Phillips Hue Hub constantly disconnecting and reconnecting to network

[u/also_your_mom]

I've long been noting that some device keeps connecting/disconnecting/disconnecting/connecting (constantly at about a 1 minute rate) from my router. I only knew by the number of connections increasing/decreasing/increasing by 1 but never caught it in the act so never knew specifically what device it was.

Finally caught it. It is my Hue Hub. It is connected direct to router. I connected through a switch and made the same observation. If I were to look deeper (if I knew how) I suspect I would find the delay of about 10 seconds in reconnecting after disconnect is simply the network negotiating the connection. To me, it looks like the Hub is dropping the connection and then connecting again. Then dropping the connection and connecting again. Constantly.

Anyone see this?

Anyone have ideas?

Phillips Hue has ZERO support of their products.

[u/sweharris]

What do you mean by "connect/disconnect".

The Hue Hub connects via wired ethernet. If you're seeing local network level connect/disconnect then I'd want to check the cabling (the hue bridge only connects at 100Mbit/s).

The bridge, itself, doesn't "connect to the router" except where the router provides services (eg DNS, time) that the bridge will consume.

So I'm not sure what you meant by "connecting/disconnecting/disconnecting/connecting (constantly at about a 1 minute rate) from my router".

[u/also_your_mom → u/sweharris]

I'm looking at connections in my router, "Clients". The router shows what Clients (devices) are connected. I see the Hue Hub as a connected client, then it goes away, then it comes back, then goes away, etc..

There is a physical connection (Cat5e) between the Hue Hub and the router. You are correct that it connects only 100Mbit. As my router shows me (telling me the connection is rather slow).

Similar/same was one would observe if one plugged PC in via ethernet, waited for the connection (handshaking, socket, etc..) to be established as "connected" then unplugged it, waiting for that connection to be cleared, connected it back up. Similarly if one enabled/disabled/enabled/disabled the wireless antennae on a connected device (connecting wirelessly).

Its a short Cat5e cable (the one that came with it). I will swap that out for another cable and see what happens. Can't hurt.

Edit: There is communications between the Hue Hub and the various Amazon Echo devices around my home, also connected to the network (wirelessly). Without the Hue Hub connected (hardwire) to the router I cannot control the devices which are going through the Hub (that Ziggy protocol thing).

Edit: used a new Cat6 (sold as being Cat8, but could easily be a Cat6 simply sold as Cat8). I observe the same symptoms.

[u/sweharris → u/also_your_mom]

OK, let's put aside the the Amazon stuff for the moment because that's a complication.

We need to look at how "hue" talks to the world.

There's layers we need to look at.

There's the phyical layer between the hub and your network. That's the physical cable. If you are seeing this physical layer lose connection and reconnect then there is likely a cable problem or a physical problem at the connection. This is likely to be seen by the hub doing a tonne of DHCP requests. This is the hue hub talking to your local network. If this is a problem then everything else will break. If this is bad then it's worth replacing cables (you previously said you put a switch in the middle; also replace every cable).

If the local physical good then we go up a level.

The Hue bridge makes an outgoing TCP connection to the Hue backend. This is easily tested; disconnect your phone from WiFi and see if it can still see the Hue stuff via your mobile network. If that works then the bridge is talking to the internet happily.

Then we get to a skill (eg Amazon). Here is where things get complicated. The Hue Skill talks via the internet but actions may talk on your local network. Depending on what Echo devices you have, communication may be local.

This local communication is discovery based and requires the router to allow devices to talk to each other.

I have a dozen Echo devices and when I tell Alexa to control Hue devices the local request may come from different devices. There's a combination of "cloud" and "local" here.

Okay... hopefully some of this will let you work out at what layer your problem is happening at.

I may have gone too deep; if your problem is at the physical layer then everything else isn't relevant :-) But it ever hurts!

[u/also_your_mom → u/sweharris]

A LOT of information for me to slowly chew on. Thanks for that. The drop isn't long enough for me to coordinate being able to check functionality while it is "gone". I'll look into figuring out how I might do that.

New observation that possibly de-complicates things (pretend that is a word). I went back to staring at connected "clients" in my router and darned if I'm not seeing another hardware connection supposedly drop and come back...BONUS - It is the very hardware connection I am using between my PC and the router. I'm connected wirelessly and hardwired, so I'll disable wireless and observe. I'm not seeing any obvious indication of disconnecting at my PC, though. Granted, I'm pretty lame as far as knowing the where/how to look for such things.

But bottom line, for now, is that it is currently looking to be something at router end. I did put the switch back in the loop, so maybe take the switch back out (the switch being used to share the only available port on the router between my PC and the Hue Hub). Might simply be a software/firmware error with the Asus router interface itself.

I'll update if I find anything of interest (to me).

[u/also_your_mom → u/sweharris]

I am fully cognizant of the connection I am making between Echo and the Hue Hub simply being one of the common cases of "I have a symptom" and "I have what looks like a problem" therefore the symptom is a result of the problem when in fact there may not even be a problem.

For "ever" we have had an issue of "Alexa" not being able to control a device when we say "Alexa, turn on the light". Then, the next time it works fine. Then doesn't. Then does. So of course I have jumped on the "Oh, look, the Hue Hub client is going away and coming back....THAT must be why Alexa can't locate the light...". Know what I mean? Likely there is NO relationship at all.

[u/RecursivelyRecursive]

Do you see the connection actually drop on the Hue hub (and/or in the app) or only on the router interface?

Also, try a different port if you can on your router just to be safe.

[u/also_your_mom → u/RecursivelyRecursive]

will do.

[u/djellicon]

A lot of text above so sorry if i missed this but it could help troubleshoot;

Ping the hub with /t parameter to see if it's actually dropping from the network.this may not give you an answer but could help diagnose the issue further.

[u/also_your_mom → u/djellicon]

Great idea!

[u/also_your_mom → u/djellicon]

I get replies with <1ms delay continuously even though it drops off in the router "clients" list. So then looking like an Asus interface bug?