upstatemike

I thought of that but the LEDs on the switch confirm when the button is in and when it is released. I just looked at the link table of the entry switch using PowerHome and it is definitely a mess. I am now looking for some confirmation that a factory reset is supposed to completely clear the link table? I am going to clear the switch again and then take another look at the link table before restoring the switch.

While I am waiting to see what happens with the Attic lights I need to troubleshoot another issue. In this configuration I have 4 switches, 3 lamps, a controllinc, and 3 scenes. I will refer to the switches as switch 3, switch 4, switch 5, and entry switch. The scenes are: controlinc button 5 scene, switch 3 scene, switch and switch 5 scene. Contrlinc button 5 scene is controlled by controlinc button 5 AND entry switch. This scene controls all switches and lamps. Switch 3 scene is controlled by switch 3 AND switch 4. It controls switch 3, switch 4, and the lamps. Switch 5 scene is controlled by switch 5. It controls switch 4 as a responder only. (Switch 4 does not control switch 5.) PROBLEM: All switches work as expected EXCEPT switch 4. Switch 4 should act exactly the same as swithc 3 and control the switch 3 group. This should only operate switch 3, switch 4, and the lamps. INSTEAD, switch 4 acts like it is operating the controlinc button 5 scene because ALL lights and lamps operate when switch 4 is pressed. I have reviewed the associations within ISY to confirm that I have not overlooked any links. I have restored switch 4 to make sure it has a clean link table. I have restored switch 5 and entry switch to ensure no stray responder links remain in their tables. Despite these steps, switch 4 still operated all the lights and lamps. I did a factory reset of entry switch and then restored it again (just to be really really sure there is not responder link for switch 4 still in it). Entry switch still goes on when I operate switch 4! What else can I do to troubleshoot this? Clearly there are links persisting even through a factory reset!

It has now been 24 hours with the keypad disabled using the airgap switch. No lights have turned themselves on during this period. I am going to restore power to the keypad now and see what happens.

Good idea. I'll disable it tomorrow and see if I can go a couple of days without the lights coming on.

OK. At 20:42 the attic lights turned on by themelves. The ISY has been unplugged for the last 23 1/2 hours so I guess it is off the hook for being the cause. Only 2 of the 7 linked switches came on but the Keypadlinc button D LED DID light up. All devices have been through a factory reset so it should not be related to X10 traffic. My best guess at this point would be that a demon or poltergeist is actually pressing buttons in the attic to turn these lights on. Tomorrow I am going to replace the keypadlinc to see if that does anything.

Yes the Stargate listens to the powerline and waits until it is clear before transmitting. It does not understand Insteon but will see it as line noise and will avoid collisions with Insteon traffic. To learn more about Stargate check out jdstechnologies.com ISY is now unplugged.

I'll unplug the ISY shortly and then we will see. I don't think we have enough information for a diagnosis yet, but maybe by tomorrow we will know what needs to be done.

Hardwired motion sensor connected to Stargate triggers an X10 ON from Stargate based on rules (time of day, is the light set to stay on and ignore motion, etc.) I have tried to manually trigger the switches with X10 commands but have not been able to reproduce the problem. I do not think any X10 address is set in any of these devices, but only a peek at the switch's local settings can confirm that 100% (An invalid value in the X10 register could produce unpredictable results from general X10 traffic without responding consistently to any specific X10 command.)

No, stargate should not be able to control these switches. It is X10 only and there should not be any X10 address in these switches at this point. (I need to find a tool that will let me confirm this as I have come to distrust the factory reset procedure). There are no other Insteon controllers. PowerHome is disbled and the PLC is unplugged. I have not set up my touch screen yet so it is not a factor. My Elk panel is not yet installed. I need the evening actions to work today so I will power the ISY off around 10PM and leave it off for 24 hours, or until I get an indication that the attic lights have turned on by themselves (whichever comes first).

The attic lights went on again at 7:18 this morning (per the Stargate log) ISY did NOT reflect that they had turnrd on. All of the attic lights turned on even though I had removed all but one of them from the scene. The ones removed are NOT part of any other scene. The keypadlinc button LED is NOT on. Even though I did a factory reset on these switches, they are acting like they are still linked to each other somehow. This is an example of where I wish I had a way to query the local X10 address to confirm that there is not one set in these switches (or if there is, what address it is). I may have to shut off the ISY for 24 hours to see if the switches still go on by themselves. I also had another pair of linked switches in another area turn on yesterday evening.

No. All Keypadlincs are 1.4 Driveway and mailbox are relay switches.

1 program ran at 17:44 yesterday. It was: Mailbox On If Time is Sunset + 20 minutes Then Set Scene 'Mailbox Scene' On Else -No Actions- The mailbox scene has the following devices in it: Laundry Keypad Button C Outside Driveway Display Outside Mailbox Light All logged events at 17:44 yesterday- Scene:Mailbox Scene On 255 2/9/08 17:44 Scheduler Log Laundry Keypad Btn C Status 100% 2/9/08 17:44 System Log Outside Driveway Display Status 100% 2/9/08 17:44 System Log Outside Mailbox Light Status 100% 2/9/08 17:44 System Log Scene:Butler Keypad Grp D On 255 2/9/08 17:44 Scheduler Log Scene:Butler Keypad Grp D On 255 2/9/08 17:44 Scheduler Log So now I will watch for the next activiation and see if any of this information is common to more than one event.

I have reviewed the topology and I don't see anything unusual. The attic switches are only associated to the third floor keypad button D scene and nothing else. I am simplifying things by removing all but one attic light from the scene so it is now simply 1 keypadlinc button and one switch. (This will save me electricity if it goes on in the middle of the night until I can get this resolved).

