New app cannot see my active location and HUB!

[alexhp (Alex)]

im having problems with the migration from classic app to new app … when i login with the new app it cant see my hub. if i make a new location both apps can see it but the new app cannot see the active location with my 230 or so devices!! …

Samsung support basically told me to delete it all and start again ? after 4 years of customization , tweaking and hard work im expected to just start over?

they gave me some lame excuse about my Samsung account being from the wrong location, but they are the ones who forced me to move from my smartthings account which worked fine, and never gave any warning about making sure your new Samsung account is in the same country as your hub??

whats the solution ? i dont have the energy or patience to start over with smartthings as there have been so many issues over the last two years that the thought of having to start from scratch is too much!!

im thinking of going to hubitat or home assistant but man its going to be a lot of work.

maybe just go back to light switches and mechanical timers!!!

[Inge_Jones]

You have my sympathies

[johnconstantelo]

@alexhp

Samsung support basically told me to delete it all and start again ? after 4 years of customization , tweaking and hard work im expected to just start over?

Don’t! I was in the same situation too. They CAN fix this but it will take time and some effort on your part. It does relate to region issues with your account, and it seems like those of us that have been around a while have this problem often. Give me a sec and I’ll update this reply with my ticket number and another post you can refer to.

[johnconstantelo]

@alexhp

Samsung support basically told me to delete it all and start again ? after 4 years of customization , tweaking and hard work im expected to just start over?

Hi @alexhp,

I searched the best I could through emails and previous posts, but all I could find what the start of my problem like you’re experiencing:

"SmartThings Classic" vs "SmartThings (Samsung Connect)"

So @vlad (and anyone else in ST who would think the following suggestion from ST support is outrageous and unacceptable), do you think I would actually delete everything and start over (almost 300 devices) just so I can have a worse experience with the new app? This can’t be a serious suggestion from support! [image] My favorite part of that reply is the last line about “if this still doesn’t work…” . Seriously? I’m expected to nuke years of setup that’s working just fine in the Classic app, and all I get from support is “seems like” this may work? BTW, I just asked for escalation, and was just told “sorry, but you’re screwed” by your “higher team”. Are you guys trying to tell me that when the day comes that Classic will be dead that I must delete everything and start over? Count m…

I can’t find my specific support ticket number because it was over a year ago and it’s intermingled with another ticket if I remember right, and for me it was because I couldn’t install STHM because my hub was in the US and my account was somehow created in the EU. I could still see my location though.

Are you in the US? If so, when you log on to account.samsung.com and look at your profile, does your region look like this:

If you’re not in the US, does your region at least look right for your account?

[johnconstantelo]

Here are a couple other another posts:

Cant find the hub 2018 in the app

Problem: want to add the Smartthings Hub 2018, but cant add it in the app and not all the categories are showing. Extra Information: I live in The Netherlands, but set an router VPN up that is connected to New York. And also using location spooving on my phone and the VPN ofc. (new smartthings/samsung account created while in “New York VPN”) Thank you from Mika Leinders

New Smartthings app not showing any smart apps

I had exactly the same problem. Check your account’s region at account.samsung.com Look under your profile, and you’ll see region. If it doesn’t look like this (see below), you’ll need to CALL Samsung’s customer support number. ST support can’t help, and they’ll refer you there too. [image] When you call they’ll validate your address, and then create another ticket for another group that will send you an email for verification. Once you do that, you’ll get another email and then within 24 hours your region will be updated by them. Been there, done that…

[Bry (Bryan)]

@blake.arnold
And you (Samsung) think the new app is ready for migration?

The worse part of the OP’s dilemma is that support told him he has to just start over! There have been way too many occurrences of people seeking help in varying threads here that have been told the same thing from support (not necessarily related to this issue). To tell someone they they have to start over because the migration ultimately being forced by Samsung is not working correctly for them is inexcusable!

If a support rep can’t resolve an issue then they better get the requestor to someone who can!

@Brad_ST @jody.albritton

[alexhp (Alex)]

Hi all, thanks for the replies. i see that similar things have occurred to other users.

Some background to why i am in this situation.

I am an American living overseas for a work contract i bought all my ST devices etc at home in the US and brought them with me long before they ever talked about Samsung accounts.

when they started pushing to change to a Samsung account i did this from a phone i bought in the country i am in now ( Thailand) and it made a Thai Samsung account, i didn’t choose this it just did it automatically.

i have a family with some severe handicaps and they require a lot of assistance for day to day living and i have managed to get ST do a pretty good job of making their lives easier, we will move back to the US sooner or later and i intend to take all my smart home devices with me.

i am not asking for a roaming hub that allows me to connect to whatever country i like, i just want it to be set to USA and linked to a US Samsung account is fine with me ( i never use the Samsung account for anything else but ST anyway)
im more than happy to change the email address or account associated with ST to fix this.

