#HAOS+ZBT-2: Can't connect to thread network

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

iron jolt
#

I've been struggling for days with the SLZB-06 and dockerized OTBR (#1465067334317117471 message). I finally gave up, bought the ZBT-2 and set up a HAOS VM with Matter+Thread following the official documentation.

Just like before, adding a new device seems to go through most of the process, but finally fails with "Can't connect to thread network ha-thread-xxxx". I can see the _matter._tcp, _meshcop._udp and _trel._udp services on my phone. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to debug from here 🙄

What happens before the "Can't connect" message? Is my phone waiting for some ipv6 broadcast that never arrives?

patent trench
#

is this an android phone?

#

there's two possibilities - either the phone isn't receiving the ipv6 router announcements from the thread border router so it doesn't know how to route traffic to the thread network, or you might be hitting a bug in android where it doesn't correctly resolve mdns for thread border routers.

#

first, check your phone's network settings to make sure it has configured an ipv6 address which starts with fd

iron jolt
#

Yeah, it's an android phone.
Are the router announcements "plain" addressed udp ipv6 packets? I'm thinking I could fire up wireshark to look for them.

#

Looks like I have a couple of ipv6 addresses starting with fd

Screenshot_20260208-180335.png
#

I did try the beta version of the OTBR add-on with the same result

iron jolt
patent trench
#

open android settings, search for "thread". It should have a settings panel that will display thread border routers. If yours shows up, you're not affected.

#

Connecting a laptop to wifi to make sure you're receiving the ipv6 router announcements with wireshark will work. They're multicast and a separate protocol, not udp, but wireshark should pick up and decode them.

iron jolt
#

Thanks! Can confirm I did not see the network in Android settings until I switched the OTBR add-on to the beta version. Same result when trying to add a device, though.
I'll try and find the RAs with wireshark on ethernet and see if they're missing when on WiFi... I appreciate the support, thank you.

iron jolt
olive tiger
#

I had the same issue for days now. I just now fixed it by checking sysctl net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding flag it should return net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding = 1 it wasnt for me.

I enabled it in runtime by running :sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1 on the host.

Made it enabled by default by uncommenting #net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1 this line in /etc/sysctl.conf

Now, I am still quite a noobie when it comes to these things but i thought I will share since it took me literal days to figure this out. Also if anyone reading this see some problem with this approach please let me know. I am eager to learn. 🙂

Hope this helps 🙂

patent trench
#

that sysctl stuff isn't applicable to HAOS

#

(HAOS already has all of the required sysctls for doing forwarding - and receiving router announcements while forwarding is enabled - set up)

odd talon
#

same problem initial setup done fore zwave but can not change it to Thread for ikea sensors. Reset ZBT-2 bring me always back to Z wave install

#

What can i do,

olive tiger
patent trench
iron jolt
# patent trench Connecting a laptop to wifi to make sure you're receiving the ipv6 router announ...

Since I do see the RAs on WiFi, I'm guessing it's an issue on my phone... I only have Android phones to test with, unfortunately.
Do you know of any other issues with thread+Android beyond the mdns one? When I go through the pairing process, it is very quick at jumping from the previous step to "can't connect to thread network", it doesn't feel like a timeout. I'm at a loss on how to debug this any further 🤔

patent trench
#

You don't happen to be using grapheneos, are you? That blocks a bunch of the required APIs and makes matter provisioning nonfunctional.

iron jolt
#

No, nothing like that. I've tried on stock Android on an Asus phone and a Google Pixel

patent trench
#

yeah, pretty much all the failure modes I know of for "can't connect to thread network" would end up waiting for a timeout, since the phone is using mdns to locate the thread border router's _meshcop service, then later trying to talk to the thread device via the thread border router.

#

incorrect network credentials… maybe? If you're willing to reset the google play services storage on one of your phones (will clear cards from google wallet and log you out of google) then re-add credentials, maybe that will work?

iron jolt
#

Hmm, alright, thanks for the explanation 🙂
I did have the wrong credentials initially (from my non-HAOS attempt) and had to clear play services data to get this far. Might try again though, maybe I messed something up... Thanks, I appreciate the input!

iron jolt
#

Tried again now after clearing out play services, then synced credentials through Home Assistant app (confirming it prompts "Home Assistant and this device use the same network"). Here's a recording in Danish (sorry). It takes a while to connect to the device. Then generating Matter credentials is fast enough. Then "the device is being connected to the Thread-network ha-thread-b64f" is shown extremely briefly before it fails with "Can't connect to Thread network".
It's a bit sus to me that it skips over connecting the device so quickly 🤔 what would I see if it was the device and not my phone that can't reach the Thread network?

#

It would be awesome if I could pull out some logs or some more technical info on what is actually going on, this feels like trying to debug some closed source blackbox that just prompts "something went wrong, contact your system administrator"

tardy spoke
#

I've got an identical journey as your's so will follow along for any assistance, as I believe I've done every possible permutation of uninstalling/clearing/recommisioning I could come up with.

iron jolt
#

Sorry you've had to endure this as well 🙃 it's quite the PITA...
Have you tried any of the vendor thread routers? Like those from IKEA, Google, .. ?