I checked the Elk configuration and all is blank. According to the Stargate log, the last time the attic group went on was 17:44 yesterday. (Stargate is monitoring via hardwire connection to the loads so there is no interaction between it and ISY). The ISY log shows that the D button scene in the butler pantry keypad activated at 17:44. This scene is normally activated by a program triggered from a motion sensor. It is in a high traffic area and probably cycles 15-20 times per hour. It is interesting to note that the attic scene that is giving me a problem is 3rd floor keypad button D but I'm not sure that it being the same button on both keypads has any significance. I would also need to see a second log entry relating the two scenes before drawing any conclusions. Here is the ISY log for that time window: Scene:Butler Keypad Grp D On 255 2/9/08 17:44 Scheduler Log Scene:Butler Keypad Grp D On 255 2/9/08 17:44 Scheduler Log Could there be a problem with the PLM link table such that group 84 (the problem scene) has some junk in it? Perhaps deleting the scene or restoring the entire PLM to clean things up?

I have factory reset everything and reloaded the keypad and all of the switches but it is still happening. I guess the next step will be to remove all but the keypad and 1 switch from the scene. If that 1 switch continues to go on then I will have narrowed it down to the keypad or the ISY as the source.

I planned my PLM install in advance of getting my ISY and so far I have not had any communication problems. I installed two accesspoints at the breaker panel so I have coupling and signals repeated on both legs right at the panel. My PLM is about a hundred feet from the breaker panel on a dedicated circuit that only feeds the single outlet that the PLM is plugged into. The Accesspoints repeat everything and ensure that signals from distant devices are nice and strong going into the dedicated PLM circuit so nothing gets missed.

The KeypadLinc is a version 1.4 and the links look pretty clean. Button D (keypad group 6) is linked to the correct switches plus ISY group 84. The switches linked to the scene have some odd links in tyheir tales. They are linked to each other in switch group 0/button 1, but also have several duplicate links with no level or ramp values that are listed as buttons -1, -2 etc. Maybe these are old links flagged as unused? In any case, restoring these switches does not remove these ghost links so I will probably delete the devices and then add them back so that the link tables can be re-written from scratch. This is probably not related to my problem however since the entire scene goes on by itself. My next step is to remove the devices from the scene (delete the scene) and start monitoring the switches independently.

That might fix it but it won't help me understand why it broke... I am scanning the raw link tables of the switches now with PowerHome to see exactly what is in there. Next I will remove all the devices from the group and watch them separately for any unexpected activation. Later in the week I will create the group again and see if I still have the problem.

Rand A Stargate is a Home Automation Controller. You can get details about it at http://www.jdstechnologies.com/ or at Coccoontech. Briefly it is a hardware based controller that has been around for a long time but still has a lot more features than most modern controllers. I continue to use it because it does a lot of things that the Elk can't although I plan to use the Elk for fire, security, and motion controlled lights.

I have never heard of a "self activating" switch paddle issue. I think my next steps will be: 1- Fire up PowerHome again and interrogate each device in the group to see if there is something unexpected in the link tables of the individual devices. 2- Delete the group so that none of the devices have any links at all, and then watch for a few days to see if I have problems with a single device. 3- Do a factory reset on each device. 4- Manually crete the group again and see if the problem is gone. I am pretty sure it is not an X10 issue because I sent an "All Units On" for each house code and none of the switches reacted.

No. No Elk nor any other Insteon controller... just the ISY.

Another point I forgot to mention is that when the lights go on, the ISY is aware of it and reflects the status correctly.

Things have been working really well this week and I am very happy with my ISY. I do have one problem that I have not been able to track down and I am hoping someone wqill have a suggestion... I have a keypad at the bottom of the stairs to the third floor so I can operate them without going up there. There are 5 groups of lights, 1 for each keypad button. Each light is cross linked to all ather lights in the group and to the groups keypad button. (all devices are controllers in their group). The lights in each group are not linked to anything except the other members of their keypad group. There are no programs or schedules controlling these groups. It should be impossible for them to operate unless one of the devices is physically operated or if I send them commands from the ISY. A couple of times per day the Keypad Group D devices turn themselves ON. I know it is not due to stray links in individual devices because the entire group turns on, (including the Keypad button D LED). Looking at the ISY log I see each device has an entry that says STATUS ON at the time the group turned on... this just happened again 30 miniutes ago. (One device always says STATUS 2% which is odd because it is an Icon relay). What does STATUS mean exactly? Doesn't that imply the group was switched on by manually turning on one of the linked switches? (maybe I have a ghost?) How can I narrow down what the actual trigger was that turned the group on? In other words, how can I find the address of the link that triggered the group?

Thanks Chris. That is how I thought it worked although I did have an odd situation earlier today. Button 1 on each of two ContoLincs in one bedroom were operating a link in another room. (This was not an old leftover link... these ControLincs had never been linked to this light before). I reviewed the scenes in my ISY and it did show the incorrect links. I deleted the incorrect links and added links to the correct light but the buttons still operated the other light (in addition to the correct one.) I did a restore devices on the incorrect light to clear any leftover responder links and also did a restore device on button 1 of each ControLinc, but pressing button 1 on the ContrLincs still operated the incorrect light. Finally I added the incorrect light back into the scene for each ControLinc (to ensure the ISY was in control of it) and then deleted the links again. This finally solved it. My question is why the restore devices function was not able to clear this bad entry? Thanks, -Mike

Unfortunately I did use the third option for most of my devices because there were just too many to enter everything manually. (Even doing this it took 2 full days to get everything loaded and labeled!) So now that I have everything organized, how can I start cleaning up the link tables in my devices? Do I need to delete and re-add them using option 1 and then put them back into the scenes again?