I’ve been having a problem in recent weeks where the Smartthings app on iOS devices can’t see the devices I have connected to Smartthings.
The problem started with the iOS update 1.7.19 and continues in 1.7.21. On my iPhone I can’t see any devices, I could on my iPad for several weeks and also on an Android tablet and on my wife’s Android phone. This issue has persisted through iOS 17.6 through to 18.1. It seems the app cannot see devices on the network or perhaps from the Smartthings servers but obviously they are there as the other devices I’ve listed can. I’ve also recently upgraded my iPhone from an XR to a 16 Pro Max and the problem persists. I’ve tried logging out and back into the app multiple times and deinstalled and reinstalled the app multiple times to no effect. I can also see all devices on http://my.smartthings.com/. This is very frustrating as my iPhone was my main control device.
As of the other evening (5/11/24) the same issue is now happening with my iPad, my Android tablet and my wife’s Android phone are still OK and I can still see all my devices in http://my.smartthings.com/. I’ve tried reporting the issue twice via the app but both times I’ve received answers that talk about Android phones and one suggesting Smartthings only works on Galaxy devices. I’m at a complete loss now and wondering whether I’ve no choice but to give up and start looking for an alternate platform .
so what is different about your iPhone and iPad to make the devices disappear… that is the question. I don’t believe it is related to iOS or to the ST app. Look at other possibilities for the cause… do you use a VPN or have some type of ad/malware blocking, etc on those devices that may not be on the Android devices? no VLANs or firewall in place that could be blocking? also, is there a possibility you created a different location and somehow your account has switched over to it? in the app, tap on the pull down in the upper left and slect manage locations. is there only one location listed or multiple?
if you have a hub… does the hub tile appear in the app?
I’ve been trying to determine the same thing and yes I have VPN software on the iOS devices but it’s been there for years and SM worked for a very long time with it there. Just to test it when I moved iPhones I rebuilt the old one to factory default without the VPN and installed the current SM app but the problem still exists on this iPhone as well. I’ve also deleted the VPN software from my iPad to see if that made a difference, it didn’t. I’m not using any firewalls (also just for info. I work in IT and have been through a whole round of the usual diagnostics removing elements from my set up to see if they make a difference, all to no effect). I only have one location.
I tried adding a new device (a zigbee smart plug) and it appeared for a few hours on the iPhone and could been seen along with all my others devices on my.smartthings.com and the Android devices as well, the device then disappeared from the iPhone after a few hours but was still there and remains there on the web site and Android. It was also really strange that when the iPhone stopped working the iPad was fine, for nearly two months and then suddenly the iPad stopped working with identical symptoms.
The hub tile doesn’t appear, in essence nothing does in terms of devices, the location is there as are the rooms I’ve set up, I can also see device statuses such as temperature and number of lights on but if I select these I again can’t see the devices that are providing this information. It’s as if the app can see some things and I’m not sure if the things it can see are from SM’s servers in AWS and the things it can’t directly on the local network or the other way around. And of course all the time I’m doing this testing my Android devices on exactly the same network can see everything just fine. I’ve tried coming off WiFi and using mobile data and I’ve also gone onto other WiFi networks when I’m out and about and again Android works, iOS doesn’t on the same networks at the same time.
I’ve been at this for several weeks and I’ve never been in a situation where a structured diagnostic hasn’t eventually shown where the problem is but on this occasion I’m genuinely baffled.
There are a couple of things that could be in play, though neither seem particularly likely.
Are you the Location owner and/or do you have ‘Full Access’ to the Location? Clicking on the icon top left should indicate more about your status. It’s not the sort of thing that should change without someone deliberately doing it.
On the Devices page, does Select devices to use in the menu show all your devices as available in the app? This is again something you would need to deliberately change.
Yes I am the location owner and do have full access.
There isn’t a Select devices to use option on the menu on the Devices page, probably because no devices are listed, only the option to add a device or manage rooms. Oddly under manage rooms all the rooms are listed.
For completeness the Routines tab shows all my routines but they all have a red exclamation mark on the tile, I assume because the routines can’t show the devices they are using. If I select the routine for editing under Then it says Device has been removed (red exclamation mark).
