Matter over Thread - nodes have all disappeared

[Cikkajes]

The problem

Hello,

I have had the Matter server installed on Home Assistant (HA) for quite some time now, and I have managed to add 11 Thread devices with some success. Initially, I only had a Nest Hub as a border router. To increase coverage, I added a second Nest Hub and a Skyconnect, all correctly configured within the same Thread network.

However, I often see devices losing connection and becoming unavailable on HA, although they remain available on Google Home. The addition of the two border routers has slightly improved the situation, but it is still not 100% stable.

I came across this issue (DNSSD packet parsing failed - HassOS - RPi4 · Issue #323 · home-assistant-libs/python-matter-server · GitHub 1) and followed the suggested solutions.

My current problem is that when I open the Matter Server UI, no nodes are showing. In the past, they would show up, albeit offline.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Matter Server, but there is no change. The logs do not seem to contain any relevant information:

2024-05-31 16:29:02.140 (MainThread) ERROR [root] [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/data/chip.json'
2024-05-31 16:29:02.140 (MainThread) CRITICAL [root] Could not load configuration from /data/chip.json - resetting configuration...
2024-05-31 16:29:02.140 (MainThread) WARNING [root] No valid SDK configuration present - clearing out configuration
2024-05-31 16:29:02.140 (MainThread) WARNING [root] No valid REPL configuration present - clearing out configuration
2024-05-31 16:29:02.384 (MainThread) WARNING [CertificateAuthorityManager] Loading certificate authorities from storage...
2024-05-31 16:29:02.385 (MainThread) WARNING [CertificateAuthority] New CertificateAuthority at index 1
2024-05-31 16:29:02.415 (MainThread) WARNING [FabricAdmin] New FabricAdmin: FabricId: 0x0000000000000002, VendorId = 0x134B
2024-05-31 16:29:02.416 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.stack] CHIP Controller Stack initialized.
2024-05-31 16:29:02.426 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.server] Starting the Matter Server...
2024-05-31 16:29:02.436 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.helpers.paa_certificates] Fetching the latest PAA root certificates from DCL.
2024-05-31 16:29:05.484 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.helpers.paa_certificates] Fetched 58 PAA root certificates from DCL.
2024-05-31 16:29:13.693 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.helpers.paa_certificates] Fetched 74 PAA root certificates from Test DCL.
2024-05-31 16:29:13.694 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.helpers.paa_certificates] Fetching the latest PAA root certificates from Git.
2024-05-31 16:29:15.648 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.helpers.paa_certificates] Fetched 5 PAA root certificates from Git.
2024-05-31 16:29:15.651 (MainThread) WARNING [FabricAdmin] Allocating new controller with CaIndex: 1, FabricId: 0x0000000000000002, NodeId: 0x000000000001B669, CatTags: []
2024-05-31 16:29:15.995 (Dummy-2) CHIP_ERROR [chip.native.DL] Long dispatch time: 340 ms, for event type 2
2024-05-31 16:29:16.000 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.device_controller] Loaded 0 nodes from stored configuration
2024-05-31 16:29:16.018 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.vendor_info] Loading vendor info from storage.
2024-05-31 16:29:16.019 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.vendor_info] Loaded 0 vendors from storage.
2024-05-31 16:29:16.019 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.vendor_info] Fetching the latest vendor info from DCL.
2024-05-31 16:29:16.282 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.vendor_info] Fetched 196 vendors from DCL.
2024-05-31 16:29:16.283 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.vendor_info] Saving vendor info to storage.

In the Matter integration, the 11 devices are still showing, but offline.

Any ideas to what could be the problem?

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2024.5.5

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

Integration causing the issue

Matter

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter

Diagnostics information

home-assistant_matter_2024-05-31T16-00-53.416Z.log

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

[home-assistant]

Hey there @home-assistant/matter, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (matter) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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[marcelveldt]

You have reinstalled the Matter server, meaning you threw away the entire Matter fabric.
Normally you do not have to do such a drastic step, cant you restore a backup ?

If not, the only way forward is either removing the HA fabric manually from each device and then re-pair or factory reset each device and then add to HA again.

As an advice I would suggest to start with adding the devices only to HA first (and not to Google) to see if that is stable.
Lots of first-gen Matter devices have major issues with "multi fabric".

[mcpaton]

I had this issue as well today. Restarted my NAS which houses the container that Matter Server is running in, and all my devices disappeared. I now have to re-pair them.

My container config looks like this:
Name: matter-server-1
ID: 2e53296935ed988af0fc711f53a3a264ac8a9dd70540280ca687f9d7a9894762
Image: ghcr.io/home-assistant-libs/python-matter-server:stable
Application: matter-server-1
Command:
--storage-path /data --paa-root-cert-dir /data/credentials
Entrypoint:
matter-server
Restart policy:
Unless Stopped

I have set Storage like this:
/AppData/Matter/Data, /run/dbus

Nothing seems to save in the Data folder I have set, so not sure if I am missing some persistant storage?

I tried stopping and starting the container after re-adding one node, and the node remained. but I haven;t restarted the whole NAS again.

Is there a way to export the node config and re-import it again if this recurrs?

My nodes were added to HA in the first instance.

[marcelveldt]

@mcpaton
The storage location is /data and not /Data

Going to close this issue report as things are working by design.