Only comcast gateway. And yes. Everything work in the house, but when you leave the WiFi (leave the house) there no connection since hubs are not connected.
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HomeKit issues
- Thread starter secDJ
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I can't tell you how sorry I am. I had major HomeKit issues last night, but it was caused by a single device, a plug. I just reassigned the plug from one node in my mesh network to another (I use Asus routers with mesh support). It brought everything offline. I was screaming in frustration for an hour, trying to get everything working again. It's so fragile.
So your thread network is fine - the devices are communicating over it to each other. But your thread border routers (the Apple hubs) are having a problem talking to your Comcast router. Your phone communicates to your thread network through the border routers using WiFi.
When you reset your router, make sure you had unplugged it and left it unplugged for a few minutes before plugging it back in.
Do any other devices have a problem with WiFi using the Comcast router? Do you live right near someone who has a strong WiFi signal that could be interfering? Comcast routers do saturate things a bit with their hotspot and hidden networks. I bought WiFi Explorer and it has been very illuminating regarding this. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wifi-explorer-scanner/id494803304?mt=12.
I know this might hurt, but you could do what I did. You could "bridge" your Comcast router and buy your own WiFi router to handle WiFi connections. The web interface to the Comcast router has a toggle that will do that. It was painless for me to do that. Comcast does support this as a valid approach. For me, the Comcast router retained the IP address I had set before bridging. So I am easily able to toggle it back to non-bridged.
You could also attach a new router to your Comcast router without bridging it. Make sure you turn off the Comcast router's WiFi if you do that. There are subtle consequences with router-to-router setups, but I lived with that situation for years before bridging the Comcast router and had no problems at all.
Thank you so much for taking the time to try to help me. I will update this post so if people are having the same issue, they know the solution.
I actually did in a way what you just told me. I turn on the bridge mode on the Comcast gateway. I founs a time capsule from Apple (remember those all devices???) that I had in a drawer and wasn’t using it. So my set up right now is the gateway as the modem and time capsule from Apple is the one provided the Wi-Fi signal.
Immediately after I did that everything came back online and it’s working fine right now. So it’s definitely the gateway from Comcast.
I also found an old, really old modem. I am going to wait to see if something happens and if it does, I’ll remove the gateway from Comcast and I’ll use my old modem.
I want to try all this venues so I can isolate the problem and I think it’s clear that the gateway is the issue.
I’ll update this post later to keep you updated. Thank you again.
I actually did in a way what you just told me. I turn on the bridge mode on the Comcast gateway. I founs a time capsule from Apple (remember those all devices???) that I had in a drawer and wasn’t using it. So my set up right now is the gateway as the modem and time capsule from Apple is the one provided the Wi-Fi signal.
Immediately after I did that everything came back online and it’s working fine right now. So it’s definitely the gateway from Comcast.
I also found an old, really old modem. I am going to wait to see if something happens and if it does, I’ll remove the gateway from Comcast and I’ll use my old modem.
I want to try all this venues so I can isolate the problem and I think it’s clear that the gateway is the issue.
I’ll update this post later to keep you updated. Thank you again.
There is something on your network that is screwing up the thread connectivity. It doesn't take much to mess everything up. Have you added any new devices or connected any new computer to your network recently? Are there any other changes coinciding with the start of the problems? For example, do you have a new neighbor with a very powerful WiFi router? We really have to figure out what changed to cause this. It seems it wasn't the Comcast outage after all.
Just to confirm... Your hubs were communicating with your phone for a while before the problems started?
Just to confirm... Your hubs were communicating with your phone for a while before the problems started?
Same here
For me, what I tend to do when this happens is restart my router
Not the most elegant solution, but it tends to work more often than not
I don’t recognize any new network in my home that’s stronger than mine.
I went to an Xfinity store and they change the gateway for the new Xb8. Got home install it, problem still happening.
My next step and I’ll do that tonight I’ll create a completely new wireless network with a completely new password. That will be a pain because I will have to reconnect maybe more than 80 different devices to my network but that’s the last step. If that still doesn’t work, then I’ll remove my home from the Home app, and will do everything from scratch, even more painful process 😂.
Something I have been noticing is that every time I do anything like a restore (in the previous router and on this one too) is that at the beginning everything connects but then little by little things starts disconnecting. This is just the status of the home hubs because in my house, everything works perfectly. WiFi and all.
Just a guess...
These devices talk IPv6. IPv6 devices advertise themselves as neighbors and sometimes routers. Some device is telling your hubs that it is the default route. It can take a bit till the advertisements happen. Once that advertisement goes out and the hubs get the message, they stop trying to reach the WiFi router. Some device on your network could be screwing with you.
I had this exact thing happen to me once. I accidentally connected a router to the network which advertised itself as an IPv6 router. Everything broke. I had to disconnect that device and restart all the hubs.
I don't mean to distract from the problems you're having. I just feel like giving an example to show just how bad HomeKit/Thread is. This happened to me last night when I once again lost connectivity and had to restart my hubs.
I was adding a 2.4 GHz device to HomeKit. So I switched to my router's 2.4 GHz SSID. Immediately one of my hubs (a HomePod Mini) complained that my phone was on a different network than it was. Pretty silly. I decided to stop the setup of the device. Immediately all my Nanoleaf bulbs and strips disconnected. The hubs were all connected, but even though I waited an hour, the lights never reconnected. So I just restarted my hubs to get things working again.
This was not a problem with my WiFi router. The Nonoleaf bulbs do not connect to it; they connect to the hubs. (They are thread routers, but not border routers like the hubs.) The thread network refused to fix itself up. My respect for thread is at an all-time low.
I ended up buying a device to sniff the thread network. It arrived today. I'm so curious what the heck is going on with this mess. It's a whole lotta crap.