MarkJames

Yep - I definitely *could have* or *should have* put a designation of some sort with each of my 160 KPL buttons but you know what they say about hindsight... The alphabetizing is the problem. If there was either a way to turn the alphabetizing off or to have the UI indicate which button is which I think that would be an improvement. Perhaps I'll put this in as a feature request...

I'm not - I use the button names. It's just for organization. I wanted to make the left button on the second row into a controller for a different scene than it was already assigned to. Without going down and looking at it I didn't know which scene the left button on the second row was already assigned to. I suppose if I'd taken all the buttons off a KPL without noting what they were assigned to it would be a bigger problem - I'd have to reinstall it and press each button individually to figure out which was which. mark

lol - direct approach. I was sitting here in the house trying to reconfigure the buttons on a KPL down on my dock. I couldn't remember which button was which as I've changed their functionality quite a bit. I was trying to figure it out without walking down to the dock and either looking at it or - as you did - pressing the button. mark

I suppose... Seems like there *should* be a way to see this directly within ISY, though... mark

Could be... it would be a nice feature, though. How did you get your button to show in event viewer without writing to it? mark

Thanks Lee - I was just looking at that.... Didn't the UI used to display it before? I was sure that when you went into the Main tab and clicked on the root node of a KPL it brought up in the main properties window the name with the address and device type as it does now but with a suffix for which button it represented so that when you looked at the load button it would say KPL-GARAGE 0A.AB.1E-1 (2486D) Keypadlinc Dimmer v.2A but when you looked at button B it would say KPL-Driveway 0A.AB.1E-2 (2486D) Keypadlinc Dimmer v.2A Am I imagining this?

lol - no, I know that... Once you rename them, though, how can you tell which one is which without looking at your labels? When you first link it it will name it newdevice - A newdevice - B newdevice - C etc But once I change it to Room Light Table Lamp Reading light etc How can I tell which button is, say, A, from the ISY admin panel without looking at the physical KPL. I'm not sure if it was ISY or one of the other platforms I used prior to it that labelled them in the main device list with .1, .2, .3 or maybe it was .a, .b, .c... mark

I'm probably having a seniors moment here but maybe someone could refresh my memory. So if I look at a KPL-8, for instance, grouped in my admin console I see all 8 buttons with the meaningful names I gave them. But what happens if I can't see the KPL from where I'm sitting or I've pulled the buttons off it so that I don't know which is which. There was (is?) a place where the interface told me which button was which - if memory serves it used to look like the devices were like ab.cd.ef.1 and ab.cd.ef.2 etc. up to ab.cd.ef.8 Is that still somewhere that I'm not seeing or has that been deprecated? mark

apostolakisl, I was sitting down to plan out the GDO run by the Elk today. I figured I'd use the Elk to control the fireplace as well. The thing is that all methods I have to trigger the Elk to open/close the garage door/fireplace are going to be via Insteon buttons unless I use Elk keypads or keyfobs. I suppose that the ALL-ON problem is a responder event as I see no device ON commands in the event viewer so the Elk should be unaffected. Are you just using a program something like if control KPL-Fireplace is ON Elk Output GDO ON Off Timer 1 second Seems like that's all it should take... To ensure even greater security I could require a fast-on or fast-off event.... just thinking out loud

