gregkinney

Awesome that worked! Thanks!

I have a program which turns the volume up on my Denon receiver and another which turns the volume down, I have the spoken words as "tv volume up" and "tv volume down". Right now I have to say, "Alexa, turn on tv volume up" and "Alexa, turn on tv volume down." The spoken words are tough for family members. Does anyone have suggestions to help the illogical word combination? In a perfect world, I would say "Alexa, tv volume up" and "Alexa, tv volume down".

Yes, I also suggest posting the goodnight program as well as the wake up program(s).

Oops, didn't even realize what forum I was in. Hopefully the developer chimes in. Does your watering program come on at the same time each day for the same amount of minutes?

My Rachio is in Home Assistant so I can't be of direct help to that specific device. I would suggest posting in the Rachio part of the forum so maybe the developer can help. Assuming there aren't specific ways for the Rachio plugin to let the ISY know if it is currently watering or not, here are the other basic logic ways that I would handle it, if it were me. 1. Use the time that the device is being used, so if you run the watering schedule at the same time. @oberkc covered how to handle this. 2. Use a variable. If you start the watering via an ISY program, create a variable and add a line to the program that triggers a unique value. You would then need to have a way to change this value back once the watering ends. Then in your program, check the variable value to decide when to use the dog water program.

I went through something similar recently. An outside light that was supposed to turn off at 11pm was still on each morning. However, I quickly moved past the issue that it was the program because that unchanged program had been working for 8+ years. Additionally, when I would open up the admin, I would get a message saying that it could not communicate with that problem device. I think @hart2hart and @Techman are both correct that it's a communication issue. Here was my journey:

Are the programs enabled?

Sure @IndyMike, here's the rundown of how I fixed this issue: I had three devices stop communicating consistently. Sometimes they would work when I tried to operate them from the admin, sometimes they wouldn't. Two of them were on/off modules in the theater closet and had gotten inadvertently plugged into a UPS so that was an easy fix. I unplugged them from the UPS and plugged them into the wall, then went ahead and put the UPS on a Filterlinc to be safe. The third was a 2477d dimmer switch in our home office. I ordered the Filterlinc and while I was waiting for it to arrive, I had learned that UPS's were notorious for noise. There is a UPS in our home office so I unplugged it and then plugged the PC that was plugged into the UPS straight into the wall. Still had inconsistent commuinication with the 2477d. I then unplugged everything in the room and then had consistent communication with the 2477d. After that, it was a matter of plugging things back in one at a time and testing until I found the culprit which was the PC. A few days later, the Filterlinc arrived and I plugged the PC into the UPS and plugged the UPS into the Filterlinc and voila! All is well now.

Just wanted to report back that I finally received my Powerline Noise Filter and I have fixed the issue. First, I misunderstood how UPS's contribute to noise. I thought that noise was created only if the Insteon device was plugged into a UPS, not simply having a UPS on the circuit. This circuit does have a UPS. Strangely, that wasn't it. It was a PC. For anyone reading, this PC has been plugged in for years with no changes. As @Michel Kohanim said in a similar forum post, "I used to be able to run 5 miles a day and do 15 pull ups. As I aged, things rapidly deteriorated. The same is true for electronics especially power related, but with one difference: they start creating noise. So, please never ever count on 'things used to work for n years'." Thanks everyone for your help.

Currently investigating into the potential noise issue. Is it likely something that's on the same circuit as the offending Insteon device? Or could the noise be coming from a different circuit breaker?

I experienced other issues last night. I would turn off a scene in a room and 5 of the 6 lights would turn off and one would stay on. The status of that light would say "off" but the light would be on. It's all very intermittent. I'm going to unplug the HDHomeRun and the new LED grow lights and do some testing today. Also the new PLM should be here next week. Again, I'm replacing that to be proactive, I understand it's likely a noise issue. Regarding the blinking red light on the original suspect wall dimmer: it would blink red a handful of times when I turned it on or off by hand - nothing to do with the 4 tap test. Also very intermittent. Sometimes it would blink red and sometimes it would not blink red. I found this post where @Brian H says that the blinking red light means a communication error, likely to noise. That seems to be the consensus here so that's where I'm going to start.

I might not completely understand the 4 tap test so I did it two ways, hopefully someone can teach me. I did the 4 tap test from an on/off module near the PLM. The on/off module did the chirp per second and I saw a nearby device flashing red, however, the PLM showed no difference. And, in case I misunderstood the exercise, I went to the room with the offending wall dimmer and did the 4 tap test on a nearby lamplinc. The lamplinc chirped and a nearby on/off module flashed red but the offending wall dimmer did nothing. Additionally, I turned the offending wall dimmer on and then off, and after it was turned off, the red light flashed a handful of times and then stopped.

