[XTension] Homekit no response

Mon Apr 10 17:22:32 EDT 2023

Update Update:  Homebridge now reinstalled and working.  Home app seems stable.  Now able to use Siri reliably.  Well, as reliable as Siri can be…

Rich

> On Apr 9, 2023, at 1:57 PM, Richard Leonard <rnaleonard at icloud.com> wrote:
> 
> Update: All seems OK now.  I started working through the troubleshooting suggestions from James. XTension Support folder was OK and the persist document modification date was updating with interface updates.  I already changed the port number to rule out that interference.  I didn’t see XTension in the Files and Folders list, nor a way to add it. But before pursuing that I tried some other stuff.  
> 
> With debugging on, I did see the XTension reloaded all the HomeKit list units which further led me to look at issues not with XTension. That fact that no one else was having this problem also indicated this was happing somewhere else.  I double checked network settings, deleted and added iCloud storage for Home and Keychain, burned sage sticks, and a bunch of other things with no result (I think).  Finally gathered all the iOS devices that might have this home in the Home app and deleted all of them.  I thought I did this before but maybe I didn’t get them all.  After doing so, I opened a new, blank home app and really started over.  That seemed to fix it.
> 
> I re-added the XTension Bridge and toggled the HomeKit interface multiple times with no issues.  I did have to re-add the HomePods but that went smoothly.  So it appears that I am back in business.
> 
> I think I will try to re-add the homebridge app so get control of the minisplit back into XTension.  Will update once that is done.
> 
> James, thanks for the troubleshooting help even though this is turning out to not be an XTension problem. Much appreciated.
> 
> Hopefully my next comments on this experience will be happy ones.
> 
> Thanks,
> Rich
> 
>> On Apr 7, 2023, at 12:56 PM, james at sentman.com wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Mar 30, 2023, at 11:14 AM, Richard Leonard <rnaleonard at icloud.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Seems like there are some messages and warnings in this but I don’t know enough to know if they indicate anything.  I also note (in red) that the code changes between any restarts.  Could this cause the Home app to lose the connection and go into no response mode?
>> 
>> Those message do not appear to be anything new, or anything that isn’t also spewed to the log when I shut down my own instance of this plugin which does save it’s state between restarts. They are mostly the asyncIO stuff in python complaining about things that are not errors but they consider themselves so important that they assume you’d want to know about it. Someday the authors of AsyncIO will be brought to task for what they have done ;) But this is not that day. In any case, these are sadly not shedding any illumination on what the problem is.
>> 
>> What I understand is that it works fine for the setup and everything becomes available, but then if you restart XTension or just disable and re-enable the interface then it all stops working until you reset and rebuild? That would indeed be very frustrating!
>> 
>>> 
>>> I don’t think anyone else has reported this on the email list.  That could mean that this is my “special” problem which I hope is not the case as that seems harder to troubleshoot.  Anyone else getting this problem?
>>> 
>>> I am running XTension 9.5.2 Build 1075 on a 2009 mini running Catalina. Router is an equally dated Apple AirPort Extreme.
>>> 
>>> Any solutions, thoughts, suggestions are welcome.  Really want to get this working so when I tell Siri that its shower time, the room heater will turn on, vent fan will run, and the hot water heater will check its temperature and fire up if needed. Troubleshooting the interface and bridge in a towel in a cold room is not fun!
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I can think of a couple of possible reasons but I would also expect to see errors in the log if any of these were happening. There might not be though without putting the interface into debug mode and running it from there.
>> 
>> For the sake of these experiments I would create a separate list in XTension to share to home kit with just one or 2 units in it so that you don’t have to do the whole thing each time. 
>> 
>> First please verify that XTension has write access to the XTension Support folder in your Documents folder. The persistent information file for the plugin is stored in that location and if it isn’t able to write to it then it won’t be there the next time it starts up the plugin. You’ll probably find dozens of the files in there from each time you had to rebuild the interface, or possibly not depending on the exact circumstances. They will be named “homekit_persist_BLAHBLAH.state” with some seemingly random string of letters replacing the Blah Blah. There should be one dated at least as recently as the last time you rebuild the interface, and possibly as recently as the last time it was actually working. If you open it up it will be a big JSON file with all the keys used to connect the shared devices to home kit proper and a bunch of other stuff to.
>> 
>> If you don’t see those files, or if the dates are not to your liking or really just do this anyway. Quit XTension, go into the system preferences, then the Security and Privacy control panel then to the Files and Folders entry, and make sure that XTension is listed there and checked. If it’s not there let me know, if it is and it’s not checked, then check it. If it is there and checked, then un-check it. Yes thats silly but sometimes an update leaves it checked even though it’s in a new security suspicious state. Leave that control panel to save that. Then go back there and set the checkmark again and exit the control panel to make sure that is saved. You may have to authenticate to change the values. Once that is done you can restart XTension and see if the plugin can keep it’s state. 
>> 
>> If it still doesn’t save it’s state, disable the interface again and delete any and all the saved state files in there. Then re-enable the plugin, reset up the sharing for the test Unit, get it working in Home kit and then restart XTension or disable and re-enable and see if it can stick. Also verify that it created a new state file in the Support folder and that the list of devices in there has something actually in it.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> If none of that helps we need to look for other things that might be locking the same port sometimes. Is there anything else on the machine that might be trying to talk to Home Kit? You say you have removed the install of homebridge but it might still be in there somewhere. I THINK we can work around this by changing the bridge port in the XTension settings. I would expect there to be some kind of error in the log if the standard port was not available, but this is not a scenario I had imagined to test so it might not, especially if it’s not in debug mode. 
>> 
>> So first, does homekit still have any reference to the old homebrodge device? Is it still listed as a hub or a device on your phone in the Home app? Make sure that all references to it are removed as that might be confusing home kit. 
>> 
>> Then lets try setting the bridge port to a different, non-standard port and see if it can still find it and if it sticks that way. The default port is 51826 so change it to something like 51827 and stop and restart the plugin. Re-setup your share for the test device and see if that sticks now. 
>> 
>> There is something going on here beyond just the normal issues and it’s got to be something else interacting with us in an unexpected way, or home kit being confused as the same address and port used t be some other bridge or something like that. So please try those things out and let me know what happens. 
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> James
>> 
>> 
>> James Sentman                       http://www.PlanetaryGear.org		http://MacHomeAutomation.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
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