#Matter / Thread Communication Issues

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

barren sage
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Reposting from Integrations as apparently this is more for this channel. I’ve decided to go in on Thread for my IOT devices however I’m starting to find problems as I go.

I’ve had 2 out of 3 of my thread devices drop and show disconnected in Home Assistant without any apparent reason. I’m using an Apple TV 4K as the border router. Two of the devices are door sensors, and one is an Eve smart outlet.

Positionally, both door sensors are within 20ft of the Apple TV so I’m fairly certain it’s not a range issue. The Eve outlet might be meshed via the door sensor so I’d understand why that one would be offline.

Anyway is there any reasonable way to troubleshoot this issue, or do I need to blindly buy more Matter devices and assume it’s a range/mesh issue?

Here are some of the errors from the matter server:

2024-10-31 20:01:44.854 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.device_controller] Node:1 Setting-up node...
2024-10-31 20:02:06.620 (Dummy-2) CHIP_ERROR [chip.native.EM] Failed to Send CHIP MessageCounter:131110997 on exchange 56435i with Node: <0000000000000000, 0> sendCount: 4 max retries: 4
2024-10-31 20:02:08.158 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.device_controller] Node:3 Setting-up node...
2024-10-31 20:02:15.858 (Dummy-2) CHIP_ERROR [chip.native.DIS] Timeout waiting for mDNS resolution.
2024-10-31 20:02:16.840 (Dummy-2) CHIP_ERROR [chip.native.SC] CASESession timed out while waiting for a response from the peer. Current state was 4
2024-10-31 20:02:16.840 (Dummy-2) CHIP_ERROR [chip.native.DMG] Failed to establish CASE for re-subscription with error 'src/protocols/secure_channel/CASESession.cpp:560: CHIP Error 0x00000032: Timeout'
2024-10-31 20:02:16.841 (MainThread) INFO

glad sail
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Home Assistant yellow as Border router here and to this day, no solution has been found, some says it's a range issue, some say the network is overlimit but nothing concrete.
I only have 4 devices with thread / matter and every day every devices becomes unavailable, sometimes it's reconnecting as night and sometimes it need a complete reboot.
If someone has something to try or help, he's welcome x)

frosty bay
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fwiw, battery powered devices (like door sensors) do not relay/route messages for other devices - they rely on having a relatively stable connection to a router "parent" device in the mesh in order to operate correctly.

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so if the eve outlet is too far from the border router to get a reliable connection, and a door sensor is trying to use the eve outlet as its parent device, that would mean the eve outlet losing connection would also cause the door sensor to drop off.

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adding an additional hardwired device (another outlet or a light bulb) located between the thread border router and your existing outlet would probably help quite a bit.

high stirrup
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@barren sage I had to extend with 5 eve energy plugs to get a reliable connection to a battery powered thread sensor, less plugs gave me issues. Been working reliably for two weeks. 64m^2 apartment border router in one end and battery powered sensor in the other end.

final orbit
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do you have some kind of VPN on that Apple TV by any chance? That would also break the TBR feature of the device.

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for troubleshooting I'm usually first trying to assess if the devices go offline at the same time while the TBR stays online (-> most often a TBR issue like the Apple TV VPN stuff), if the TBR goes offline too (-> wifi or powersaving mostly), or if the devices go offline completely independently (-> sometimes range issue, sometimes old firmware, sometimes no good reason to find)

barren sage
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Apple TV is hardwired, no VPN. Network reports no network drops to ATV.

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That’s good to know about the battery devices, I didn’t realize it was only wired devices were routers

barren sage
sly zealot
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Maybe you have interference from your own or a neighboring WiFi or ZigBee network. All these technologies (WiFi, Thread, ZigBee) use the same 2.4GHz frequency band. Apple uses Thread channel 25. Do you or neighbor use a ZigBee network on channel 25 or a 2.4GHz WiFi on channel 11. If so, that may be your issue.

barren sage
heavy zodiac
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Matter is not using any spectrum itself. Matter is just application-level protocol, not a radio transport. Matter works over WiFi, Ethernet or Thread as transport protocols.

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So, you're refering to Thread here as the radio protocol, which is on the 2.4ghz band - just like WiFi and Zigbee and Bluetooth

barren sage
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I'm specifically talking about Thread. Sorry for using Matter/Thread interchangably; this is primarily a thread issue. (I don't have any Wifi based Matter devices) As a followup to my earlier problems, I've done the following and am currently monitoring the stability of the system by:

  • Moved the Eve Outlet to be closer to both door sensors. Looking at the Eve app, it looks like both door sensors were using the Eve outlet as a router.
  • Blacklisted 2.4ghz channel 11 from my Wifi setup.

One or both of these items has had an impact on the setup as both door sensors have been connected without any hassle since yesterday.

barren sage
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Okay well it originally worked, however now my Thread network has completely crashed.

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My Proxmox host which hosts my HA VM and everything overheated and I didn't catch it for a few days. Once I restarted it and fixed the overheating problem, all Thread devices were unavailable. It appears the Apple TV that was my Thread Border Router also updated to the tvOS 18.1. I tried resending my credentials to HA, which appears to be successful, but I still can't add devices back (I removed and reset all Thread devices) and it seems to be locked hard. I saw that the Apple TV Integration was broken with tvOS 18, is that the case with Thread too?

barren sage
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Reset my Apple TV and no change.

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Guess completely nuking Home Assistant and trying this way is going to be what I have to do. Really ridiculous having part of my home go down for a day and suddenly everything is hosed.

sly zealot
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What do you mean by ‘everything overheated‘?

My 65 MoT devices are still working as expected. My AppleTVs and HomePods are also on iOS 18.1.

The solution is not to get crazy, when anything doesn’t work as expected. 😉

Next time before resynching credentials (Why should they get lost on its own?), deleting the Matter integration, resetting HA or whatever…

  1. Did you have a look at your Matter server log files? What did you see there?
  2. Did you try to reboot your Thread Border Router(s)?
  3. Did you try to remove your TBR from current? (Wait until Apple Home tells you, that no Home Hub is reachable. After that you can replug your Apple Home Hub/TBR. Start with your primary Apple Home Hub/TBR.
barren sage
# sly zealot What do you mean by ‘everything overheated‘? My 65 MoT devices are still workin...

I got everything online finally late at night, after struggling with it and resetting everything.

  • Proxmox overheated, HA VM Went down. Brought it back up after shutting it down for a day to let everything temp stabilize. Once I brought stuff back up, none of my matter devices were accessible.
  • Reset a device and tried pairing. Failed, errors saying HA did not have credentials.
  • Using my phone, sent credentials from Apple Home to HA. No changes.
  • Rebooted TBR (Apple TV) - No change in status.
  • Reset TBR to factory defaults - No change, still couldn't send new Apple TV credentials to home.
  • Nuked Home Assistant, and rebuilt it.
  • Resynced credentials (successful)
  • Re-added all devices to new HA Instance.

Basically couldn't get HA to properly talk with Matter. (Seemed like the Apple TV as well couldn't communicate with thread devices properly) Sadly lost all my automations and dashboards, but luckily there wasn't much integrated yet as I've been building the house out.

heavy zodiac
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You didnt have a backup ?

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Maybe good time to setup a backup schedule now then