restarts zwave has kept working without the need to save config. Changes since last message: I updated Domoticz to latest beta (my last update was around change of year, I was afraid to update due to issues with the new python plugin framework). I updated zwavejs2mqtt to the latest version (I think it was from around year change too) and at the same time changed it to be managed with docker compose (was managed by "plain" docker). Unfortunately no idea which update made the difference or was it something else.

[Nautilus]

Update: the joy of previous message lasted for about two weeks or so. Now back to the usual "Domoticz restart -> Z-wave devices not operational (except after saving the config)". So back to plan B it is then...

[heggink]

I have not updated zwavejs2mqtt in quite a while (probably longer than 6 months) since it's very stable for me.
There's 2 retain switches: the mqtt retain (which is "off" in my case) and the homeassistant retained discovery which I have had "On".
Other than that, my settings are the same as yours. I have persistence set to true in mosquitto.conf but I am not sure if that's the default.

[Nautilus]

Thanks, I’ll try this config

[Nautilus]

So far, so good. Several restarts behind and zwavejs2mqtt keeps connected with Domoticz

I think the other retain flag was the key as suggested by @heggink. Had overlooked this option thus far. Thanks a lot!

[heggink]

Nice!

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