Ring: Base station connection issues

[jianyu-li]

I am now having connection issues with the base station and the official ring app

[dgreif]

Log out and back in to the app. I have had similar issues but haven’t had a chance to track it down yet

[jianyu-li]

That did the trick. Does it happen often? Thank you very much

[dgreif]

No, i think it's only happened 2 times for me over the past several months. Let me know if it happens to you (or anyone else seeing this issue). I'll leave this open as a bug so that I have something to track it against.

[jianyu-li]

Will do. Thanks for the quick response!

[LeviJSmith]

I’ve had it happen 3or4 times in the last week. Logging out and back in fixed it for a few day.

[jianyu-li]

Does it only happen to the account that’s signed into homebridge or does it happen to anyone that has access to your cameras?

[dgreif]

It happened to me again today on the account I use for homebridge. I’m trying to get set up so I can debug the Ring app, but it’s a fair amount of work. @codahq what Xposed module did you use for pinned certain?

[jianyu-li]

I just had to log out and log back in again but now I got this message https://imgur.com/gallery/kvRyjF6

[dgreif]

Interesting, I wondered if it was a rate limiting issue. Try shutting down homebridge about 3 minutes and then try logging into the Ring app again

[jianyu-li]

I created a new shared account to see if that helps. I also wonder if every time I fetch the camera feed it counts toward some quota? I tend to check it more than I should :)

[jianyu-li]

Oh and just to report back I did log out for a while and was able to successfully log back in. So thanks for the tip

[LeviJSmith]

I only have the one account so I can’t say for sure if it’s just the one account or others.

[jianyu-li]

I’ll let you know if having a dedicated account for homebridge helps

[eddydas]

My friends and I both experience frequent drop-out of ring session recently. Restarting the entire homebridge fixed it. We're both NOT using 2FA login. Maybe it's the new 2FA architecture from Ring that puts additional timeout there?

[jianyu-li]

Just a small update, I had created a dedicated account for homebridge and I haven’t had any issues for 2 days

[LeviJSmith]

Thx for the update. I’ll give that a try.

[Dillinja2]

Also having consistent base station connection issues. It’s rare that it stays connected for more than a day. (It was working fine for months prior.) iOS 13b2 FWIW.

[jianyu-li]

Try creating a separate ring account, share your system with that account in the ring app, and then using that new account as the login for your config file. That’s working for me so far

[Dillinja2]

Tried secondary account. Lost connection in less than an hour.

[jianyu-li]

Ah man. It was worth a shot

[EarthRise626]

I have been struggling with similar issues the last week or so. I was on version 3 of the plugin prior to yesterday, so I don’t believe the upgrade to 4 is a potential cause.

I too created a separate Ring account for HomeBridge, and all is now working perfectly.

[jamesg311]

I was experiencing the same. Ring app was showing as Alarm Base Station and the Smart Lighting Bridge as not connected. Logged out, setup an alternate account to access my devices, then added that account in my Homebridge setup. However, that second account doesn’t have access to Ring Smart Lighting but I think that’s on Ring to fix since I don’t see a way to share those devices when setting up a new account to share with.

[dgreif]

Thanks for all the input. I think this started happening when I introduced sessions which are needed for camera events to work properly. I’m guessing the issue is that I create a new session every time with tokens expire (about once an hour) and Ring must be dumping old sessions off the back, which happens to the session from the Ring app. I’ll get an update out this week with an attempted fix.

[dgreif]

Everyone, give v4.0.4 a try. I am now creating a new session only when the previous session can no longer be found. I'm also reusing the hardware_id between sessions, which is how Ring identifies which device is making the request so that it can hand out the correct "active dings". I just updated mine and will monitor my Ring app over the next few days.

[LeviJSmith]

I updated this morning. Will let you know if I see any issues.

[EarthRise626]

I just updated to 4.0.7 - will report any issues. So far, everything is stable and responsive.

[EarthRise626]

Unfortunately, I just experienced the issue once more this evening when attempting to arm the alarm through HomeKit. This is using a dedicated Ring account for the plugin.

This behavior seems to be limited to the Ring Alarm system and its associated devices. My Doorbells and Floodlight remain responsive and functional in HomeKit while the Alarm system does not.

[Dillinja2]

Seems I’m in the same boat.

4.0.7, devices refusing to update status / respond after about 5 hours.

Also, just wanted to say thanks for the frequent updates and responsiveness to this and other ring related issues!