In recent years I've set up a few programs and variables so that things don't ever get stuck 'on' for a day. I have a motion sensor that I put facing out one of my windows. I don't use it for motion sensing - just for dusk to dawn sensing. It sets a variable indicating if it's dark or not. My old JDS Stargate used to just use your lat/long to determine sunrise/sunset and you could base things on whether it was dark or not. I miss that functionality. I was getting it back by setting variables in the ISY from the ISY interface to Homeseer but the motion sensor is easy and it works well so I've switched to that. I really miss having full calendar conditions in ISY - I've been hoping for that feature for 10 years now but it doesn't seem to be on the list. I've tried some of the calendar type programs in ISY but I find them way too kludgy to be of any real use. When many of my scenes get turned on by a controller, rather than by sensor or by some other condition or schedule, I set a variable that indicates that the light *should* be on or *should* be off. Just a simple 'garage_light_should_be_on' = 0 or 1 for instance. These variables time out depending on the location and whether it's dark out or not. Every 5 minutes a program runs that turns off scenes based on time of day, occupancy, etc. With these variables set I can leave lights etc. alone. I had to switch to these variables to avoid turning lights off right after someone had just finished turning them on. Or lights that *should* be on at night but then also get tripped by a motion sensor or door contact on a timer which turns them off after 5 minutes even though they were 'meant' to be on (if this makes sense). Or things that are normally on a timer but sometimes you don't *want* them to be on a timer but you *do* want them to go back on the timer after you're finished doing what you're doing. I found these problems infuriating. Many of my lights that are timed or cycled allow you to bypass that cycling by simply fast-on'ing them. The cycle/timed bypass will expire after a few hours or when you fast-off them. I started doing this a few years ago when I had to do some work in my attic. My kids would sometimes hit the attic light switch instead of the hall light switch so I had a routine that turned off the attic light every 5 minutes. Problem was that I had work to do in the attic and I kept getting plunged into darkness. This is what I came up with and it's gotten more and more elaborate over the years till it fits our lifestyle reasonably well now. The hardest part of automating for me has been having the automation system not make things worse and also not having to live your life according to the rules of the home automation controller! Anyways - I've been reconfiguring a lot in the last few days to avoid too many links. I used to have a scene that turned everything in the house off. It was just one big-assed scene with about a half dozen KPL buttons that controlled it and then a bunch more that triggered it through a fast-on or fast-off via program. But with a hundred or so devices and 40+ KPL 6's or 8's involved many of my devices held upwards of 100 links - it became quite unwieldy. You were definitely NOT getting a fully successful scene test out of that scene. It would also take the better part of an hour to do a restore on some of the controllers that held this scene. The reconfiguration has scenes that are just logical areas (kitchen, laundry, all of one floor, etc.). ALL ON/OFF is generally a KPL press that immediately turns on/off the local scene by direct link and also triggers an ISY program to turn off the other scenes desired. There's a lag but it's not that bad. Having come from X-10 this is pretty darned good.

An hour a year! Sounds like something else for us older, married guys than bathroom time

Thanks for your help, Lee. I'm going to make an effort to map all my devices and eliminate any non-linked ones. I've got ones dating back to the first years of Insteon that I recycle for various projects and so there may be ones that I don't know about. As I sit here watching links write I just watched a series of X10 addresses get sent a P7 P6 P5 P4 P4/On series. That would indicate that it comes from a very old device as I migrated to Insteon from X10 controlled by JDS Stargate. I'd appreciate your opinion on the value of changing some of my older devices out for newer dual bands. My installation is quite extensive and some of the more remote devices can be 300+ ft from the PLM. Though I have a number of 2443 access points around and a growing number of dual band devices I still find a lot of missed writes and reads - the 'max hops=3, hops left=0' or the Set-MSB(0) errors during link writes. My home has 2 meters - it's a bit unusual. It was an initiative from our power provider 30 years ago to charge one rate for regular electricity usage and a lower rate for heating usage. So the power comes into our home through a main meter then feeds a second panel through a second meter. This means that some of the Insteon signals must pass through a meter no matter where I put the PLM. I try to mitigate the problem by using phase couplers on the panels and access points to form a bridge past the meters but there's still issues. Do dual band devices help as much as access points and is an installation with a large number of dual band devices generally more robust? While it would be a fairly costly upgrade I've already got more than $10k invested in Insteon. Another $1500 or so to solidify it would be do-able. Thanks, mark

No - it sometimes get 4, sometimes 2, sometimes 1 - it's random. If you watch the video I posted you can see both the count in action and the event viewer. I see no insteon traffic in the event viewer that should disrupt the PLM link count - it just stops with the 02 6A 15. The highest I've seen it count is 41. I have 89 devices plus another 10-12 that are not controlled by ISY in my system. Of the 89 there are at least 20 KPL8's and another 20 KPL 6's. So at the very least I should have 160 for the 8's and 120 for the 6's. Plus a minimum of 1 for each of the other 50 devices so I should see a minimum of 350 or so links. I should probably just leave things alone as it works. The only thing is that since my PLM failure a couple of weeks ago I've been getting random ALL-ON events so I'm looking at all aspects to see what may be wrong. Most of the reading I've done points at the PLM so that's where I've been focussing. With my previous PLM's (and I've gone through at least 5-6 in the dozen or more years I've been involved) I've NEVER had an ALL-ON event so this is very disconcerting. Here is a list of my devices. I know it's not considered right to post the insteon addresses but I'm not bothered. mark

