lhranch

Well in fact, I status my outdoor devices three times a day, specifically to detect popped GFCIs (there are devices on the grounds that have limited backup batteries and I need to know when they've lost power). I even have a micro module in one location that controls nothing, just so I can status that circuit to detect when it pops. But my mention of the outdoor modules was merely to explain why I didn't think my PLM had failed. When Admin Console specifically calls out the outdoor modules as inaccessible upon launching, that implies that it had no problems accessing the indoor modules, or else I would have gotten error messages about them, too. And yet it won't control anything, indoors or outdoors. And it also reports bogus on/off status for most of them. Meanwhile, the physical switches and pushbuttons continue to work the lights properly, both indoors and out.

My in-service PLM is serial, purchased 2017-05-12. Label: 2413S, V2.2, 1629. My previous PLM went dead, and it took so long to get this one as a replacement that I ordered up a spare as well -- label: 2413S, Revision 2.4, 4716. It has never been used. I didn't swap it in to test because my understanding is that a significant portion of the home's configuration exists inside the PLM and I would have to go through the trouble of loading it when my problem didn't necessarily seem PLM-related. What do you advise?

I upgraded to the eisy a month or so ago after many years running the ISY, and for the past week or so, it's not been acting properly. I can talk to it with the Admin Console, but simple commands to turn devices on or off (as well as the timed programmatic commands to turn them on and off) are having no effect. The Admin Console reflects the fact that nothing is happening (that is, it doesn't claim the command succeeded when it failed, it correctly shows no change in state). When I launch the Console, it tells me it can't communicate with any of my outdoor devices -- not unheard of, because we've had unusual rain in the past week and that often fritzes our outdoor signal paths -- but only the outdoor devices, so this indicates to me that my PLM has not gone south. Any advice as to how to troubleshoot this issue?

The documentation I have been able to find on the Admin console skips over a lot of stuff. I can't find anything that describes the configuration parameter "HTML Role" or what it does. Help?

I migrated my ISY to my new EISY last night. By and large, the migration was nominal. Comments follow. The migration process entirely neglected to migrate the SMTP information, left it blank/default. Is there really no way to change the communications ports, which are now grayed out? I had a folder named "Spares" that contained disabled devices -- those in cold storage that were set up but not installed. After migration, I had the folder, but it was empty. I logged in a few times to see if it was just a persistence thing, but it stayed empty. Today, when I logged into the EISY, they were suddenly there. I can't explain this, but it was weird behavior. There are some new capabilities that look interesting, but are entirely neglected by the Wiki manual. These include: Everything about the Networking screen in Configurations. In the Email screen, what is "enable TPM?" In the email targets ("Groups"), there is a configuration field in which you can choose either "Regular Email" or a bunch of carrier-specific emails. But changing this value for one target seems to change it for all targets. Plus, there's no explanation of what this does or why you would use it. I thought it might help me send SMS as well as emails, but the "all for one" behavior was too squirrely for me to risk playing with. The upgrade instructions hint somewhere about not having to use an Ethernet cable anymore because the unit has WiFi. The Wiki talks about entering and exiting WiFi setup mode. But the Wiki doesn't talk about how to set up WiFi, and there is no obvious WiFi control in the Admin Console. Is there someplace I need to be looking other than the Wiki page? Finally -- and this is not actually a migration issue -- some time back I managed to damage or delete the Admin Console Java file and ended up having to download it again from the website. IIRC, for some reason, it gave me default screens with no devices. I believe I ended up downloading the Java from the ISY itself, and I got the proper household configuration. However, every time I used the Console, I would get the error in the image below. It was entirely uninformative, yet it didn't seem to keep me from doing anything. I was hoping it would go away when I migrated to the EISY, but it didn't. How can I get rid of the error and get a clean install of the Admin Console summoner and all its associated files, one that works properly? Thanks for your help.

I realize the ISY is deprecated, but it's what I have, so... Does the ISY support the new i3 paddle unit?

