Hubitat C8 Pro Causing Reboot on WLED 14.4

gitter2741 · October 2, 2024, 7:12am

Pretty much the title. Have a Hubitat C8 Pro and running WLED on an ESP32 WROOM 32 D1 mini.

Through a long process I found if the Hubitat hub is running, the ESP reboots every few minutes. If I shut the hub down, the ESP is perfectly stable.

Is there some setting I should be looking at, either on the hub or the ESP32?

Many thanks!

Daro66 · October 2, 2024, 2:35pm

@gitter2741 : Welcome!

I too use a Hubitat C8 (non-pro) hub, but I never had a lot of luck getting them to work together, mainly due to the available drivers only being able to handle one segment at a time.

Anyway, you can troubleshoot by looking at the device logs. You may need to turn debug logging on the device page. If the reboots are in regular intervals, you may have a cron job running that reboots or crashes the ESP32.

gitter2741 · October 2, 2024, 4:37pm

Thanks for the input. I’ll definitely take a look at that when I get back home. I’m just getting started with both Hubitat and WLED.

Interestingly, I after looking through the Hubitat literature to insure comparability, I bought my first smart switch. But despite all my trying, I can’t get those two to recognize each other. Yet, the Hub/WLED - I’d be happy right now if they would just leave each other alone - but of course they seem to be trying to link up or something!

Daro66 · October 2, 2024, 8:05pm

Instead of the driver, I have a rotary scene switch and use it to send HTTP API commands. This way you don’t need the driver, but you can’t react to changes initiated elsewhere. This is some of what my rule machine looks like, so you cn get an idea:

gitter2741 · October 8, 2024, 4:32pm

Had some time to do some testing… just as a watched pot never boils, I guess a watched WLED never reboots! I let things go for an hour or so and I did get one reboot. (seemed like I was getting reboots 4-5x per hour initially, which led to this post)

Curiously, the reboot happened right at a 5-minute time interval… 1755, IIRC. It seems the hub is running a ‘periodicCleanupJob’ every 5 minutes, so possibly that had something to do with it. (I’ve barely started with the hub - so nothing custom running)

I tried updating the hub and WLED to latest versions and even latest beta for WLED. I ran until about 1840 with no additional reboots. Then it was time to turn the lights on for the night. Out of caution, I shut down the hub and everything ran through the night fine.

The next day, I wanted to work on some additional effects, so was clicking various controls in WLED and got another reboot… though I’d call this more of a ‘crash’ because the hub wasn’t even on at the time. After more testing, it seems like WLED does not like running the ‘Peek’ function while changing effects paletts, etc.

So overall, maybe I was getting 1-2 crashes from the hub and 4, 5 or 6 from WLED/Peek combo. Anyway, hub off for now and don’t do too much while WLED is actively running!

Thanks again for the input.

jack1999 · October 11, 2024, 8:42am

It sounds like there might be some interference or a power issue causing the ESP32 to reboot when the Hubitat is running. Here are a few things you can check:

Power Supply: Ensure that the ESP32 is getting adequate power. If the Hubitat and the ESP32 are sharing a power source, it might be worth trying a dedicated power supply for the ESP32.
Grounding: Make sure that the ground connections between the Hubitat and the ESP32 are solid and common. A poor ground can cause instability.
Wi-Fi Interference: Check for Wi-Fi interference. If both devices are on the same frequency channel, they could be causing issues. Try changing the Wi-Fi channel on your Hubitat.
Firmware Updates: Ensure both the Hubitat and the ESP32 are running the latest firmware. Sometimes, bugs are fixed in newer versions.
Network Configuration: Check your network settings, such as DHCP leases or static IPs, to ensure they aren’t conflicting.
Serial Monitor: Use the Arduino IDE or a similar tool to monitor the ESP32’s serial output. This might give you clues about why it’s rebooting when the Hubitat is running.
Library Conflicts: Ensure that any libraries you are using in your WLED setup are compatible and updated. Conflicts can sometimes cause instability.

If you try these steps and still face issues, please share any error messages or behaviors you observe, and we can troubleshoot further!

gitter2741 · October 15, 2024, 1:19am

Thanks for the info. I’ll put some additional info inline below.

Definitely no sharing of power source. The ESP is on a completely dedicated 5V power supply with large filtering caps on-board.

The ESP and Hub are 30 feet across a room to each other, so they don’t share power or ground. Though the ESP is grounded to the 12V/40A power supply for the LEDs. Actually everything on the LED side shares a common ground. …power supplies, ESP, SSRs, etc.

