Hue Bulbs not Responding anymore

[SJK]

I have a handful of Hue bulbs (and some other Zigbee devices) on my eISY.  Within the past week 2 of the hub bulbs stopped working. These are the fancy lightguide glass bulbs. First the one in the master bedroom pendant stopped responding, then a day or so later, the one in my daughter's bedroom pendant.  I factory reset them but they will not re-add to the eISY.  First I tried an update/interview, then the reset with removal from the eISY, but again, will not re-pair.  The lights work with bluetooth on my phone. (They aren't dead). I set up the hue app to verify that they still function.

They are only maybe 2 months old? I doubt the zigbee radio is dead- they failed nearly simultaneously. No power failures or surges etc- I use whole house surge suppression and we have relatively "clean" (stable) power here.

The only interim change is upgrading to 3.9.1 and turning on Matter support. I have no matter devices, and I did try turning it back off without any luck. But this issue didn't temporally appear- I updated to 3.9.1 a week or two after it came out, and this issue started a week ago.

My zigbee network is fine- other devices work, including the other hue bulbs in the house. The regular 60 and 75w A type bulbs are still doing their thing- including those in the same rooms. This isn't a range or interference issue- nothing else has changed and again, everything else just works. 

(Side note- have the Polisy running a separate Zigbee network on a separate channel for exterior/window devices- completely separate radio frequency, should not have any issues there- have been happily co-existing since the fall).

Any thoughts? I have no idea what to troubleshoot next.

[Guy Lavoie]

You mention "hub bulbs" at the beginning but then mention "other zigbee devices".

Are they configured as Hue devices with the Hue plugin, or as straight zigbee devices?

[SJK]

I use some Tuyo clone things for window candles- the ones that you splice into the power cord. Something like those old Sonoff Zigbee basics. Also a couple of Sonoff USB on/off switches for the Lectrofans. All of those items are working just fine as well. 

I use no hub or nodeserver for the hue devices- they are linked directly to the eISY using the ZMatter dongle. Same for the other devices mentioned above.

[Guy Lavoie]

Since you have a Polisy with a separate zigbee network handy, have you tried pairing one of these non responding bulbs on that network? As a test.

Is there a factory reset that you can do on them (usually powering them on and off several times in a short period)?

[SJK]

I did factory reset them multiple times - screw/unscrew method. They were successfully reset.

• Turn off the bulb for 5 seconds 

• Turn on for 8 seconds

• Turn off for 2 seconds

• Turn on for 8 seconds

 

I have another one of these bulbs planned for another room when I install the pendant- I just tried to link it to the eISY in place of one of the nonresponding bulbs and it instantly paired, confirming it's not a radio interference issue, etc. 

When I use the Xray function to see the devices in the ZB network- I have 16. I only have 10 devices on this network. There's devices there I don't have and the ones that don't respond and have been removed from the eISY. None function- I get errors if I try to interact with or query them.

I have removed them from the zigbee network before removing them from eISY, but they still persist in the all devices table, and if you do a synchronize new and delted with interview they come back. How do I permanently remove them from the network?  Not sure this has any actual bearing on the actual problem, but seems odd I cannot remove anything ever.

 

 

[SJK]

 

Doing some forum searxihng about orphaned zigbee devices I found an acknowledgment in 2023 that this was a bug and would be fixed within the week, followed by a user stating still not fixed a few months later. Other threads were all closed without any replies or that upgrading firmware fixed it.  

Perhaps a regression? I'm starting to think that if the controller still thinks the device is there, it's not going to re-pair. But if I cannot delete it, I'm stuck.  I'll put in a ticket to ask.

[Guy Lavoie]

Yes, sounds like a ticket is next. Let us know how it turns out.