99i Pro keeps crashing. Not sure where to start...

[Eddie Reed]

Starting yesterday, my 99i has developed the nasty habit of crashing. It had worked perfect until I did the upgrade to 2.6.4. The system just stops with a solid error light. When it crashes it appears to be several hours after we have left the house or gone to bed. The logs don't really show anything unusual and I cannot figure out any common problem. Should I down grade the software?

 

Can somebody give me a direction to start troubleshooting this thing. Do the logs contain any hints or something that I am missing?

 

Thanks,

Eddie

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello Eddie,

 

I am so very sorry to hear this and we'll do our best to get it resolved as soon as possible.

 

Are you sure it's a solid ERR light and NOT ERR/MEM light turning on/off every 10 seconds? There are no paths in the code which keep the ERR light on constantly; there are, however, the following:

1. Error light blinks every 10 seconds -- File system problem

2. Error/Mem lights blink every 10 seconds -- DHCP/network problem

 

Would you be kind enough to let me know if what you are experiencing is one of the above cases?

 

Also, just to be on the safe side, if you could configure your ISY with static IP address then we can rule out #2.

 

With apologies for the inconvenience,

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Starting yesterday, my 99i has developed the nasty habit of crashing. It had worked perfect until I did the upgrade to 2.6.4. The system just stops with a solid error light. When it crashes it appears to be several hours after we have left the house or gone to bed. The logs don't really show anything unusual and I cannot figure out any common problem. Should I down grade the software?

 

Can somebody give me a direction to start troubleshooting this thing. Do the logs contain any hints or something that I am missing?

 

Thanks,

Eddie

[Eddie Reed]

Hi Michel,

 

It was a solid Memory light and and solid Error light. The thing that was unusual was that when the system stopped working, it also stopped the dedicated Airport Express that it was connected to (that also had to be restarted to bring back online). I've had the Airport for a few months with no problems, so I don't think it is the cause. I also noticed that after the first upgrade the system was slow to respond or failed to respond when I attempted to connect to it.

 

On the upside, I reloaded 2.6.4 last night and restored from a backup and the system ran all night without problems (Yea!). It also is responding immediately when I connect (appears to be acting normal again). I'm starting to wonder if maybe the upgrade failed or did not complete correctly, since everything seems to be stable again. I only have minimal programs enabled for the moment and will start bringing them back this evening.

 

Hopefully this is resolved. if the system starts misbehaving again I will set to a Static address as suggested, but for the moment I think I will leave it alone. At least until this evening when I continue torturing it as I always do.

 

I still am extremely happy with the 99i Pro and still remain amazed at the ease of use, I just consider this a bump in the road. Thanks for the quick response, and I will let you know if the problem continues.

 

Thanks,

Eddie

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Eddie,

 

Thanks so very much for the update. Now, I am almost certain that the problem is network related: if the ERR/MEM light are on (10 seconds on/10 seconds off) then it means that ISY could not get a DHCP address from the router. This has been reported especially with Airport routers and, as such, I suspect you are going to have the same problem again. Release 2.6.5 may alleviate this problem to some degree (keeps trying and will never give up) but eventually there will come a time when the Airport just refuses to give an IP address to ISY. We are still trying to figure out the cause. Do you know what's your DHCP lease time?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Hi Michel,

 

It was a solid Memory light and and solid Error light. The thing that was unusual was that when the system stopped working, it also stopped the dedicated Airport Express that it was connected to (that also had to be restarted to bring back online). I've had the Airport for a few months with no problems, so I don't think it is the cause. I also noticed that after the first upgrade the system was slow to respond or failed to respond when I attempted to connect to it.

 

On the upside, I reloaded 2.6.4 last night and restored from a backup and the system ran all night without problems (Yea!). It also is responding immediately when I connect (appears to be acting normal again). I'm starting to wonder if maybe the upgrade failed or did not complete correctly, since everything seems to be stable again. I only have minimal programs enabled for the moment and will start bringing them back this evening.

 

Hopefully this is resolved. if the system starts misbehaving again I will set to a Static address as suggested, but for the moment I think I will leave it alone. At least until this evening when I continue torturing it as I always do.

 

I still am extremely happy with the 99i Pro and still remain amazed at the ease of use, I just consider this a bump in the road. Thanks for the quick response, and I will let you know if the problem continues.

 

Thanks,

Eddie

[Eddie Reed]

Hi Michel,

 

I think the problem is resolved. Came home this afternoon and the system is still up and working great (24+ hours). Even have spent the last two hours rearranging devices it, and as usual it just makes amazing things happen quickly.

 

I think the problem is definitely into the category of my update not completing correctly. I did make the jump from a brand ISY system (I think v1.0) to v2.6.4 in one step, and that is a lot to ask of any system. Thinking back the system Administrative Console after the upgrade kept generating connection errors, session time outs and other strange behavior (nothing I had ever seen before). After I reinstalled the upgrade the strange error messages have completely disappeared.

 

I appreciate your help (and as usual great support), but don't thing this is a issue with the ISY.

 

Thanks,

Eddie

 

Just for the record. The DHCP lease time is 4 hours. The network is WDS network with 12 devices and four Airports (1 base & 3 WDS extensions, one extension is dedicated to the ISY). All the Airports is use are less than 6 months old (all newer systems). The older Airports did handle DHCP badly (hence the reason we upgraded all of them).

[Michel Kohanim]

Eddie,

 

Thanks so very much for the update. I do very much hope that you are right. Please do keep us posted as we take any "crash" quite seriously and would like to have it diagnosed and remedied as soon as possible.

 

Thanks again,

With kind regards,

[Eddie Reed]

Michel,

 

Just a follow up... System has been up for two days with all the programs running and is rock solid.

 

Lessons learned.

 

1. Alway make a backup before any upgrade.

2. If the system acts strangely after a upgrade, download the upgrade again and reinstall.

3. If you have a problem, contact the forums. The support I have received has always been excellent.

 

I think you can close this topic, since all is well. I appreciate your assistance.

 

Thanks,

 

Eddie

 

On a side note, maybe you should consider posting the MD5 hash of the download files, that way users can verify they got the file without corruption.

[Michel Kohanim]

Eddie,

 

Thanks so very much for the update ... MD5 is a great idea.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Michel,

 

Just a follow up... System has been up for two days with all the programs running and is rock solid.

 

Lessons learned.

 

1. Alway make a backup before any upgrade.

2. If the system acts strangely after a upgrade, download the upgrade again and reinstall.

3. If you have a problem, contact the forums. The support I have received has always been excellent.

 

I think you can close this topic, since all is well. I appreciate your assistance.

 

Thanks,

 

Eddie

 

On a side note, maybe you should consider posting the MD5 hash of the download files, that way users can verify they got the file without corruption.