If I "set query" to a scene, does it issue queries to all devices in that scene, or does it have some other semantic relative to the scene itself? Background: I need to determine in sequence whether each one of a set of devices is responding (I'm detecting dead outdoor breakers) and send messages for any that aren't. I determined (after years of not knowing this) that just asking if the device is responding doesn't actually check its state in real time, it just returns the last state the ISY stored for it. To update the "responding" state, I have to actively issue a query. This is why my program has only been working once a day (a default system program issues a global query once a day). I know I can do a global query to the "entire system" folder, but that's overkill. I tried creating a subfolder to put my desired devices into so I could query the subfolder, but I couldn't find a way in the admin console to make a subfolder. So instead I grouped them into a new scene, and made their actions all "query" (probably overkill, but I didn't want to risk inadvertently turning something on or off if I referenced the scene from my phone by accident). So... if I query the scene, will it issue queries to all those devices and update their statuses? If the answer is no, then given that the devices' actions in that scene are all "query," could I get what I wanted by setting the scene active instead?

I'm investigating adding the Z-Wave dongle to my ISY 994i on 5.3.2. The instructions say I will also need to purchase the Z-Wave module for $1. However, when I go to Purchase Modules, it brings me to the UD webpage, which demands I login, and the only way it will allow me to login is with an ISY Portal ID. I don't have a portal account. I've bought modules in the past without one. Am I now required to create one just to buy a $1 module?

Well, you're totally right. The LED Brightness button does indeed do something now (I think my error last time was having to walk into the next room to see what the effect had been, and misjudging that there had been none, but the change is quite obvious if you're sitting in front of the switch at the time). Also the Backlight setting works also, provided you go back and click the Backlight button, which I wasn't doing (I was just doing Write Changes). I'm disappointed to hear that I can't adjust the ON level of individual buttons, but I'll live with it. I may just grab some neutral gray film and insert a square of it under the cap to try to approximate the same effect. Thanks for the help.

So then you're telling me that the "LED Brightness" button at the bottom (the only one that actually seemed to send something to the switch) really has no effect at all?

I have several 6 and 8-button keypads. I had a requirement to make the backlighting indicator for "on" for a couple buttons on each one significantly dimmer than "on" for the other buttons. I thought this would be a straightforward task. It isn't. Each switch appears in the Admin Console as an indented list, with button 1 (the load button) as the aggregator, and the rest indented. Each button has a Backlight setting in the main portion of its screen. It also has an LED Brightness button in the bottom menu. The load button has several other settings in the main portion of its screen. When I first opened the Admin Console today and looked at my first device (a 2334-2 v.43), every one of these values were set to 0/0. This is odd, because all my keypads have a slight glow when off, and I remember setting this long ago, yet it doesn't seem to be reflected anywhere. On any button's main screen I can set Backlight to some arbitrary value. If I bring up the LED Brightness popup, those values aren't reflected there, even if I write changes. (Writing changes produces no "green activity" in the left column.) But the Backlight value propagates to every other button in the group except the load button. Regardless, this value doesn't seem to do anything. If I pull up LED Brightness for any button and set these values there, they immediately propagate to every other button on the pad, and "green activity" happens immediately in the left column without me "writing changes." The "Backlight" values aren't affected by this activity. Heres the kicker: no matter what I set anything to, no actual effect is evident to the physical LED backlighting on this device! Buttons are full on (I assume) when on, and dim when off. Am I playing with completely the wrong controls? I'm running v.5.3.2.

I can understand iOS being confused by the symbolic URL... I'm not going to attempt to use the portal service. For privacy reasons, I'm simply not a fan of cloud services of that type. If I erase that URL on the app and use the magnifying glass to search for the ISY, I get the same error about "Could not connect to local network... if UD Mobile does not have permission to access the local network," It says to try again if it really does have permission, but nothing ever changes. I turned off cell data on my phone, then did a packet sniff of my cell phone's MAC address from my shop wireless access point. I started UD Mobile, went to the Local Connection Settings (the Local IP address had been erased) and hit the magnifying glass. When I got the error message, I hit Retry three times, then stopped the trace. I got nothing on there but a single ARP for the gateway router -- maybe from your app, maybe not, but due to the timing, I suspect it was. (The first packet was an unrelated keepalive to my cell provider, because I run WiFi calling.) It does look like UD Mobile isn't even trying to find the ISY, as if it believes it genuinely does not have permission. But Settings still says it does. Then I used a fully numeric address for the local address... and this time the app connected, and populated the screens. I bopped around for a bit, but the UI looked much more primitive than MobiLinc, wordier, and less compartmentalized (devices and scenes in the same list), and I didn't seem to have any capabilities that I didn't already have there (e.g., editing the programs). Between that and the fact that I can already access my ISY remotely without all the certificate hassle, I don't see myself preferentially switching to UD Monitor. Thanks for all your help. If you'd still like my help debugging this "no access to network" problem, I'll be happy to do more tests at your direction. Keep in mind that there are pretty good free iPhone screen sharing apps if you need to approximate "being on site."

Haven't gotten around to making the Wireshark dump... but after your update of two days ago, the mystery unravels itself further. When attempting the local connection, instead of the old code=8 nonsense, I now see: Error: The resource could not be loaded because the App Transport Security policy requires the use of a secure connection. Note again, this is for the local connection option only, which I understood is not supposed to require this.

If you think it would be worthwhile, I could send you a wireshark-able dump of the traffic on the ISY's IP during a code=8 failure.

The away from home MobiLinc connection specifies HTTPS and a port way up in the five digit range, which is what the ISY is set to listen to. It has been operating fine that way for years. When I manually browsed to the ISY, It was numeric, but I didn't bother to specify any port knowing that Safari would use 80 anyway. But I did it again right now with :80 just in case, and there was no difference in the response. I got no security warnings at all from anything. I'm positive my DNS is not set up to redirect anything to HTTPS; I wouldn't even know how to do that if I wanted to, and I would have no reason to do that in the first place.

Well, that was a trip. I never even thought of trying to browse directly into the ISY before, but it worked. I slightly missed following your instructions, so the first thing I did was log into it and look at a couple of the screens just out of fascination. Then I went to the rest/time URL like I should have in the first place, and it gave me a string of numbers and trues and falses back. Then I went to a private tab and went there again, and it asked me to login again. So all of that mechanism seems to be working just fine.

I do already have a public domain name with a static address and a short TTL. I also have a private DNS inside the LAN that resolves that same name directly to the LAN address of the ISY, also with a short TTL. So I have been using a URL of the form "http://x.y.net" for both the local and remote communication on MobiLinc for years with no problems whatsoever. I do also have the incoming VPN capability setup, and could use if it I have to, but I'd rather get stuff working the way it is supposed to work before resorting to crutches. (If I have to establish a VPN before I can open the gate for the Fedex guy, he's gone.) When I use the exact same parameters in UD Mobile that I use i MobiLinc, I immediately get: Error: Error Domain= Code=8 "(null)". When I change the local address in UD Mobile to the numeric address, I get a 10-30 sec. spinner with "Connecting to network. Looking for ISY", followed by the same: Error: Error Domain= Code=8 "(null)". This suggests to me that UD Mobile is immediately fumbling the DNS lookup in the other case. Since my last message, I have discovered the existence of cheap CA certs that (while not free) are nowhere near my service provider's charges. At $5/year with up to five year expiration (Comodo from Namecheap), I am certainly willing to pursue those... provided that I can at least get this app working over the local network so I can play with it to see if it offers me significant advantage over MobiLinc.

Thanks. Now that you point this out, I see that almost without exception, nearly every switch I have is not a controller of its device's scene, but only a responder. I really don't know how that could have happened I can see I have a bit of reconfiguration ahead of me. Edit: I think I understand why I set it up this way. It was a misunderstanding of the semantics. If the direct load of a switch was the device I wanted the scene to control, I considered the switch to be the "target" of the scene and therefore made it a responder. I see now that was not the proper semantics. Thanks again.

