Strange behavior

[clark21236]

I found some strange behavior from my ISY-99 today.

 

My pool has needed a little extra care lately. I have a schedule that turns my pool pump on each day. Today I came home and cleaned the filter and added some chlorine to it. Since it was after 5 pm my pump was off.

 

So I fired up the laptop and went to My Network Places to jump on to the ISY, but no My Lighting in the tree.

 

I went upstairs to my desktop, and it was the same. I saw no activity on the ISY. So I unplugged the PLM and plugged it back in. Viola, activity on the ISY and it shows up in My Network Places.

 

Back down to the laptop. Since it was after 5pm, I added an OR to my original schedule to make the pool pump run a little bit longer.

 

If
       From     9:00:00AM
       To       5:00:00PM (same day)
    Or From     5:36:00PM on 2008/04/22
       To       7:30:00PM on 2008/04/22

Then
       Set Scene 'Pool Pump Scene' On

Else
       Set Scene 'Pool Pump Scene' Off

 

Pretty simple, huh?

 

Well, it didn't execute correctly.

 

I looked at the clock and saw it was after 7:30 and the pump was still running. I fired the laptop up and opened My Network Places and jumped on the ISY, and the minute I logged into it the pump shut off. And that was 7:36pm.

 

I have two programs in the ISY that I use to turn the light of a keypadlinc on and off to show what the pump is doing. I use it so that if the kids turn the light off on the keypad, then this program will wait 2 seconds and turn it back on. And I have one that does the same, but to turn the light off.

 

Each of the three programs, my two light programs, and my schedule program all show an execution time of 7:36 pm.

 

What gives?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Clark,

 

As far as the problem after reboot:

1. Your program ran after reboot since ISY does a catch up for all the programs for that day. This feature is now an option in release 2.6.4

2. Your program ran again at 5:30 till 7:30 ... the grace period is 15 minutes in ISY and thus 7:36 is still within the limit of the grace period. The grace period is now an adjustable option in release 2.6.4

 

The bigger problem is why ISY was NOT on the network. This concerns me the most and since you have already rebooted ISY, there's no way to figure out why. What version of ISY firmware do you have?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

 

I found some strange behavior from my ISY-99 today.

 

My pool has needed a little extra care lately. I have a schedule that turns my pool pump on each day. Today I came home and cleaned the filter and added some chlorine to it. Since it was after 5 pm my pump was off.

 

So I fired up the laptop and went to My Network Places to jump on to the ISY, but no My Lighting in the tree.

 

I went upstairs to my desktop, and it was the same. I saw no activity on the ISY. So I unplugged the PLM and plugged it back in. Viola, activity on the ISY and it shows up in My Network Places.

 

Back down to the laptop. Since it was after 5pm, I added an OR to my original schedule to make the pool pump run a little bit longer.

 

If
       From     9:00:00AM
       To       5:00:00PM (same day)
    Or From     5:36:00PM on 2008/04/22
       To       7:30:00PM on 2008/04/22

Then
       Set Scene 'Pool Pump Scene' On

Else
       Set Scene 'Pool Pump Scene' Off

 

Pretty simple, huh?

 

Well, it didn't execute correctly.

 

I looked at the clock and saw it was after 7:30 and the pump was still running. I fired the laptop up and opened My Network Places and jumped on the ISY, and the minute I logged into it the pump shut off. And that was 7:36pm.

 

I have two programs in the ISY that I use to turn the light of a keypadlinc on and off to show what the pump is doing. I use it so that if the kids turn the light off on the keypad, then this program will wait 2 seconds and turn it back on. And I have one that does the same, but to turn the light off.

 

Each of the three programs, my two light programs, and my schedule program all show an execution time of 7:36 pm.

 

What gives?

[Chris Jahn]

2. Your program ran again at 5:30 till 7:30 ... the grace period is 15 minutes in ISY and thus 7:36 is still within the limit of the grace period. The grace period is now an adjustable option in release 2.6.4

 

Not quite correct, the grace period is only used for Time is entries, not From/To or From/For.

[clark21236]

And the 15 minute grace period doesn't apply anyway. My ISY was not on the network at 5 pm or so. My schedule not working happened at 7:36 pm. Well outside the 15 minute window.

 

When I first opted to change the schedule was at 5 when I couldn't see the ISY. It was 2 hours later that I noticed it should have been off and wasn't.

 

I know that unplugging the PLM was not the right thing to do, but being able to find what to do from the UDI site or WIKI is a real challenge. And I understand you are working through that right now.

 

Can you post in this topic what I should have done to find out what was going wrong? That way I can refer back to this one and do just that.

 

My ISY is the 99 ir/Pro and it is still at 1.0 just like it was shipped with.

[clark21236]

Can you post the directions of what I should do if my ISY drops off the network again? I know that unplugging the PLM is not what I should do, but I have been waiting to see your description of what I should do to troubleshoot it.

[IndyMike]

Can you post the directions of what I should do if my ISY drops off the network again? I know that unplugging the PLM is not what I should do, but I have been waiting to see your description of what I should do to troubleshoot it.

 

Clark,

From your description, it sounds as if you may be dealing with a good old fashioned Windows Networking problem. This should not have caused your original missed schedule (power interrupt?), but could definitely contribute to the loss of the ISY link in "network neighborhood".

 

There are a number of ways to work around the loss of the network neighborhood ICON.

 

1) The first is to visit the ISY site and select the "my ISY link" (not necessarily the most expedient).

2) The second would be to type the ISY IP address into internet or windows explorer (192.168.0.XX) - my preferred method. This is both quick and reliable.

 

Option 2 assumes that the ISY is always assigned a given address. This is possible with most routers (mine is rather dated), even when operating under DHCP. This is also a good idea from the standpoint of your network security. If you would like more information on restricting IP addresses to particular MAC addresses, please post back with your operating system and router model.

 

Your underlying network problem may be due to your "master browser" configuration. With 14 network devices on my home LAN (Windows, Linux, Printers, ISY, Playstation, Wii) I've fought this a number of times over the years. Try a google search on "home networking" and "Master browser" - there are a number of tutorials on the WEB that are far better than what I could provide.

 

IM

[clark21236]

IndyMike, thanks for the info. Just to clarify, I did not loose the Icon in My Network Places. It was there, it just gave me an error when I clicked on it. Something like this device has been removed or so and so. I don't really remember it exactly.

 

The IP address of my ISY does change from time to time and I can't just type the IP address in if I don't remember which port it uses. My bad for not writing that down at some point. I'll do that right now. Then I can just go to the DHCP list in my router and go to the device that way.

 

And thanks for info regarding the networking, but I am very fluent in networking, so I'm in good shape there.

 

I still would like to hear from Michel about the procedure I should follow to find out why the ISY is not on the network. I have had this issue on two different occasions and he had said the same thing each time I post that I powered everything down to get it back on the network.

 

Just please post a simple procedure to follow to troubleshoot why the ISY is not showing up on the network.

[IndyMike]

Clark,

 

My apologies for taking this sideways - I'll return things to the capable hands of Michel and Chris.

 

IM

[clark21236]

IM, not problem. Your intentions were true and just.

 

I have since decided to try one of the beta releases for the ISY-99, rev 2.6.4

 

So if I do have a problem in the future I will at least be able to have it serve me up a web page. Just in case I don't have the port number for my device. You how procrastination can affect those kind of things.

[Michel Kohanim]

clark21236,

 

Here are the procedures:

1. Check and see if your MEM/ERR lights turn on/off every 10 seconds. If they do, then we have a network connection/router issue. Make sure your router is able to assign an IP address to ISY

2. If the MEM/ERR lights are not turning on/off every 10 seconds, then ISY [thinks] it's still on the network. To test, try http://www.universal-devices.com/27 to see if the client can find it

 

If none of the above works, then please try assigning a static IP address to your ISY as there might be a problem with your router's assigning IP addresses to ISY.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

IM, not problem. Your intentions were true and just.

 

I have since decided to try one of the beta releases for the ISY-99, rev 2.6.4

 

So if I do have a problem in the future I will at least be able to have it serve me up a web page. Just in case I don't have the port number for my device. You how procrastination can affect those kind of things.

[clark21236]

It happened again. I have upgraded my ISY-99 to ver 2.6.4. When I got home I was trying to get a web page from it using my iPAQ. It would not respond. So I logged into my router and saw that it had been served an address by DHCP.

 

My MEM/ERR lights were turning on and off every 10 seconds.

 

I tried the http://www.universal-devices.com/27 link and it tried to bring up a page. It did show my devices in the tree. When I would log in, it would bring up the log in again and try to do it again.

 

I unplugged the PLM and plugged it back in and everything is fine.

 

I don't know if this is an issue with my iPAQ trying to get a page from it or not. I think I'll leave it alone and not try to use the iPAQ and see what happens.

 

Or should I try and give it an IP address and continue to try and use the iPAQ and see what happens?

[Mark Sanctuary]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but that sounds like either:

 

Browser/Java Cache

Firewall Software

[Mark Sanctuary]

Oh wait, you mentioned flashing LEDs on the ISY. Never mind my last post.

[Michel Kohanim]

clark21236,

 

The issue is that either your network connection to your router is severed intermittently or your router does not serve up DHCP properly. Have you considered rebooting your router to see if this situation is resolved.

 

One workaround would be to setup ISY with a static IP address but I do not recommend it since we will never ever know where the problem is coming from.

 

Please also note that in releases 2.6.4 and below, ISY would basically give up requesting a DHCP address after 5 retries (about 15 minutes). In release 2.6.5 and above ISY will continue requesting a lease as long as it senses there's a network connection.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

It happened again. I have upgraded my ISY-99 to ver 2.6.4. When I got home I was trying to get a web page from it using my iPAQ. It would not respond. So I logged into my router and saw that it had been served an address by DHCP.

 

My MEM/ERR lights were turning on and off every 10 seconds.

 

I tried the http://www.universal-devices.com/27 link and it tried to bring up a page. It did show my devices in the tree. When I would log in, it would bring up the log in again and try to do it again.

 

I unplugged the PLM and plugged it back in and everything is fine.

 

I don't know if this is an issue with my iPAQ trying to get a page from it or not. I think I'll leave it alone and not try to use the iPAQ and see what happens.

 

Or should I try and give it an IP address and continue to try and use the iPAQ and see what happens?

[clark21236]

Michel,

 

I have several devices on my network, and I don't seem to have any other problems, but like you say, if the ISY gives up trying after 5 minutes, my other devices may just be masking a problem that happens when I'm away.

 

Before I upgrade to 2.6.5, I'll wait to see if this happens again, and then like you mentioned I'll try rebooting my router. But, that won't solve the problem either. If the ISY gives up after 5 tries, then rebooting my router won't correct it because the ISY would have already given up.

 

I'll try going to 2.6.5 and see what happens.

[Michel Kohanim]

Thanks so very much and please do keep me posted. 2.6.5 was going to be available very soon but we are adding diagnostics tools.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Michel,

 

I have several devices on my network, and I don't seem to have any other problems, but like you say, if the ISY gives up trying after 5 minutes, my other devices may just be masking a problem that happens when I'm away.

 

Before I upgrade to 2.6.5, I'll wait to see if this happens again, and then like you mentioned I'll try rebooting my router. But, that won't solve the problem either. If the ISY gives up after 5 tries, then rebooting my router won't correct it because the ISY would have already given up.

 

I'll try going to 2.6.5 and see what happens.