I continue to gnaw away at this issue when I’ve time, the Smartthings app on iOS continue not to work for me whilst on Android it does.
I’ve recently tried a soft reboot/reset on the hub both on the device and via my.smarttings.com to no effect.
I’m also curious to know if the iOS app and Android app discover and access the hub in different ways. I can see the app advertises a Bonjour service, _smartthings-hedge._tcp. and I wonder if the iOS app uses this to discover the hub. I can also see ports 8766/tcp and 9495/tcp open and wondered what uses these?
If I get time I might monitor traffic using WireShark to see if I can see differences between the iOS and Android apps communicate with the hub, has anyone else done this? Are there any devs here that understand how the apps communicate with the hubs that can give me a clue where to look for issues?
The apps do most of their communication with the SmartThings cloud services. They make a lot of use of the ‘Client API’. That provides bespoke variations on some of the public API endpoints and a number of endpoints that are not available on the public API. It is also where many of the app settings are kept, in particular the account level ones.
This is why one of the first diagnostic tests is to turn off the Wi-Fi on your phone to eliminate your home network as a cause of issues.
When you say you have tried Android phones, is that with the same Samsung/SmartThings account or with other accounts? What if you use a different Samsung/SmartThings account on your iPhone?
To confirm as I mentioned earlier I have tried the iOS app via mobile data and public WiFi to rule out my local WiFi. The symptoms are the same irrespective of the network I am connected to. I used the Android version of the app on the same networks and it works as expected.
I am using the same account, my primary account, for all these tests.
I think I’ve run out of thoughts. Even the unlikely thoughts I did have result in hidden Routines these days, and the settings should apply to all devices using your account, so the symptoms don’t fit.
@orangebucket and @jkp, in a final act of desperation I dug out an old iPad Air running iOS 12.5.7 and installed the Smartthings app on it, it wouldn’t install the latest version but did install version 1.6.70-549 and guess what, this version works perfectly! It would seem there’s an issue either with iOS 17.6 through to 18.1 or the Smartthings app versions 1.7.19 and 1.7.21 or most likely a combination of iOS and the app causing my issue.
Is there any way to communicate this to the Smartthings developers? I’ve tried twice to contact support via the app but keep getting back non-sensical responses that show they’ve not read or understood anything I’ve been reporting.
if that was the case… there would be a lot more reports from users and I have not seen any reports of that. I have an iPhone and iPad with the latest versions of iOS and the ST app with no issues.
But to reach Support to report any issues, tap on Menu in the app and select Contact us to see all contact methods available to you. I would recommend sending the app logs when reporting so they can investigate.
it is definitely a strange case… do post if you find what is causing the issue.
you did check permissions of the app in iOS Settings?
@jkp thanks, I’m glad it’s working for you at least.
I’ve tried contacting Support via the app twice now and as I mentioned at the start of this conversation. Both times I’ve received answers in very broken english that talk about Android phones and one suggesting Smartthings only works on Galaxy devices. I seem to be stuck at this first hurdle in terms of reporting the issue and don’t seem to be able to get past that to talk to someone about the detail. I’ll have another go but I don’t hold out much hope.
Re. the iOS permissions, I’ve checked several times and I’ve allowed everything asked for, I can’t find anything else to enable .
I have a theory about that, whilst the iPad app was working and the iPhone wasn’t I kept checking the information on the hub to see if it had updated to the new 54.13 (now 54.14) software yet and it kept showing the old version number even though the Android app and my.smartthings.com showed that the update on the hub had happened. That makes me suspect that the app caches device config data for a period of time and only once this time passed and the app attempted to refresh the data did the devices disappear on the iPad as well.
Just for info I’ve just installed the new iOS app 1.7.22.22 and sadly it’s just as broken as the previous two versions. I’ve tried reporting the issue to Smartthings three times now but sadly the first two responses via the app were rather garbled and kept talking about the Android app and the third time I used the support email address that redirected me to an online form. I filled in all the info I posted here on the 16th of November but haven’t yet had a response.
For now I’m using Homebridge and controlling all my Smartthings devices via the Home app, it works well but a bit daft I have to do this rather than use the native app.
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