Yes, I cleared my Java cache every time I downloaded a new start.jnlp, as instructed. I got rid of Trace and Log Files, and Cached Applications and Applets. I didn't get rid of Installed Applications and Applets, because it didn't come pre-checked, indicating it was something I was likely not to want to do. The About tab for ISY Finder says "Java version 1.0 (1.8.0_291)", which appears totally useless to me. I know I'm running 1.8.0_291, from the Java Control Panel. If downloading start.jnlp doesn't update this, then damned if I know how else to do it. All I have are the Wiki install instructions. Once I open up the device, I can see the following, which I assume is what you've been asking for. But to be honest, this scene was created quite some time ago, under 4.something, and I have no way of knowing what it said then. The scene, as depicted in the left-hand column, looks like this: That looks much more straightforward and exactly what one would expect to see. But the detailed information in the various main windows seems to indicate issues.

When I click the magnifying glass icon next to "Local IP Address" I get: ... and yet... It's looking as though I may punt my planned adoption of this app over the CA certificate thing, especially since MobiLinc doesn't have this requirement. (I feel your pain over Apple's anal-retentiveness, but "Krupke, we've got troubles of our own.") A $70-$200/year provider certificate throws it into the realm of businesses or hobbyi$ts, and LetsEncrypt's Unix-orientation and frequent renewal requirements (that I strongly suspect the ISY doesn't automate) pretty much queer that whole deal.

I said in the original post that I just updated the ISY to 5.3 this morning. I said in my second post that I re-downloaded the UI (which I what I understand the start.jnlp thing to be) bout an hour ago, just to make sure. If that doesn't answer your question, then I don't know how to answer your question. Tell me what to look for. You have an image of my scene in the previous post. I don't see any blues anywhere, just a red Off and a red On. If I have any more information available to me than what is in that screen, I don't know about it. I agree with your statement that "they should all be controllers." But you're not telling me how to achieve that, and what you see in those screens is what the UI/ISY gave me when I originally created that scene.

There's only one load I control programmatically, and even then I do it via scenes. The buttons that are sticking on (or sometimes off) are other than that load. Here's an example of the scene for one of the lights that constantly misbehaves. As far as I can see, it's pure vanilla. Oh what joy -- I have serendipitously caught it in wonky state! So here is a related screen: OK, now I think I see the problem -- it's not a responder to Pool Deck Floods Switch. It's looks even more widespread: Pool Deck Floods Switch isn't even a controller for its own device's scene, never mind the Nook button. Is that right? How did that happen? If I click on Pool Deck Floods Switch and try to add it to the scene, it tells me it's already there. Well, it's a direct load switch, so... It's like the ISY (or the UI, whatever) is misconfiguring/mislinking these scenes.

I'll follow the other points up as I get time to experiment with them, but I thought I'd address this. I went back to ensure this was the case. The instructions say: Well, it installs the icon on my desktop all right, but it's worthless: Really, for a Java app? Very unfriendly. I'm not upgrading this Mac because later releases are SSD-dependent and trash spinners. Looks like from now on I'll just have to open it via start.jnlp when I need it.

You're right – I had only use local connections checked. I turned it off, and this time I got the original error message, Error domain equals nothing, code equals eight, null If you didn't see the post script I added to my previous posting, check it out. With "only use local connection" turned on, it still reached out and touched my router remotely when I used the test button.

Well, now it's getting even more bizarre. I'm out in the car, miles away from my home network, and when I test the remote connection, I get a weird error message that seems to be saying I'm still connected to my home network – but my Wi-Fi isn't connected to anything, and I am on cell data exclusively. And I know it did contact my router on the correct port, because I got a warning notification from my router that somebody on the Internet was accessing my ISY. But the app message makes no sense and I can't understand what he's trying to tell me.