deleted thing is still in the list to be added

[carlosignaciom]

Hi, I've just deleted a thermostat form my webthings instance, but when I try to add a new one, I'm still seeing the old one in the list of things discovered to be added. Thermostat is completely off, so It can't be discovered. Also I tried to delete from sqlite database, but is still in the list. Why is this happening? Is something I can do to avoid this.

Also I see errors in the logs coming from the deleted thing:

025-10-10 12:09:45.282 ERROR : Error getting thing description for thing with id zb-4c5bb3fffef186e5: Error: Unable to find thing with id = zb-4c5bb3fffef186e5
at getThings.then (/home/pi/webthings/gateway/build/models/things.js:260:23)
2025-10-10 12:09:45.332 ERROR : Error getting thing description for thing with id zb-4c5bb3fffef186e5: Error: Unable to find thing with id = zb-4c5bb3fffef186e5
at getThings.then (/home/pi/webthings/gateway/build/models/things.js:260:23)

Thanks in advance.

[benfrancis]

Hi @carlosignaciom, thank you for reporting.

I've just deleted a thermostat form my webthings instance, but when I try to add a new one, I'm still seeing the old one in the list of things discovered to be added. Thermostat is completely off, so It can't be discovered. Also I tried to delete from sqlite database, but is still in the list. Why is this happening? Is something I can do to avoid this.

The usual reason that this happens is that the Thing has been removed from the gateway's database, but it hasn't left the Zigbee network. That means that next time you press the "+" button to add a device, the thermostat you removed from the gateway will still show as being available to add because your Zigbee controller (usually a USB dongle with its own internal storage) thinks the device is still part of the Zigbee network. This can happen even if the device is powered off at the time.

When you remove a Zigbee device from the gateway the Zigbee adapter add-on sends a "leave" command to the controller to tell it to remove the device from the network, but that doesn't always work. Sometimes this is because the device is powered off at the time so can't acknowledge the leave request, and sometimes it's because a device-specific action like pressing a physical button on the device is needed to confirm leaving the network.

Unfortunately this can result in ghost devices appearing in the list of devices the Zigbee controller reports to the gateway which can be difficult to get rid of. If you're able to re-add the device and then remove it following the process in the manufacturers instructions then that might get rid of it, otherwise it may require low level commands being sent to the controller and/or a factory reset on your Zigbee dongle.

So far we haven't figured out a better way to deal with this from the gateway side, but if anyone figures out a way to do it we would welcome PRs on the Zigbee adapter repo.

Also I see errors in the logs coming from the deleted thing:
025-10-10 12:09:45.282 ERROR : Error getting thing description for thing with id zb-4c5bb3fffef186e5: Error: Unable to find thing with id = zb-4c5bb3fffef186e5

I think I may have seen these errors before too and I'm not quite sure why because if the Thing was removed on the gateway side it shouldn't be trying to find a Thing with that id. I'm going to label this issue as a bug and move it to the Zigbee adapter repo to see if we can reproduce this error and figure out why it happens.