shannong Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 How long should I expect restoring my PLM to take with 100+ devices and approx 750 links in my PLM? It's been running for about 30 min so far. BTW. My PLM died over the weekend and I didn't have a backup. It was on my to-do list but I was waiting to make sure all the v1.x stocks were depleted. Mine is under warranty but I didn't want until today to start the process and wait a while to get things running again. I ordered one from Amazon on Saturday afternoon (fulfilled directly by Amazon) and it was delivered today. It is a v2.0. Phew! My warranty replacement from Smarthome will become my spare. Can't wait for things to be back online! Link to comment
Teken Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Depending upon various environmental's it can take several hours. On a side note can you confirm your unit still can activate X10 devices assuming you have any? Link to comment
LeeG Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 The Event Viewer at LEVEL 3 will show the activity. So will watching the Icons to the left of the device nodes. Devices that are not I2CS update link records 1 byte at a time. As Teken has indicated updating all the link records in all the devices that have the old PLM address can take hours. When the powered devices are complete each battery powered device has to be put into linking mode, one device at a time, to update those devices. Link to comment
shannong Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 Depending upon various environmental's it can take several hours. On a side note can you confirm your unit still can activate X10 devices assuming you have any? No X10 devices in my network. Link to comment
shannong Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 It finally finished after about 45 mins or so. Of course, I had several devices that failed so I had to update them again. The only devices pending updates are battery devices. I'll deal with those later. I have a fairly large number of devices that don't report their status to the ISY when switched locally. Arg.... It's as I feared. The restore process would be unreliable and painful. Suggestions? Link to comment
Teken Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 The only suggestion I can give you is once the back up PLM arrives. Do the same thing so the links are present and if this one dies all you need to do is swap it out. I did this in four installs and never looked back. The end users were super happy and the down time was less than 20 minutes from start to finish. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment
shannong Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 On a few I did a restore to the device, and it started working fine. On another I had to remove and add it again to get it working. I just removed and restored an OutletLinc and it still doesn't work. I can control it but don't get status updates. Link to comment
LeeG Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 The process is dependent on the reliability of the Insteon network. There are large numbers of commands issued to update all the device link records that contain the PLM address. An 8 button KPL has 9 link records (minimum) with the PLM address not counting ISY Scenes the device participates in. If any are I2 (or old I1) devices the updates are done 1 byte at a time which is 2 or three commands per byte changed. Areas that have marginal Insteon comm usually have issues do to the high volume of Insteon traffic. Often folks are not interested in spending the time to resolve the comm issues because they don't fail much in day to day operation. Just keep issuing Write Updates to Device until each marginal device has all the updates written. Link to comment
Grizzy Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 The only suggestion I can give you is once the back up PLM arrives. Do the same thing so the links are present and if this one dies all you need to do is swap it out. I did this in four installs and never looked back. The end users were super happy and the down time was less than 20 minutes from start to finish. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Hi Teken, Very interesting, I'm still very new to the ISY and learning ton's by reading the forum. I'm very fuzzy on device to device link tables and how all that parallels with the ISY and the PLM, please forgive my dumb questions. So your idea seems perfect, an instant change out upon failure. I have a new backup PLM, my system is still small only about 15 devices but many many still on x10 with a full blown server for control waiting to be upgraded to insteon as $$ allow. Here we go ,, Taking my new PLM what should I do ? Will I have to refresh it when I add new devices ? When doing a change will I see any glitches ? Do my backup need to be done with both PLM's Thanks Don Link to comment
LeeG Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Keep an eye on the count of PLM link records. If near the maximum it does not take too much repeated updates (as adding devices from scratch) to over flow the PLM link database. It may be necessary to run Show PLM Links Table multiple times to get a repeatable count as device messages received during the Show PLM will produce a false high or low link count. Link to comment
LeeG Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Grizzy It is a waste of time keeping multiple PLMs updated while the environment is changing. Also, if you have reliable Insteon network changing PLMs is nothing more than time. All your devices will be I2CS so each device PLM link update is done with one command. If your Insteon network is unreliable you will have issues replacing a PLM. Link to comment
Grizzy Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Grizzy It is a waste of time keeping multiple PLMs updated while the environment is changing. Also, if you have reliable Insteon network changing PLMs is nothing more than time. All your devices will be I2CS so each device PLM link update is done with one command. If your Insteon network is unreliable you will have issues replacing a PLM. I see what you mean, during the development period it would not be realistic. As my design and development continue all my devices are controlled by the ISY Programs. I'm not using any scenes and have not created any device to device links. Reading the posts so far I came to a conclusion scenes and device to device links complicated the system. If possible it it better to keep going down this path ? I did see where doing device to device links can relieve some ISY processor time and scenes make programing easier, but is it worth the confusion ? Don Link to comment
