Remove Non-Responsive Home Hub

Have the same issue. Purchased a new Apple TV to replace an old one and keep getting ghost HomeKit hubs not responding whenever I remove the old ATV. Here's the steps I am taking:

• Remove the ATV from the Home app.
• On the old ATV, double check to make sure it is not associated to a room in HomeKit.
• Sign out of the old ATV in Settings:Accounts
• On my iPhone, remove the old ATV from devices signed in under my Apple ID.

Each time I do so, I end up with the old ATV showing up in HomeKit as not responding as a hub.

To double down, the first time I removed the ATV, factory reset, and updated the software to TvOS 17.1, it showed back up as unresponsive in HomeKit. When I added the old ATV back and named it the same as it was before, it showed up as a new hub and the ghost hub remained. Now whenever I delete the old ATV, I now have two unresponsive ghost hubs. If I add the old ATV back, the new ghost hub goes away, but the original ghost hub remains as unreseponsive.

I've read a bunch of Reddit and Apple threads on the ghost hub issue, but haven't found any solutions on how to remove and replace an Apple TV without it leaving a ghost hub in HomeKit. Any suggestions?

Hi Texas Turkey, the issue is a little different as those of us affected no longer have the Apple product showing under appleid.apple.com. The issue for most of us seem to be duplicate objects of an existing hub or a ghost hub that remains after the device was fully removed from the account.

The only solution I’m aware of at the moment is to start a completely new home configuration, but I have too many devices, scenes, and automations to make that a worthwhile exercise. But until Apple provide a proper fix, it looks like that will be the only option for us.

Update: After 6 phone calls of troubleshooting and sharing multiple logs, the Apple engineers said they realize that the ghost hub is a bug that will be fixed. However, they said it is a cosmetic issue, so it's not urgent, but said a fix should be released with a 17.x update at some point.

I’ve got the exact same issue, no combination of re-adding and removing the specific Apple TV which is problematic will remove the “ghost” home hub which is constantly showing as not responding.

I have an AppleTV that I gave to my daughter and that unit is now 90 miles away on another Wifi network. My HomeKit claims to be using that unit as the hub and everything in my home is not working via Siri despite having 15 other hubs to choose from. In my HomeKit, there are 4 Bridges across multiple brands, thermostats, lights, etc... Apple commands still work, such as "Turn off the ATV in the Living Room", but lights and thermostats do not respond. I have restarted everything in the house, bridges and network included. It's bizarre and I think it's a related to this issue. I removed that ATV from my home and it's disappeared from teh Home view, but when I go to Hubs... it's still there, and in command of HomeKit. Unfortunately from the Settings, it only shows the hubs and their status, and can't be manipulated it in any way.

I found a way around my problem. After removing the ATV hub from the Home view, it was still latched to my Apple TV in my daughter's dorm room. I logged into appleid.apple.com and removed that ATV from my devices and then disconnected my home's internet for just a minute. That forced HomeKit to choose another hub. Perhaps my issue isn't as similar to this thread as I thought, but perhaps removing devices from appleid.apple.com will help you too.

Same problem here. My ghost is operating as the main ‘server’ all others are in standby mode. A year back I completely deleted my house and all hubs and lights and started from scratch. Now my ghost hub is back again. Good luck waiting for apple to fix this.

Same issue here. I am noticing on 2 devices, an Apple TV 4K that was replaced, and an Vizio TV with HomeKit and AppleTV built in that was removed, reset and re-added