[dgreif]

@EarthRise626 @Dillinja2 I think you guys are experiencing something different than the original issue. What I was experiencing (and it sounds like @jianyu-li was also) was the actual Ring app would loose connection with the base station, but homebridge would continue to function normally. Can you confirm that your _homebridge_ is what is now loosing connection to the alarm base station? Is your Ring app staying connected? Both environments have been perfect for me since updating to 4.0.7 yesterday morning

[Dillinja2]

Ah, that is a different behavior.

My issue is, after a period of time, the entirety of the ring alarm devices (including the arming / disarming function) cease to update or allow interaction within HomeKit. The ring app continues to function normally.

Rebooting / restarting homebridge remedies this for a time.

[EarthRise626]

Yes - I have had no issues with the Ring app timing out or refusing requests.

My issue is exactly as @Dillinja2 describes. The command to Arm will appear in the HomeBridge log but does not actually occur. A restart has fixed this for a time for me as well.

[dgreif]

@EarthRise626 @Dillinja2 this might not work, but could you try using a refreshToken instead of email/password? See https://github.com/dgreif/ring/wiki/Two-Factor-Auth for details on how to set it up. This is how I am set up and it is working great. Note, you need homebridge-ring v4.2.0 installed globally if you use the first command.

[EarthRise626]

@dgreif sure! Will install the update this evening and setup the 2FA. I’ll report back!

[dgreif]

Awesome! You can actually follow all of those steps without turning on 2fa and it will work just fine.

[EarthRise626]

I had been intending to get the 2FA turned on once supported by the plugin, so this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

I successfully updated and configured the refresh token. So far, so stable! I’ve successfully armed and disarmed the Alarm multiple times with no issues. Will report back on long-term stability.

Thank you for all of your work on this - it’s a huge help and is greatly appreciated!

[jianyu-li]

I was also having some issues arming/disarming so I updated the config file for 2FA as well. Thanks for responding so quickly to issues @dgreif ! Here are the errors I would get

[7/15/2019, 5:51:35 AM] [Ring] Disarming Ring Alarm (node:1581) PromiseRejectionHandledWarning: Promise rejection was handled asynchronously (rejection id: 414) (node:1581) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: Request failed with status code 401 at createError (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-ring/node_modules/axios/lib/core/createError.js:16:15) at settle (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-ring/node_modules/axios/lib/core/settle.js:17:12) at IncomingMessage.handleStreamEnd (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-ring/node_modules/axios/lib/adapters/http.js:237:11) at IncomingMessage.emit (events.js:205:15) at endReadableNT (_stream_readable.js:1154:12) at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:74:11) (node:1581) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 415)

and also...

[7/15/2019, 9:49:20 PM] [Ring] Arming (Home) Ring Alarm (node:6530) PromiseRejectionHandledWarning: Promise rejection was handled asynchronously (rejection id: 359) (node:6530) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: Request failed with status code 401 at createError (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-ring/node_modules/axios/lib/core/createError.js:16:15) at settle (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-ring/node_modules/axios/lib/core/settle.js:17:12) at IncomingMessage.handleStreamEnd (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-ring/node_modules/axios/lib/adapters/http.js:237:11) at IncomingMessage.emit (events.js:205:15) at endReadableNT (_stream_readable.js:1154:12) at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:74:11) (node:6530) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 360)

[dgreif]

@jianyu-Lin thanks for the logs, that’s really helpful! Just curious, what version of node are you on?

[jianyu-li]

@dgreif 6.10.1

[jianyu-li]

@dgreif whoops I mean 12.5.0

[dgreif]

Ahhh, that might be why. @EarthRise626 are you on node 12 as well?

[EarthRise626]

I am on version 10.15.2

UPDATE: I have had zero issues with responsiveness of the Alarm System in HomeKit so far.

[Dillinja2]

I updated my Node version to 10.15.2 last night (I was on an older fork) and Enabled 2FA. So far so good.

[dgreif]

Based on the stack track that @jianyu-li posted, I took a look through the authentication code and was able to track down a potential cause for the issue. @EarthRise626 @jianyu-li @Dillinja2 would any of you be willing to turn 2fa back off and use email/password auth (make sure you delete the refreshToken line from your config) for a few days and test out v4.2.1? I'm glad it's working well with 2fa, but I want to make sure I get this fixed for anyone not using 2fa and I was never able to recreate the issue myself. Big thanks in advance!!

