I cannot get into the smartthings app on my Samsung S21 Ultra. I just get a “there was a problem connecting…” message. I uninstalled then reinstalled the smartthings app. Then I went into the app settings and enabled all the permissions (that had been turned off from lack of use, presumably).
I’ve tried it both with the hub connected via ethernet and not. I’ve tried it with my phone connected to the 5GHz network and also with it connected to the 2.4GHz network. When I connected via ethernet the hub was given an ip address by the router and I saw it as a separate network (for a while) and it asked for a password. The network indicates it’s a v3 hub. Not sure whether to put the full name here or not. I used my samsung password to try to log in. It didn’t reject it but it didn’t accept it either. Now it’s disappeared from the list of available networks on my phone.
I bought the hub new from a retail shop some years back. Maybe it needs a firmware update but there doesn’t seem to be a way to do that since I can’t get into the app.
Would be glad of advice on where to from here to set up the smartthings hub.
Let’s start with more details please. Are you able to login to the app? At what point do you get that error message… when trying to login or other? Was the app working previously?
When I click on the smartthings app I get the blue and green wheel and the message “There was a problem connecting. Try again. If this problem continues, contact us.” I try the “contact us” and get another rotating blue and green wheel that seems to whirl without end. No contact us page appears.
I’ve only just opened the hub box and tried to set it up using smartthings, so this is the first time I’ve tried to open the app AFAIK.
When I try to log into https://my.smartthings.com using Chrome on the desktop, it doesn’t connect. There’s a message: This site can’t be reached account dot smartthings dot com took too long to respond. (I’ve replaced . with dot because I can only post two links in this message.)
When I try it on my phone using the Samsung browser it redirects to account dot smartthings dot com but nothing shows up on the page. When I type my dot smartthings dot com into the chrome browser on my phone nothing happens for a long time, then I get the “This site can’t be reached …” message.
Some more info if it helps. I saw there was a reset on the hub, so I disconnected it from the ethernet connection to the router and plugged it into a power source, and pressed and went through the reset process as seen on the internet. Now the light at the front of the hub is flashing green and red. I still can’t get into the smartthings app. However the hub has reappeared in “available networks”. I tried to connect to the hub directly (by linking to its network) but it’s asking for a password and won’t accept my samsung password. Is there another password I should try? (I suspect I’m not meant to connect to the hub directly in any case, but I thought it was worth a shot since it appeared in the “available networks”.)
at this point, forget about the hub until you are able to login to the app. the alternating red/green indicates it is ready to be connected to your account.
something is blocking access to smartthings.com which needs to be addressed before you can proceed. It can be either a dns issue or your router such as firewall.
first thing to test. disable wifi on your mobile device and use cellular only and see if you are able to login to the app. You already mentioned trying to access the site on your PC so I want to see if works on your phone when you disable wifi.
at this point, you need to look at your Router on your home network. You need to figure out what is blocking smartthings.com. If your Router has any type of whitelist, you can try adding that domain and see if that resolves the issue. you can test that web page on your chrome browser again. once that works, you should be good to go.
Thank you so much for all your help. I feel like I’m getting somewhere. I haven’t yet found a way to get through the router, but when I connect my desktop pc to the internet via the mobile hotspot, it connects to smartthings.com without a hitch.
I’ll report back when I’ve found a solution to the router blocking access. It might take a while. I haven’t found a way just yet.
I may end up having to contact the router manufacturer if I can’t figure this out. (I tried turning off all the router’s security features but that didn’t seem to make a difference and I didn’t want to leave them off for long. I think there’s probably a simple setting that I’ve yet to locate.)
I’ve found a solution for now. I turned off the “malicious content filter” on the router, which uses Trend Micro database. I didn’t like doing that but I couldn’t find a way to allow access to a specific website so I’ll live with it for the time being. I’ll try to find a better way later on. (I already have strong protection on my computers but of course that doesn’t extend to iot devices.)
The smartthings app has begun it’s set up routine, but it seems to be stuck at “searching for devices”. It hasn’t found any yet. I haven’t got to the bit where I can link the hub. Should I skip the current “searching for devices” step and move onto “next”?
Thanks so much for your help. I’ve also gone about as far as I’m able.
Samsung phone told me it found a new device and asked if I wanted to connect it. I said yes. It might have been the hub or something else. I don’t know. I did get the hub to flash alternating red and green, so it’s likely that was it. Anyway, the phone then said there was a problem connecting and that’s as far as I’ve been able to get.
Before that happened, the app connected a heap of personal devices, some of which I haven’t used in ages. Unfortunately I’m not having any luck connecting to the things I was hoping for - like the hub or any of my lights and devices.
I’m going to give it a rest. I’m thinking home automation is no longer worth the effort. I could have flicked every light in the house on and off a zillion times in the hours you and I have spent on this - ha ha. (You never know, Google Home might decide to fix everything it broke last week and I won’t need another solution.)
Thank you a million times again. I wish I’d been able to report it’s all working. You got me part way there and for that I’m endlessly grateful.
Update: I managed to get the app to start connecting the hub. Unfortunately that created a vicious circle. While I could get it to work by connecting the phone to the app over the moble network instead of wifi, as part of the connection process Samsung reconnected my phone to my wifi. Since my router is still blocking access to Samsung (despite my earlier efforts to fix this), the connection cannot proceed and I get an error message.
I tried to log onto the tplink forum (my router is tplink) to see if I can get any help there, but I can’t do that either. I got as far as trying to get a new password, then to create a new login, but the links they sent me timed out and I couldn’t connect to that either.
I’d best regard today as a wipeout and start a new day tomorrow, freeing myself of technical hassles. I expect I’ll learn how to turn the lights on and off the old-fashioned way before too long.
Update2: I’m able to see the hub listed on the desktop my.smartthings.com web page, but pinging it fails. I guess that means it somehow got partway there.
Final update: Turns out the problem was my internet service provider. I bought a new router and still had problems connecting and setting up everything. Then I added a different ISP and everything now works as it should. (My other ISP said they’re looking into it. If they can’t find what’s causing the problem I’ll have to churn away.)