I do have another Samsung account that has the region as USA so why cant support just point me in the right direction to get this fixed.

my main concern is if the classic app is depreciated then I suddenly wont have access to control devices. With my family’s handicaps and special needs i cant afford to wait for this to happen i have to take action now.

[johnconstantelo]

@alexhp

my main concern is if the classic app is depreciated then I suddenly wont have access to control devices.

While that’s a concern for sure, I believe ST is addressing this move in stages with certain categories of users. @blake.arnold, or maybe @Brad_ST can shed some insight for you and if the Classic app will truly just stop working.

@alexhp

i bought all my ST devices etc at home in the US and brought them with me long before they ever talked about Samsung accounts.

when they started pushing to change to a Samsung account i did this from a phone i bought in the country i am in now ( Thailand) and it made a Thai Samsung account, i didn’t choose this it just did it automatically.

i have a family with some severe handicaps and they require a lot of assistance for day to day living and i have managed to get ST do a pretty good job of making their lives easier, we will move back to the US sooner or later and i intend to take all my smart home devices with me.

Your use case is definitely way different than mine, or the others that have been in a similar situation. I believe there was always inherit risk in using a hub in a country it wasn’t intended for, even if you disregard country frequency regulations for zwave devices and stuck with zigbee to ensure you could still use devices from that country.

I’m sure as ST’s growth targeted more countries, so did their requirement for compliance of their devices and accounts (especially as data privacy laws are very different) and how they were required to work (or not) in those countries. ST can/could also be bound by larger Samsung corporate regulations and compliance requirements.

Now your situation puts both you and ST in an interesting situation. Either you start over, or ST puts themselves at risk for non compliance, or providing one off support for a unique situation they may not be staffed to do because of the time involved. That will be up to ST to determine, and I’m afraid you may be at the mercy of corporate policy.

What you could do is PM @smartThings, or other frequent ST staffers in the community, to see if your situation can be escalated. Potentially even request escalation in your original support ticket as well. I’d like to think you’ll get a more detailed reason for ST not being able to help (maybe), or potentially a mutually beneficial resolution to the situation you’re in.

[Brad_ST (Brad)]

There are likely multiple variables involved.

@alexhp do you have shared users on your location? If so, can any of them see the location and hub in question?

[johnconstantelo]

@Brad_ST

There are likely multiple variables involved.

I’m sure there are since we don’t have that kind of visibility, hence me pinging you. Thanks for chiming in and helping where you can!

[alexhp (Alex)]

Hi, thanks for looking into this. yes i have shared users on the active location and no none of those users can see the active location when logging into the new app.

i also noticed the original users email addresses are showing double on the classic app ( i assume one is the original ST login and the new one is the Samsung account ( both with same email address)

[Brad_ST (Brad)]

You are correct, the doubles indicate the accounts were updated from a SmartThings account to a Samsung account.

I took a look and this is very tricky and I’m not sure of a clear resolution. Your location is on one of our North American servers and your Samsung account region is Thailand. So when you sign into the new app, the app recognizes your account as Thai and looks for your things on one of our Asia Pacific servers and is unable to find it.

I don’t think changing your account’s region from Thailand to the US will address the issue and there isn’t a way I can force discovery of your things.

[alexhp (Alex)]

would it not be possible to re-migrate from the original smartthings account to a new Samsung account that is USA based ( i have one of those. ) we are not using the Samsung accounts for anything except ST …

Also about a dozen of my devices do show in the new app (even though it cant see the location and hub it shows a bunch of plugs and motion sensors)

[Brad_ST (Brad)]

That location is located on an AP server so I would expect you to be able to see it.

[alexhp (Alex)]

update …
firstly thanks to @Brad_ST who spent some time to reply to some of my questions.

so i logged into the new app with one of the other house member Samsung accounts just now, this account is also in a different country from the Hub location , but this account can see the active location and all of the devices ( well almost all the devices) the devices i could see in the new app from my original Samsung account are missing from the member account…

but now that i logged the member account into the new ST app , now my original account can see the active location from the new app!!

in the new ST app the second member of the location has now become the owner…

The hub shows as offline shortly after opening the new app , but it can still monitor and control all the devices ( except the orphan ones which are now in that other inactive location)

i don’t know if this is better or worse than it was before i started today but at least the new app can now see my active location!

[Inge_Jones]

I thought one of the main points of a smart home is that you can monitor it when you are away? Having separate servers for different countries and not letting them interact, or at least share account data, doesn’t it just ask for trouble when people travel?