Repairing Zigbee Mesh

The GE bulbs dropping out is likely a GE specific problem. They have a firmware issue where occasionally they lose touch with the network. It’s very annoying. And it’s the reason why the GE bulbs are not on the official “works with smartthings” list. When I started out I had eight of these bulbs and two or three of them would do this once or twice a month. Different bulbs each time. But my bulbs of other brands never had this issue. Eventually, I got a Hue bridge and replaced all of the GE links with the $15 Hue whites. No more problems.

There’s an FAQ just for the GE bulbs.

Now the good news. :sunglasses:

As far as healing the zigbee mesh, just do the power off method first. The whole reason that method was designed into the zigbee protocol was so that you wouldn’t have to fiddle with each individual device. Zigbee is a “self healing” topology: you supply the power, the network builds itself. If the problem is you’re seeing are being caused by An inefficient network, the simple power off method will fix that. It can take a while for each individual device on the network to complete rebuilding its own neighbor tables after the hub comes back on power, so you may not see results until the next day. But at least it’s easy to do!

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Thanks! I had read that about the bulbs as well and knew that was the risk. Having two go out (on different switches), plus the multi-sensor issue all in the same time-frame made me think it may have been the network. I also forgot to mention that I recently added multi-room audio so there is definitely more abuzz in the house.

I went with the GE bulbs even though I knew the problems just to test the waters. I think deep down I did it so I could get addicted then frustrated so I would then buy the more expensive ones.

I guess I’ll rebuild and see what happens!

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I should also mention that quite a few people are reporting zigbee device problems since the recent update:

So you might be affected by that as well. :disappointed_relieved:

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Thanks for the heads up! It might be that too!

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I was reading this thread trying to see how it can repair my Zigbee network. I tried all of the above without success.

I have seven devices both electric and battery powered everything has been working flawlessly for two years. After trying to pair a new door sensor the whole network went down (only Zigbee) all the rest works fine. I Identified the problem to be the new device flooding the network with non stop garbage messages. I obviously removed the battery from the new device, removed it from ST and deleted the device handler and tried every powerdown/reset of the hub (including batteries) and repairing every device individually in pairing mode. No success. Can 1 defective Device permanently lock up my Zigbee network??? I am completely out of options, any help is appreciated. Thank you!

When you shut down the hub, did you leave it powered off for 20 minutes? To successfully “repair” the zigbee network, the hub needs to be off for at least 20 minutes. This way all your devices go into “panic” mode and when the hub gets back online they start a network rebuild.

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Thanks stephack. I took your advise and tried 3 disconnect of 45 minutes and even disconnected all the electric Zigbee devices and unfortunately all my Zigbee devices are still “Offline”. Everthing else works fine. I am at a loss. I will take any ideas :slight_smile: