andrew67

ISY firmware 4.0.5

no, but, the Gui does not show Button D connected to anything, and the scene does not include button D as a controller. Want screenshots?

Yes, you would think so, except that while I have done programs like that before, this one was specifically set up to be "faster" i.e. to not require a program. And if I pull the plug on the ISY, it still works correctly. So its obviously NOT a program running on the ISY... Hence the question remains... [ motivation ] If there are links that the ISY doesn't know about, i suppose that can be considered ok. If there are links the ISY loses track of, I suppose that can be ok too. But when you compare link tables and the ISY and switches have different functionality but the same link table, then we have a bug that will find a way to create huge problems somehow. especially when you go to add more links... or remove links, and stuff will just stop working, or, worse, there will be dangling links to non-existent devices which won't respond and will slow the whole system to a crawl as every command retries a dozen times. Insteon is already slow enough....

Can't. Once I deleted it, now it only writes a few links so it doesn't have to go that long anymore...

Nope... In fact it happened when I deleted and re-added the device with the option to "remove all links" So really the only other devices link which should have been written would be the PLM

Your other comments are correct. the D button was set to turn the scene OFF. I forgot exactly how I did that so I went looking for it. I think the method I like uses the button toggle mode.

During long writes the remotelink 2 can time out while the ISY is still writing. Apparently pressing the set button for 3 seconds to reenter link mode immediately gets it going again before the ISY times out trying to write... In my system it takes about 35 link writes before the remotelinc 2 times out.

OK, So I did an upgrade from the isy 99i to the 994i. All went smoothly. I then added a scene, cleaned up a few things I'd been meaning to do. Removed and re-added the dual band device which was unsupported on the 99i, and checked. everything appears to work. So then I went to go look at how I did my bathroom all off button, and I couldn't find where the scene trigger was.... OK, must be a link was lost... I went and checked, and the scene still works. Pushing the D button immediately turns off all lights in the bathroom... So then I checked the link tables in the device. ISY 994 thinks all links are OK. but it doesn't show the D button connected to anything... Yet the D button is clearly connected. I power cycled the control in question, and it still is able to control the scene. So this is clearly a bug in the ISY handling of INSTEON. It can lose track of a link, and even with diagnostics we can't figure it out. Thoughts? I can supply whatever files you would like... I don't really know when the link inside the ISY was lost, but I do have some backup files and I can dump link tables if its needed. Thanks!

I understand. Its just that this is one of those things which causes home automation to have the shitty reputation it has to begin with. So now I have two options: 1) spend 2 hours ripping the device back out of the wall, returning it to smarthome, getting a different one, and then finally reprogramming my ISY99 2) spend $400 getting a new ISY, and then spend another (hopefully) 2 hours upgrading, and (hope) nothing else breaks in the process. Not exactly what I had in mind when I needed to replace a failed dimmer. With 140 devices scattered over 2 properties, I now have 8 error devices in the last 6 months. No usable diagnostics. Good thing I'm handling this myself. If I called an electrician, that would end up being $3K, and I'd have to give him a key to my place given how many times he would have been there..... Oh, and one is behind the fridge, and one in a fixture. fun eh? [food for thought, not asking for a response, and not interested in a flame war] I'm a tech guy, and I understand what the conditions under which all this stuff is supposed to work are, and I probably understand more technically about why things are the way they are than almost everyone else here. Thankfully I really couldn't care less about the money involved either. But If any of this is going to have an actual impact on peoples lives beyond the people who will pick up the screwdriver themselves, then this kind of thing can't be considered normal. It is not acceptable to ask people to constantly check for new versions of parts of their house and try to figure out compatibility lists when doing so. Its also not acceptable to have to constantly replace switches and deal with the dreaded comm errors, with no available diagnostic or network verification capabilities. Maybe none of this is UD's "problem". Smarthome isn't blameless obviously, and I'm sure things are getting better. But that's really not the point. [iF THE SWITCHES CAN BUILD LINKS BETWEEN THEMSELVES, THEN THERE IS NO REASON WHY ISY CAN'T LET YOU OVERRIDE THE DEVICE SETTINGS AND MAKE IT CONTINUE TO WORK TOO] And if we are upgrading, then how about we upgrade to something which can actually help make everything a lot better.

This DOES NOT work. Apparently you can set the device type to whatever you like, but the recovered data from the device always overrides it. SO forced obsolescence is alive and well. Some dual band devices seem to be covered, but apparently the keypad dimmer isn't. That's really sad, and I expect a LOT of people will run into this, especially since smarthome lists it as ISY compatible. I don't see this as an acceptable situation. Thoughts?