[jianyu-li]

I’ll make the changes when I get home tonight and test. Do I need to update my node? I thought I was on the most current version but I’m still a bit new at this

[dgreif]

@jianyu-li it would actually be best if you stay on the same version just to eliminate as many variables as possible. 12.5.0 is a very new version, so you are not behind at all.

[EarthRise626]

@dgreif I will update to 4.2.1 and switch back to traditional authentication right now. Will report back!

UPDATE: No issues so far - still on Node v10.15.2 with plugin version 4.2.1. I have been able to arm and disarm successfully as well as test that HomeKit automations based on the Ring motion sensors are working with great response time.

UPDATE: Still no issues - everything is functioning perfectly. I dare say you’ve fixed it, @dgreif.

[jianyu-li]

Sorry I wasn’t able to test @dgreif , we’re getting to ready to head out of town. Sounds like @EarthRise626 is reporting good news. I’ll test some more when I get back in town!

[Dillinja2]

Meant to reply- I’ve been solid on the latest rev for 36hrs! Thanks again for the quick fix.

[dgreif]

Awesome, thanks for testing @EarthRise626 and @Dillinja2! Feel free to switch back to 2fa 🎉 🚀 🔒 . Thanks you all for reporting the issue as I was not seeing this one on my end.

[metroidmen]

I didn’t know this issue was caused by this plugin! I wondered what on earth was happening! Yeah, this is still occurring for me. And I don’t even have 2FA on. It went away for a few days but popped back up this morning. :/

Its super frustrating because i wont get any notifications from my Ring app
or my Home and my Home automations with the cameras motion sensors stop functioning.

[EarthRise626]

@metroidmen which version of the plugin are you currently on?

[metroidmen]

Newest version. Reinstalling seems to resolve the issue temporarily. I though it was gone until it came back this morning.

[dgreif]

@metroidmen are you on homebridge-ring v4.2.1 or homebridge-ring-alarm v3.9.0? You must switch to homebridge-ring to get the fix for this issue.

@Dillinja2 @EarthRise626 has everything still been good since you updated?

[metroidmen]

I’m on the 4.2.1 ring version.

And the issue already popped back up. It’s not allowing me to set my alarm with HomeKit either and it’s driving me bonkers as I can’t even use the ring app without logging out and back in

[dgreif]

@metroidmen follow the instructions in https://github.com/dgreif/ring/wiki/Two-Factor-Auth to get a refreshToken (you don't need 2fa enabled for it to work). It seems like using a refresh token instead of email/password tends to avoid this issue. Let me know if that fixes it for you

[metroidmen]

I tried. I can’t figure out how to get it to work. I login to my terminal on my raspberry pi to do it and run the commands and it doesn’t work. It’s the only reason I don’t have 2FA enabled.

[metroidmen]

Just says “command not found” when I run either of those commands

[EarthRise626]

@dgreif Everything has been working great. No issues whatsoever.

[dgreif]

@EarthRise626 thanks for the info. @metroidmen I am not convinced you have 4.2.1 installed properly. If you did, the ring-auth-cli command should be accessible. Try running npm i -g homebridge-ring and then run ring-auth-cli again...

[metroidmen]

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2prvb69&s=9

I don’t know what to say. Because I’ve made sure to update to every single version you release. Ive tried reinstalling it again and the same exact message every time.

[dgreif]

If you run the npx version of it, what output do you get? Is npx found?

[metroidmen]

Gives me the same exact error.

[dgreif]

Screenshot?

[metroidmen]

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1z4wruw&s=9#.XTNdChYpAlQ

[dgreif]

Your npm install appears to be messed up, preventing globally installed bin files from being run. Running npm bin -g will tell you where your global npm bin directory is (something like /usr/local/bin). That directory needs to be on your PATH. If you don't know how to do that, the easiest thing is probably reinstalling node/npm.

[metroidmen]

Tried looking it up and changing the path, still not working. Same errors.

How do I reinstall node/npm? I’m generally a noob with homebridge.

[metroidmen]

Okay, I’m really suspecting something weird is going on. I even just tried uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin and had no luck.

But I’m getting an alert my base station battery is low, which I understand is a bug you’ve allegedly fixed.

So something is happening where this app is just not updating.

[dgreif]

@metroidmen yeah it definitely sounds like you are on an older version. Unfortunately reinstalling node/npm is outside the scope of a GitHub issue on this repo. There should be plenty of info if you try googling it, or others are welcome to jump in and help out here.

[metroidmen]

I ended up nuking my entire homebridge and raspberry pi. I’m such a noob I just started from scratch.