I’ll double check. Possibly they happen to default to the same channel.

Done! Still have the issue.

I set the Hub and the ESP to have their own unique static IP addresses from the beginning…though still have the issue.

OK, I’ll look into it.

This is basically the stock / OEM config for the Hub and stock / OEM config for the ESP.

Interestingly, yesterday I noticed the WLED lights were on during the day. Curious, I thought so I went into the web interface and shut them off. About 15 minutes later, I noticed they were on again and shut them off again. Within a few minutes they were on again. Then it hit me!

This is what happens when WLED runs a certain preset on boot. I started looking around and I guess we had a short grid power blip which rebooted the Hub and it was once again causing the ESP to reboot at 10-15 minute intervals.

Jinx · October 15, 2024, 2:20am

Jack is a spam bot. disregard their AI responses.

gitter2741 · October 18, 2024, 2:27pm

Thanks. I suspected as much, but it did provide space to supply a bit more info.

Gullwingdmc · October 19, 2024, 2:17am

Adding my experience here. I also have a Hubitat C8 Pro and it’s also causing my WLED light to reboot constantly. Also around the 5’s. For example it last restarted at 9:55.

gitter2741 · October 19, 2024, 3:38am

I’m thinking it has something to do with that ‘clean-up job’ running on the 5’s. Presume your Hub is defaulting to the same? I am wondering if the Hub is sending a command to the effect of “Hey, stop bothering me…why don’t you reboot and try from the beginning.” which causes the ESP to reboot and try again.

I almost wonder if it would be better to try and pair the Hub and the ESP.

Gullwingdmc · October 19, 2024, 11:39am

Ya maybe. Is there a WLED plugin for Hubitat?

gitter2741 · October 19, 2024, 8:32pm

Had a little more time today to goof around with this. Since I had the Hub turned off this past week, I had almost 7 days of up-time on the WLED ESP. So the WLED system on its own seems to be stable.

I started up the Hub today and grabbed what seems to be a workable WLED driver at

github.com

muxa/hubitat/blob/master/drivers/wled-light.groovy

/*
 * WLED MQTT Light 
 *  Device Driver for Hubitat Elevation hub
 *  Version 1.2.1
 *
 * Allows keeping device status in sync with WLED light (https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED) and controlling it via MQTT broker.
 *
 *
 *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except
 *  in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed
 *  on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
 *  for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
 * 
 */

metadata {

This file has been truncated. show original

Another possibility:

Some reference:

Anyway, I roughly followed this tutorial to install
https://docs2.hubitat.com/en/how-to/install-custom-drivers

Then I added the WLED ESP as a device in the Hub and provided the IP address of the ESP. This seems to have linked the two and the Hub reported some info from the WLED ESP. The Hub doesn’t really seem to control the ESP - at least not yet. I’m probably goofing something up with that… but I really don’t need the Hub to control anyway. I really just want it to leave the ESP alone!

Another thing to keep an eye on is that every time I make a new preset, the “Apply at boot” option is automatically checked. So you need to uncheck that… every…single…time. Or else you could write a preset which will pop on when WLED reboots - and suddenly you get the “Random turning on” behavior again.

Anyway, it’s been a bit over 6 hours now and have not had a reboot yet. So fingers crossed!

Gullwingdmc · October 20, 2024, 12:20am

@gitter2741
Ok, so my husband did some sleuthing on the Hubitat end. Apparently this issue started happening a few months ago as a result of an update that was meant to make the HomeKit connection more reliable. This created a mDNS “storm” that started interfering with other devices, particularly the ESP boards.

The good news is people have found a temporary workaround until the Hubitat fixes their software. It is basically to disable Bonjour on the Hubitat. We switched that off and see how it goes.

See this thread for more info.

gitter2741 · October 20, 2024, 11:46am

Thanks for the additional info. I’m giving that a shot now!

Sad to report, my solution above didn’t work… got a reboot overnight - after about 12 hours of Hub/ESP both being on together.

Bonjour is off now - will report back if that helps.

gitter2741 · October 21, 2024, 3:37am

16 hours of up time and counting… !!

gitter2741 · October 21, 2024, 11:03pm

35 hours up and counting. @Gullwingdmc - I’m going to mark your info as the solution as killing off ‘Bonjour’ seems to fix the issue!

So the short version is:

Settings > Network Setup > Bonjour options > and say au revoir! …turn Boujour restarts off.

Gullwingdmc · December 3, 2024, 2:21am

Nice! I’m glad it worked for you too!

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Hubitat C8 Pro Causing Reboot on WLED 14.4

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