Ok well then, the plot thickens. I tried the 4 tap test and nothing happened. The PLM made the audible chirping sound once per second, but regarding other Insteon devices: no lights blinked, no lights brightened, no changes. I have probably 12 dual band devices within 20 ft of the PLM, two of which are around 3ft from it.

Everything in my home is dual band. I'm racking my brain for any new sources of noise. I've never had issues with signal so I've never had to explore this path before so I'm not exactly sure what the offending devices are. I'm assuming UPS, appliances, motors. I replaced my AirTV with an HDHomeRun recently. These devices takes local channels from an antenna and streams them through the house via the Internet. But it's not new - I just replaced one box with a different brand that does the same thing. My wife added some grow lights in the garage for her Spring plants, but they are just 110v LED shop lights, nothing special. I can understand the two on/off modules acting up as they are plugged into an extension cord, but it's the hard wired Insteon 2477d wall dimmer that's really throwing me. That has been there for 8 years without one single issue. And even then, I replaced it and had the same issues with the new (used) wall dimmer. With all of that said, I've had zero problems the last 72 hours. It's been problems every day for 10 days, and then no issues for the last 3 days. I'm an overkill guy so I'm still going to replace my PLM. It's about 6 years old and is the one that goes bad so I would rather be proactive than reactive. I guess the next step is to sit and wait and if it keeps happening, start down the noise rabbit hole. Thank all of you for your time.

@paulbates and @Techman thanks for the help. I can't think of any new electronics I have added. The PLM is 6+ years old so I'm hoping it's as easy as replacing that. I have ordered a new one from Insteon so I'll get that replaced and fingers crossed it fixes the issue.

All of the sudden I'm getting "Cannot Communicate With..." on two on/off modules. Plus one dimmer switch in my wall is not turning on or off with the scene and program. I replaced the dimmer switch with a new one and the behavior did not change. Hundreds of Insteon devices with my Polisy. Had it for 6-7 years, no recent changes. Any thoughts?

@apostolakisl very interesting. I also use nodelink. Wonder if that's what it was for me.

I was able to fix the problem by upgrading to PG3X. Well, at least so far. 3 days now and no disconnects.

Just go to each device and query it in the admin console and see if the status changes from OFF to ON (if they are indeed still on).

After reading through these posts, it seems there are a couple front runners for replacement - Yolink and Ratgdo with Ratgdo being preferred. Can someone please offer a comparison of the pros and cons of each and why Ratgdo seems to be preferred?

@Kentinada What happens if you query the devices?

@PB11 Did you start a ticket? Please do so hopefully something gets done about this.

Thought I would share my updated ticket: Michel Kohanim replied 22 minutes ago Hi Greg, the first thing you need to do is to disable HA for a day and see whether or not you still get these issues. As far as I remember, your HA was bombarding IoX with traffic. Although we may have fixed the crash, it does not mean that Polisy can handle the traffic. View less! Greg Kinney replied 31 minutes ago Yes the last runtimes are correct. Yes I am on 5.7.1. When I was on 5.7.0 and I would get a disconnect/reconnect notice on my phone from the UD app, it would be 5-10 minutes before any devices would respond because it was loading everything (I assume it had restarted or crashed). Now on 5.7.1, when I get a disconnect/reconnect notice, my devices are still immediately responsive. So if it's a network related issue, is that on my end or on your end? View less! Michel Kohanim replied 56 minutes ago Thanks Greg. So, the last/next runtimes are correct? If so, the issue is network related. What's your IoX version? Is it really 5.7.1?

I'm not confident I'm having serious issues anymore. Before updating to 5.7.1, I would notice 2-4 crashes per day and I would confirm it indeed was crashing because it would be 5-10 minutes before things would respond again. After updating to 5.7.1, I'm getting notifications that it has disconnected and reconnected 1-2 times per day, however, I don't think it is crashing this time. Things are immediately responding after I get the notifications. It might be exactly what Michel said - that it just loses connectivity with the portal temporarily. So we might be having different issues, I'm not sure. Are you on 5.7.1?

Michel said he was making changes on the ISY side to be able to handle HA so I would keep to that logic at the moment. I'm excited for you to share all of the above with them in your ticket. Please let me know what happens, I'm going to wait to do anything until you hopefully get somewhere with the above info.