Soundbar constantly becomes unresponsive to api calls

[absurdist81]

My SB36512-F6 soundbar loses wifi constantly. At best it will stay connected for a few days, but usually it drops the connection in less than a day. It still gets audio from HDMI-ARC and/or Bluetooth, but it becomes unavailable in Home Assistant and the SmartCast android app until I unplug the power and plug it back in. I tried using ethernet instead (with a wifi bridge) but I had the same issue. ECO mode is off on the soundbar. It is connected to a TCL Roku TV. On the Roku TV I have enabled 'Fast TV Start' and disabled the power-saving shut off (after 4 hours idle). The soundbar has a reserved IP address on my router. I've had this issue for a while and I tried a factory reset a while back. I searched online but haven't found anyone with the same issue. The only thing I can think of now is to put it on a smart plug and make an automation to reboot it whenever it becomes unavailable in HA. I'd rather fix the issue though. I was wondering if pyvizio or the HA vizio integration was somehow contributing to this problem.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[raman325]

To be honest, I have the same problem. I don't think the device is going off the network, I think the API gets into a weird state and becomes unresponsive. I suspect it's the Home Assistant integration and have tried many things, like reducing the number of calls made on each update and increasing the time between updates but haven't been able to resolve it.

Your best bet is to remove the integration from HA, do a power reset, and then try to connect to it via the SmartCast app every once in a while. Assuming it continues to work, that means it is the HA integration.

By the way, you are the first person to report this aside from me, and I have the same model. From conversations with other people, this does not happen to all sound bars which makes it even harder to troubleshoot.

[absurdist81]

You're right that it hasn't actually been disconnecting from wifi. I checked in my router when it became unavailable and it was still an "attached device" and I was able to ping the IP address. Well, I should have just done what you said, but I wanted to try a factory reset (since the last reset was a while back) first. Now it is much worse, but ironically pyvizio and the vizio HA integration are working.

After the factory reset I could not pair the soundbar to my smartcast app. It just would not show up. Turns out that while most settings were reset, the network settings are still there. It still connects to my wifi, but doesn't appear as a device in smartcast. I tried using the remote to trigger a "WifiLink" (I think that's what it calls it on the remote) but I still don't see a vizio hotspot and the smartcast app can't find it. Bluetooth pairing does not work either for any bluetooth device. The vizio HA integration finds it, but with a generic "Vizio SmartCast" name instead of what I had named it before the reset. I tried updating firmware using usb (nothing happened, probably because it doesn't need updating), and tried multiple resets using the remote and the button combination. I tried turning off my router so it wouldn't have a wifi to connect to. No progress. Chromecast function was working at one point, but not this morning.

Maybe a future firmware update will help. I should get in touch with Vizio support I suppose.

[raman325]

I have two soundbars and one of my soundbars is in the exact same state you are describing (different model though). Their software is pretty terrible as far as I can tell, which is unfortunate because the price point is great for what you get.

[sdrapha]

My vizio soundbar is connect to power through a mechanical timer, which shuts it down everyday around 3:30am when I'm most likely not using it. Since I've done that (about a year ago) I never had that 'limbo' state again. Although I have to say the soundbar still shutdowns for no reason sometimes while I'm watching something, but I think that is another diferrent issue maybe related to the Hdmi-arc.

[iankaufmann]

I am also experiencing this with some Crave 360 speakers. My setup is 2 of the SB3651-E6B 5.1 sound bars, and 3 Crave 360 (SP50-D5) spread throughout the house.

I have them integrated into Google Home and working with cast groups, as well as into home assistant.

Every few days, one of the Crave 360 speakers will go unavailable in home assistant (and in the official SmartCast app).

That led me to start fiddling around with pyvizio.

When I run curl -k -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET https://device_name:9000/state/device/power_mode I get a 503 error from the API.

However, I'm still able to cast to it while it's doing this, I just have no control from the app or HA.

The only thing that fixes it is doing a short jab with a paperclip to the reset button (but don't hold or it will factory reset). Just tapping it seems to reboot it and then all is well.

Since these operate on a battery I can't just throw them on a smart switch to power cycle them, so this is super annoying.

These were a steal at $36 renewed on Amazon. They sound great and really helped to complete the "whole home audio" setup.

But their software is clearly a buggy mess. It took probably 20 tries to get them to pair in the first place since their app is so glitchy, and now it seems that applies to the internal API as well. I also have a really hard time casting to a single SmartCast speaker sometimes. It just won't do it, but then it will work if it's in a cast group reliably every time.