AVM FRITZ!Box Tools generating unavailable entities

[magic-happenz]

The problem

Hello,

the AVM FRITZ!Box Tools integration is keep generating entities with MAC addresses that do not exist. In my case a switch that is connected to the Fritz!Box is getting created again and again with different MAC addresses that do not exist in my network.

The only existing MAC address and in fact the actual MAC address of the switch is device_tracker.switch_8. My assumption is that all devices that are connected to the switch get a dedicated device tracker and a "fake" MAC address. However, since the devices do have their own entity anyways this behavior does not make a lot of sense.

Cheers

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2025.1.4

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Supervised

Integration causing the issue

AVM FRITZ!Box Tools

Link to integration documentation on our website

AVM FRITZ!Box Tools

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

Additional information

No response

[home-assistant[bot]]

Hey there @mib1185, @flabbamann, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (fritzbox) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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[home-assistant[bot]]

Hey there @aarondavidschneider, @chemelli74, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (fritz) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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[mib1185]

Please check the Device presence detection is not working as expected section of the troubleshooting docs

[magic-happenz]

@mib1185 I already stumbled across the docs before opening the issue and activated the option in integration without luck.

[mib1185]

ok, didn't know that, as it is not mentioned on the initial post.

Anyway - how does the network/mesh overview of your fritzbox shows this switch? Further also please provide the the debug log and diagnostics data as mentioned in the Troublesdhooting section.

[energywave]

I'm in the same boat. I'm using the old detection method as my network topology has more switches (managed and unmanaged) other than a mesh with Fritz 7590+1200AX+1200 that became recently 5590+1200AX+1200. I don't know if that was happening from long ago or when I switched the 7590 to a 5590 but I have actually 15 fake swtiches. Some are reported as home, other not. Every MAC address is a virtual one (no vendor when I do a lookup online). I can add that I'm using pi.alert (wonderful software!) and I'm seeying the same behavior there too. I'm using the fritz integration so I believe that's an infromation that arrive from fritz api, in some ways, It could be useful to detect it and ignore that as it's only garbage.

[mib1185]

I'm using the fritz integration so I believe that's an infromation that arrive from fritz api, in some ways,

correct, all data are directly fetched from the fritzbox, so if there are "phantom" devices, then the fritzbox delivers them and they should also be visible in the network overview page of the fritzbox itself.

It could be useful to detect it and ignore that as it's only garbage.

as mentioned above - the data come from the fritzbox, why the fritzbox shows such "phantom" devices is unclear, but not an issue of HA. So on which reliable condition should we filter?

[energywave]

as mentioned above - the data come from the fritzbox, why the fritzbox shows such "phantom" devices is unclear, but not an issue of HA. So on which reliable condition should we filter?

Ok, it's not an issue of HA but it's an issue that affect the integration and as such HA usability. As a programmer I've faced such situations many times where the problem is not originated by my software but, as long as my software is affected, a workaround is the only way to resolve the issue in the hope that it will be fixed upstream in the future...

My idea is the following, if you're interested: you can add a field in the config flow where you can insert the name of devices to ignore, separated by a comma. In this scenario it would be enough for the user (and for me) to write "switch" in that field and all readings from the fritz api where the device name correspond to the filter will be ignored, as they where not in the api reply. This will filter all subsequent devices creation with random mac address and can adapt to other scenarios as well ;)

If I where able to program in Python I would have tried to create a PR by myself but, unluckily, I program in .net and Python is so different in many areas from any strong typed programming language...

[myssv]

The problem is the Fritz!Box. I saw that it find my unmanaged switch with different MAC adresses:

The old switch seems to be deleted, if a new is found.

And from my point of view, all these switches are imported to HA.

Alle devices have a fake MAC starting with FA:CE:00...

[issue-triage-workflows[bot]]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.