Sometimes after deploy, the lifx node says: 'unidentified'

[CypherMK]

Sometimes when I make some random changes in my node red configuration, or when I reboot my pi, some random lifx lights can display 'unidentified' under the node.
Re-deploying usually fixes this. What could be the cause of this? Can this be auto reset?

[jdomeij]

When activating node-red configuration all states are wiped and the node tries to re-detect all the lights, it may bee that some lights doesn't respond in time after activation. If you wait a while the lights should be discovered again automatically,

[ristomatti]

I remember having issues with the status not updating. I see from my fork of this repo that I've done two commits that might make the process more reliable. The reason I say "might" is because I remember having some trouble understanding the reasons behind some parts of the code. It's been 1.5 years since I did those tweaks.

@jdomeij In case you have time, could you by any chance check if these make any sense to you?

• Set light reachable after receiving a state update - ristomatti@02ceb0f
• Update node.status based on state values - ristomatti@f28df8c

[CypherMK]

When activating node-red configuration all states are wiped and the node tries to re-detect all the lights, it may bee that some lights doesn't respond in time after activation. If you wait a while the lights should be discovered again automatically,

I didn't have this issue for 2 weeks, untill today. So it is very occasionally. And it doesn't automatically detect the light again untill I deploy again. Is there something I can do, to help fix this?

[ristomatti]

@CypherMK you can try my fork if it'd help. Over a year back I did some experimenting to fix this issue and my lights tend to eventually come online after some time. It also uses a more up to date node-lifx dependency which should give improvements to speed when setting colors to multiple lights at the same time (= |right after each other in fast sequence).

[CypherMK]

I discovered yesterday, after the deploy, that my light was controllable by the lifx app. But about 2 hours later, it wasn't anymore. So maybe it is also related to my WiFi network. But I will try your fork to see if it improves, if I know how to do this.

[ristomatti]

@CypherMK Go to your Node-RED user directory (which has flows*.json and flows*cred.json files. On Linux it's at ~/.node-red. Inside there you can just install my repo directly from GitHub with:

npm install --save github:ristomatti/node-red-contrib-node-lifx

After that, restart Node-RED and it should be using the forked version. To go back to the original, just do:

npm install --save node-red-contrib-node-lifx

[CypherMK]

ok, I will try.

[ristomatti]

Also if you know the IP addresses of the lights, you can likely speed up the initial discovery process by listing the IP addresses in the node-lifx-server node settings on the Lights field, like:

Lights: 192.168.1.20, 192.168.1.21, 192.168.1.23

Wifi routers often will have an option to set a static IP address to selected devices (based on the device MAC-addresses). That's what I've done myself for all my lights.

But like you said, it might also be a wifi connnectivity issue. You could play around with your router location if possible. If you have a lot of lights, it might also be that your router is on it's limits with how many clients can be connected at a time. I've seen some cheap ones that can only manage ~4 devices. That was years ago though. My ASUS RT-AC68U router has >25 devices connected over wifi now with no issues.

[CypherMK]

I have a linksys R7000, so it should be fine. I added the static IP's, so let's see if it makes a difference. Thanks so far!

[CypherMK]

I've been using your fork for over a year and it works perfectly.
I stumbled on this topic today and I also saw that the original Lifx node was updated yesterday. @jdomeij , what did you update? Are the changes of this fork I use from @ristomatti also implemented in the original Lifx node?

@CypherMK Go to your Node-RED user directory (which has flows*.json and flows*cred.json files. On Linux it's at ~/.node-red. Inside there you can just install my repo directly from GitHub with:

npm install --save github:ristomatti/node-red-contrib-node-lifx

After that, restart Node-RED and it should be using the forked version. To go back to the original, just do:

npm install --save node-red-contrib-node-lifx

[ristomatti]

I've been using your fork for over a year and it works perfectly.
I stumbled on this topic today and I also saw that the original Lifx node was updated yesterday. @jdomeij , what did you update? Are the changes of this fork I use from @ristomatti also implemented in the original Lifx node?

@CypherMK Go to your Node-RED user directory (which has flows*.json and flows*cred.json files. On Linux it's at ~/.node-red. Inside there you can just install my repo directly from GitHub with:

npm install --save github:ristomatti/node-red-contrib-node-lifx

After that, restart Node-RED and it should be using the forked version. To go back to the original, just do:

npm install --save node-red-contrib-node-lifx

You're seeing an update as @jdomeij gave me maintenance rights to publish updates. You should be now good to use the original node-red-cobtrib-node-lifx node from NPM. If facing issues, please report to my fork instead.

@jdomeij if you're reading this - could you add a comment on the repo pointing to my repo and archive yours to help people find mine? I have updated package.json to reflect this though already.

[arachnida]

I'm also seeing this, but on only 2 devices out of 14. These 2 devices are A19 IR bulbs, the only 2 I have of this model. Also after connecting to the node they react very slow to update their status. Most of my bulbs, strips and Tile react within 2-3s, but these bulbs take about 50s to report a status change. My WIFI systems responds very fast, also the lamps can be controlled by my iPad or an http command without any delays. All on latest public available FW.