LeeG Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Scenes are a normal way of doing things in Insteon. It would be unusual to do all things with individual devices and Programs. Too slow and too much Insteon traffic to do things one device at a time.. Link to comment
Grizzy Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Scenes are a normal way of doing things in Insteon. It would be unusual to do all things with individual devices and Programs. Too slow and too much Insteon traffic to do things one device at a time.. Thanks, I will re-orientate my thought process. Don Link to comment
Grizzy Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Scenes are a normal way of doing things in Insteon. It would be unusual to do all things with individual devices and Programs. Too slow and too much Insteon traffic to do things one device at a time.. LeeG, If I had one program, say turn on outside lighting at sunset (simplified example) IF: sunset Then: Back Porch light on Front Porch Light on Driveway Light On Garage Light On Pole Light On Else: All The above off Why does a scene execute this any faster ? Don Link to comment
shannong Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 The process is dependent on the reliability of the Insteon network. There are large numbers of commands issued to update all the device link records that contain the PLM address. An 8 button KPL has 9 link records (minimum) with the PLM address not counting ISY Scenes the device participates in. If any are I2 (or old I1) devices the updates are done 1 byte at a time which is 2 or three commands per byte changed. Areas that have marginal Insteon comm usually have issues do to the high volume of Insteon traffic. Often folks are not interested in spending the time to resolve the comm issues because they don't fail much in day to day operation. Just keep issuing Write Updates to Device until each marginal device has all the updates written. The restore had finished and I have already individually updated any devices with a ! or 1101. All devices have finished updating successfully except for battery devices. Link to comment
shannong Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 LeeG, If I had one program, say turn on outside lighting at sunset (simplified example) IF: sunset Then: Back Porch light on Front Porch Light on Driveway Light On Garage Light On Pole Light On Else: All The above off Why does a scene execute this any faster ? Don Start your own post please. In the forum world this is called hijacking a thread and considered poor etiquette. Link to comment
shannong Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 Keep an eye on the count of PLM link records. If near the maximum it does not take too much repeated updates (as adding devices from scratch) to over flow the PLM link database. It may be necessary to run Show PLM Links Table multiple times to get a repeatable count as device messages received during the Show PLM will produce a false high or low link count. I had 780 before the restore. I show 472 now. Not sure if that shows a restore issue or just a defrag/compress of old records. Link to comment
stusviews Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Replacing an restoring cleans out unused links. Link to comment
Teken Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Thanks, I will re-orientate my thought process. Don Once your Insteon network is finalized you can do the second PLM back up. This is what others such as myself have done moving forward. As LeeG indicated older devices such those I have and others around me. This practice saves a huge amount of time. For newer Insteon devices not so much. I did this also to test and ensure the PLM was fully operational. Nothing is worse than thinking you have a good spare in the closet when in fact it's DOA. This is something you need to weigh out. Time vs reward, as my time is more valuable thus I took the time for the future reward. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment
Grizzy Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Start your own post please. In the forum world this is called hijacking a thread and considered poor etiquette. SO SORRY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! didn't realize we were so formal ...... Just a NEWBIE please forgive Link to comment
stusviews Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Don, it might have been the messenger who erred, not realizing that you're the OP. In any case, a new concern deserves starting a new thread Link to comment
LeeG Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 shannong If 472 is consistently received on multiple Show PLM commands it as as Stusviews indicated, old no longer used links have been eliminated. Need to see that number on multiple Show PLM commands to know it is accurate. I am concerned that number is accurate as the 780 number was the number from multiple PLM restores and Show PLM Links Table commands. Link to comment
shannong Posted January 20, 2015 Author Share Posted January 20, 2015 I had no choice but to walk the house and test each device. The ratio was smaller than at first thought so I guess it was just bad luck with the first few I checked. Out of ~100 devices, I had issues with approx 10. Several worked fine after just a device restore. A few had to be removed and added back to ISY. All are working now except for one. A single Outletlinc 2473. I restored it and even tried deleting it. After adding it back, it still won't update its status even though I can control it. I'd delete it and factory reset it but I'm solo at home right now and can't get to that Outlet in under 1/60 sec.. The reset instructions using the button never work for me. Not sure if that's operator error or directions that are erroneous. Link to comment
shannong Posted January 20, 2015 Author Share Posted January 20, 2015 Two counts a few hours apart showed 720 links in the PLM table. I had the Event Viewer on Level 3 and didn't see any other Insteon traces during the walk of the table. The 780 before was good as I got it twice times with no traffic 60 links fewer certainly sounds reasonable for cleaning up unused links. The difference from 472 was worrying me, but that was also before updating the battery devices, which I didn't think of at first. Link to comment
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