OH3 HomeKit bug? fails after network down/up

11169 · October 2, 2021, 2:10pm

Greetings. I have an OH server connected to the UPS, but not a network switch (since there is not enough UPS power). I noticed that in the event of a power outage and restoration, the HomKit stops working (all devices are unavailable). All other OH services continue to operate normally. It seems that the loss of a network connection for a long period leads to such a situation.

nigel_magnay · December 5, 2021, 10:25am

Just had exactly this - network connection wire was pulled; replacing it restored connectivity, but Homekit devices all still absent.

SImilar machine with homebridge survived ok.

Update: I fixed it temporarily by using the console:

openhab> bundle:services |grep Homekit
openHAB Add-ons :: Bundles :: IO :: Homekit (273) provides:
[org.openhab.io.homekit.Homekit]
openhab> bundle:restart 273

I wonder if this is actually the root cause of a lot of the homekit add-on instability.

yfre · December 6, 2021, 3:07pm

@11169 @nigel_magnay thank you for the reporting and investigation.
the fix is submitted, so, with the next release homekit binding should survive network losses.

github.com/openhab/openhab-addons

[homekit] restart HomeKit bridge on network changes

openhab:main ← yfre:network_listener

opened 03:04PM - 06 Dec 21 UTC

yfre

+28 -11

this PR: - add listener to network changes and restart HomeKit bridge on change…s. This will recover HomeKit bridge after network connection losses and IP address changes. this will fix the issue reported here https://community.openhab.org/t/oh3-homekit-bug-fails-after-network-down-up/ - make logger messages consistent with small letter. Signed-off-by: Eugen Freiter <freiter@gmx.de>

lsafelix75 · December 6, 2021, 3:59pm

This doesn’t solve my issue.

yfre · December 6, 2021, 9:01pm

and what kind of issue you have?

lsafelix75 · December 7, 2021, 1:13pm

After running for 1-2 days HomeKit returns “No response” for each accessories. I’m on OH3.1 stable. No matter how many times I reboot OH server, HomeKit can’t connect to OH.

yfre · December 7, 2021, 1:27pm

if restarts does not help then it is either network issue or ios device has changed his ID/address

please make sure private wifi is disable for your home network on ios device Use private Wi-Fi addresses on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple Watch - Apple Support
please check with discovery app whether you can see openhab under _hap._tcp as described here HomeKit Add-on - System Integrations | openHAB

lsafelix75 · December 7, 2021, 2:05pm

Yes, i went through this. The following condition met. FYI. I have done this for 3 times already until i fed up to do as i always need to reconfigure all the rooms for accessories. Yes, Use private WiFi is always OFF

`

if you see openHAB bridge and sf is equal 1 but you dont see openHAB in home app, probably you home app still think it is already paired with openHAB. remove your home from home app and restart iOS device.

`

Also, this is a case where HomeKit and Openhab has already completed pairing and working for 1-2 days. My previous message refered to this didnt work:

openhab> bundle:services |grep Homekit
openHAB Add-ons :: Bundles :: IO :: Homekit (273) provides:
[org.openhab.io.homekit.Homekit]
openhab> bundle:restart 273

yfre · December 7, 2021, 2:16pm

sorry, still no sure i got it correctly.
just to confirm my understanding.
you have 2 issues:

you lose homekit accessories after 2-3 days and openHAB restart does not help.
this is strange. openhab restart should fix it. only if the pairing got lost, e.g. for some reasons ios device got different id or homekit.json file lost “user” entry
the commands to restart bundle does not work for you.
which of two commands is not working?
bundle:services |grep Homekit
or
bundle:restart <id_your_got_from_first_command>

lsafelix75 · December 7, 2021, 2:19pm

you lose homekit accessories after 2-3 days and openHAB restart does not help.
this is strange. openhab restart should fix it. only if the pairing got lost, e.g. for some reasons ios device got different id or homekit.json file lost “user” entry

Apparently this is the case

the commands to restart bundle does not work for you.
which of two commands is not working?
3.bundle:services |grep Homekit*
or
4.bundle:restart <id_your_got_from_first_command>*

is working, 4 is working but it doesnt resolve the issue. I am still getting “No Response”

yfre · December 7, 2021, 2:35pm

ok. got you. yes, if restart of openHAB does not solve it, then restart of the bundle or my latest fix for network disruption will not fix it.

if private address is disable, then the homekit.json file got broken. find on openHAB server the file homekit.json and check whether it has “user” entry in it.
alternative, check the openhab log file - it should have record with “Unknown user” or so.

there were several report about broken homekit.json file. but we could not reproduce it or fix it. it happens randomly.
the only workaround

pair ios device
ensure you have “user” entry in homekit.json
make a copy of/backup homekit.json
next time you get “no response” restore the homekit.json file and restart OH (or only the bundle)

lsafelix75 · December 7, 2021, 2:42pm

Alright. I reconfigure everything and see whether the issue happens again. Will try your fix and see whether the problem will reoccur. Cheers

crnjan · December 7, 2021, 7:15pm

Had exactly the same behaviour and found this. So backed-up homekit.json and when it happened again, the user part was missing. Stopped OH, re-added just the user part

"user_32:some more numbers and :": {
      "class": "java.lang.String",
      "value": "some value"
    }

into homekit.json - started OH - and everything was online again. I setup logging at that point but hadn’t had any issues from that point on … happily online for 4 or 5 weeks now …

I’m using homepod mini if that makes any difference …

yfre · December 7, 2021, 10:00pm

@lsafelix75 @crnjan
this PR

will add homekit binding setting to disable deletion of the user information by binding. this will also blocks unpairing, but if setup is done then usually you dont unpair/re-pair

it is still not 100% clear whether the user information gets deleted from homekit.json by binding or by something else. but with this setting we could at least exclude binding from potential root causes.

lsafelix75 · December 8, 2021, 12:24am

After re-paired last night and this morning wokeup with “no response” error. and @crnjan is right, the following field and value is missing:

"user_32:some more numbers and :": {
      "class": "java.lang.String",
      "value": "some value"
    }

yfre · December 8, 2021, 9:01am

i know it is painful to re-pair. but could you please check following

if homekit accessories are working now, check homekit.json for user entry. you can make a copy of the entry/file if you like
if the user entry is there, try to find our what could have deleted it… e.g. try to restart openHAB, repeat step from last night or just wait until next morning. any hints what could be root cause would help to fix this issue.

wzbfyb · December 8, 2021, 9:35am

Would it help to lock the file on filesystem level? Ie chown to root and set to read only?

yfre · December 8, 2021, 9:57am

maybe, but only if you complete done with the setup. homekit binding stores there not only the user but also the count of accessories and configuration version. every time you add new homekit accessories it would update the count and increase the configuration version.

abbe79 · December 17, 2021, 11:38pm

Thanks @yfre for implementing this change, that’s exactly the error pattern I observed: After every restart of my Unifi switch (and therefor loss of network connection) openHAB HomeKit was down.