Thanks for the explanation. I've exhausted everything I can think of to do a PLM link count. I backed up my ISY and did a restore PLM followed by a Show PLM links but I still can't get past around 40. I know it's not 'necessary' to do a link count - it just *should* work and it's not. The PLM I'm using is a version 95 that's a few years old. Since installing it a couple of weeks ago I've had a few spontaneous ALL ON events that are quite maddening. Yesterday I'd posted that I thought it resolved but then last night it happened again - not ALL on but MANY on and my GDO open this morning much to my chagrine. I'm going to change control of that over to my Elk once I get the rest of this sorted. I purchased a new PLM to keep as a backup that is version 9E. I'm going to replace the v95 with the v9E and see if any of these problems resolve. Mark

By ISY Links I mean if I go into the Tools->Diagnostics->Show ISY Links I can see the records that ISY holds for each device. If I go to each device one by one and total up all the records that ISY holds I get 1764 links from the 89 different physical devices I have. This would represent the links for each of the single paddle devices, i/o devices, and KPL buttons plus links for all the scene memberships. It's this number that has me concerned. I've just finished deleting a very large scene that held every device whether it was a light or a KPL button so that I could turn off every device in the house from one button press. That should save me a bunch of PLM space. I'm going to go pull the battery on that leak sensor then restore my PLM and see if I can get a PLM link count. mark

Thanks. It occurred to me that I do have one RF device - a leak sensor. I'll go pull the battery from it to see if it's the problem. Should the number of PLM links be roughly the same as the number of ISY links? mark

Ok..... so I've been going through my ISY links device by device and I think it's pretty clear that I have more links than I should. I'm only a quarter of the way through and I'm well over 700 links already. I'll go through them all and see how many I actually have but it will take some time. My understanding is that 1024 or so is the max on a 2413S. So... any thoughts on how to reduce the number of links without reducing functionality? mark [edit] 1764 links is what I count by totallng up all ISY links from all devices.... I think I have a problem

Thanks Lee, I understand about the issue with Insteon traffic. That's why I shut down my Elk and homeseer and stopped all programs. I'm the only one in the house so nobody is changing any devices. I have no wireless devices in my network whatsoever. How would I determine what is reaching the PLM that's stopping the link enumeration? Alternatively, is there a way to determine the number of links the ISY has recorded for me so that I can determine if I've maxed out my PLM? mark

Hi Paul, Is there an option to show the ISY links table for the entire database? All I see is an option to show it device by device... mark

I posted a link of the session above so you can see it happen. It just counts up a few and then stops with no message. Weird. mark

Everything works quite well - I'm just trying to figure out some issues with devices that are quite a distance from the main house. We have a pool in the backyard and I have some communication issues with devices there so I've been swapping out some of the dual-band devices in the house with the older ones down there attempting to improve matters. I wanted to check my PLM links just to ensure that I'm not over the 1k link limit. I have a LOT of links and a LOT of devices so it's a constant fear. I'm wondering if perhaps this PLM behavior isn't a manifestation of too many links but I've not found any articles/posts on the topic. The view you're seeing is actually from exactly what you suggested - I powered down the PLM for a minute and the ISY as well. I then powered up the PLM for a minute or two then powered up the ISY. I've put a condition on the programs main folder (if 0=1) so make sure that nothing in the folder runs. I've turned off my Elk and disabled the M1XEP connection through the ISY configuration and I've turned off my Homeseer PC. That's why I was running the event viewer - to make sure that I didn't have some unwanted traffic messing up the count. I'll reboot again and see.... mark

Here's a video screencap of what I'm seeing https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8j492hm4iwnndx/Rec_008.avi?dl=0

I'm doing some troubleshooting and am trying to check my PLM links. I've stopped all programs, disabled my Elk, and turned off the PC that integrates my ISY to Homeseer so the ISY and PLM should be completely isolated. I start the Tools->Diagnostics->Show PLM Links and it counts to maybe 4 at which point the event viewer shows 'Writing 0 bytes to devices' and the count stops. Is there something I can do to clear this behavior? mark [edit] I've disabled the write to device options and it goes farther now - but it still won't make it more than 30-40 links in. I should be pushing 750-1000 links

I've lost count of PLMs - probably 5 or so by now - but not all were because of failures, some were for functionality/headroom. Funny you mention the PLM fix. I found that thread on the weekend and thought I'd give it a go. Sadly when I went to remove the board from the box I pushed on the ethernet connector and it stripped all the connections off the board. That pretty much stopped me right there. The 'new' PLM I have is actually a few years old as I bought it for a spare. So far it's running nice and cool so I hope it has a long, happy life. mark

Fair enough - it's an easy enough change as the sensors etc. are all wired to the Elk already anyways. The peace of mind will be worth the hour or two of sorting out and testing.