Home "A home hub not responding"

[Radin.Y]

Does anyone experience this ?? I ab bombarded with these messages dozens of times a day. Sometimes seconds apart, or minutes apart.
Often it says "living room camera not responding" for example, as another similar issue.

Have anyone seen something like this before? Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[dotme]

Are you at home when these messages arrive or are you out-of-home?

 

[StumpyBloke]

You need to give us a lot more info than that if you want us to try to help sort it.

 

[Radin.Y]

I can be at home or away. I have an Apple TV and two HomePods that are used as “Hubs.” I have been annoyed by this for years and I’m just about fed up.
Tell me what else I should provide, will happily do.

 

[StumpyBloke]

First thing I would do is set which device you want to be your home hub. You can do that in the Home app on your iPhone. At least then the automatic switching of hubs can be ruled out as an issue.

Also, the usual thing of restarting everything including all networking equipment, home hubs etc.

See how that goes…

 

[dotme]

Tell me what else I should provide, will happily do.

Details on the home's network would be helpful to us here. Any WiFi "extenders" that are creating a separate network instead of bridging for example? If unsure, I would disconnect any and all extenders as a test, letting everything connect to a single, main WiFi access point to see if things improve.

 

[Radin.Y]

Nope. No extenders. Just one Wi-Fi network, it a 750-sqft apartment.
There is smart vacuum, a standing fan, some tradfi lights attached to the network plus the two Eufy cams.
The issue was there before many of these smart stuff were added to our home.

 

[Radin.Y]

First thing I would do is set which device you want to be your home hub. You can do that in the Home app on your iPhone. At least then the automatic switching of hubs can be ruled out as an issue.

Also, the usual thing of restarting everything including all networking equipment, home hubs etc.

See how that goes…

Home automatically chooses its hub. Usually one of the HomePods as the hub, and the TV and the other HomePod are in standby. Sometimes the ATV becomes the hub. I have reset and updates to latest OS etc

 

[smithrh]

I have also seen this a few times, but not to the extent that OP has.

It's new to this OS level, never saw it before, been using HomeKit for a long time now.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Home automatically chooses its hub. Usually one of the HomePods as the hub, and the TV and the other HomePod are in standby. Sometimes the ATV becomes the hub. I have reset and updates to latest OS etc

Yes as I say, you need to explicitly choose which one to be the primary home hub. It’s a new feature in iOS 18.1. You should be able to choose it now.

 

[dotme]

Nope. No extenders. Just one Wi-Fi network, it a 750-sqft apartment.
There is smart vacuum, a standing fan, some tradfi lights attached to the network plus the two Eufy cams.
The issue was there before many of these smart stuff were added to our home.

It's your network, right? Not shared with other apartment tenants (like community WiFi included w/rent for example)?

 

[Radin.Y]

It's your network, right? Not shared with other apartment tenants (like community WiFi included w/rent for example)?

Yes it’s my own network. I don’t experience any wifi outages either. I’m on Teams meetings most of the day, and almost never have any buffering. So I don’t believe stability of my network is the issue.

 

[dotme]

Agreed - Although it's unlikely to be "internet" here. HomeKit is a peer-to-peer thing on the LAN and that's what makes it a little different (in a good way mostly). Some WiFi networks, including those in shared environments, have a setting that isolates devices (meaning they can't see each other on the network) and that can break HomeKit. Since you manage your own network, you can easily check to make sure your WiFi access point isn't doing that and if it is, you can turn that feature off.

Are you using your own gear for WiFi or the ISP-provided modem? Reason I ask is that you'll want to dig into your LAN configuration at this point to make sure you have one DHCP server on the network, AP Isolation is disabled, no duplicate WiFi running, and that mDNS/Bonjour is passing between devices. Bottom line is what you're experiencing isn't normal for HomeKit, and points to some quirk on your home network (Not internet). Hope this helps!

 

[danniexi]

not sure if it helps or if it's simply a coincidence, but i have two apple TVs in my home that are hubs. i would constantly get the "home hub is not responding" issue even though i never had any wifi issues. i even had one connected via Ethernet but the problem still occurred. i assumed the problem was that the AppleTVs were going into standby but not "waking up". i simply turned off that feature (General > Sleep After > Never) and have them "awake" permanently.

the issues have gone away and i have never had any non-responsive hub issues since. im sure it could be an mDNS setting but i was using the ISP router at the time and was not able to configure it for more granular control. ive since put that modem/router into bridge mode and went with a ubiquiti setup. still havent changed the Apple TV settings since they take up so little power and to be honest, ive been having such a seamless experience i dont want to change something that isnt broken.

so yeah, try disabling "automatic selection" for your home hub, select your Apple TV to be your main hub, and change your AppleTV to never 'fall asleep'.

 

[Tofupunch]

Agreed - Although it's unlikely to be "internet" here. HomeKit is a peer-to-peer thing on the LAN and that's what makes it a little different (in a good way mostly). Some WiFi networks, including those in shared environments, have a setting that isolates devices (meaning they can't see each other on the network) and that can break HomeKit. Since you manage your own network, you can easily check to make sure your WiFi access point isn't doing that and if it is, you can turn that feature off.

Are you using your own gear for WiFi or the ISP-provided modem? Reason I ask is that you'll want to dig into your LAN configuration at this point to make sure you have one DHCP server on the network, AP Isolation is disabled, no duplicate WiFi running, and that mDNS/Bonjour is passing between devices. Bottom line is what you're experiencing isn't normal for HomeKit, and points to some quirk on your home network (Not internet). Hope this helps!

You mentioned the isolated devices setting can break HK. I have a work computer that is on a guest network I created. Is this the same thing?

I have one Apple TV 4k and one Eve Outdoor floodlight camera. It is so temperamental. For the last week, the 'Home hub is not responding' notification has been lingering in the Home app and I can't figure it out.

 

[dotme]

It's possible the guest network could be an issue - In the sense that if your iPhone attaches to it, it may no longer see the Apple TV and report a "no response" error on it. If you can, I'd make sure your HomeKit stuff doesn't use that guest network at all. If it's listed as an option on the iPhone, for example, "Forget" that network. Can you see the networks in your router/AP management console and which devices are connected to which network?

 

[Tofupunch]

It's possible the guest network could be an issue - In the sense that if your iPhone attaches to it, it may no longer see the Apple TV and report a "no response" error on it. If you can, I'd make sure your HomeKit stuff doesn't use that guest network at all. If it's listed as an option on the iPhone, for example, "Forget" that network. Can you see the networks in your router/AP management console and which devices are connected to which network?

Only the work computer connects to the guest network. Darn, so that's not the issue then. I reset the Apple TV. The 'home hub not working' notification is gone but can't see the outdoor cam now. Haven't reset that yet but will try next.

 

[dotme]

There's a free app called Discovery in the iOS App Store that can sometimes help. Once downloaded, open it up and navigate to the _hap._tcp. section.

The "HAP" acronym I believe stands for "HomeKit Accessory Protocol" and should show you all direct-connect HomeKit accessories that are alive on the network, whether connected via ethernet or WiFi. Your camera should be listed. If it isn't, then either it fell off the network, or your network may not be passing HAP (bonjour/mDNS) reliably between the 2.4GHz network (cam) and 5GHz network (iPhone).

Note that HomeKit hubs (Your AppleTV) likely won't be listed under the _hap._tcp section because HK hubs are not technically an "accessory" but hubs should appear under the _companion-link._tcp section.