SteveSBE Posted January 17, 2016 Posted January 17, 2016 Hi – My questions concern the number of links my 2413S PLM (modem) is handling. I’m not having serious issues but was having periodic problems with the linking of devices and operation of scenes and programs. I wanted to get feedback about whether or not the issue is related to the number of links in the PLM. If I understand correctly I should keep the number of PLM links under 900 to ensure there are no issues with my system. In this post I will: Explain the counts I’m getting from runs of the ISY Admin console’s PLM Link Table. Provide my estimate of the links that I believe is stored on the PLM (modem). Ask for feedback concerning the discrepancy above and what I should assume my PLM (modem) count to be. #1 - ISY Admin console’s PLM Link Table Counts I get a varied count of links whenever I run the ISY Admin console’s PLM Link Table. I ran tests earlier this week with a varied count of links. Most counts were in the high-hundreds or low-thousands but I actually had one count in the mid-3,000s. Thinking that a restore of my PLM would “clean” it up, I restored the PLM and ran the series shown in the table fount in the below. As you can see the counts continued to vary (from 35 to 1,570 links). I believe there was little or no activity on my system when these counts were run. PLM Link Count: http://screencast.com/t/J4Q5OwUQn #2 – Estimate of Links I Believe are Stored in the PLM I did an estimate of the number of links I believe are in the PLM and believe it is just over 700 links. See my detailed table of estimates at the link below. The column “Links per Device or Scene” were based on the “ISY PLM Links Calculator” found at link http://www.universal-devices.com/tools/insteon/calc_plm_links.htm. My Estimate of PLM Link Count: http://screencast.com/t/QiSw7vwnJjCe #3 – Feedback – I would like to know the following… Please let me know if you believe my estimate in #2 above sounds reasonable. Why does my ISY PLM Link Table count vary so much? Which ISY PLM Link Table count should I believe? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Steve
LeeG Posted January 18, 2016 Posted January 18, 2016 Run Tools | Diagnostics | Event Viewer at LEVEL 3. The 2413S holds a maximum of 992 links. The event trace will reflect some Insteon traffic not associated with reading the PLM link database. Anything over 992 is a false number. It only takes one Insteon message reaching the PLM from the network to alter the real PLM link count.
SteveSBE Posted January 18, 2016 Author Posted January 18, 2016 Run Tools | Diagnostics | Event Viewer at LEVEL 3. The 2413S holds a maximum of 992 links. The event trace will reflect some Insteon traffic not associated with reading the PLM link database. Anything over 992 is a false number. It only takes one Insteon message reaching the PLM from the network to alter the real PLM link count. Thank Lee. I did what you suggested (opened the event viewer on level 3 and then run the ISY PLM Links Table). I did this 4 times and each time saved the event viewer results in a file. I opened each file in Excel and counted the number of rows that contained "LNK-DATA". In all 4 files it totaled in the 250's. Does that value give me the PLM links total? In addition the 4 times I ran the ISY's PLM Link Table with the event viewer it consistently stopped counting in the 250-260 count range. Does the event viewer "stablize" the PLM Link Table function? Do you know why this count is so much lower than the +700 count I estimated using the ISY PLM Links Calculator method? Thanks for your help. Steve
LeeG Posted January 18, 2016 Posted January 18, 2016 Need to look for other Insteon traffic. I'll look at the trace if you can post. The number of link records must be exactly the same for it to be useful. I don't use the calculator but 250 versus 700 seems too large for the 250 number to be close. The Show PLM Links Table uses a Get Next command to read the next link record. If records 1-50 are read successfully but an Insteon command that references device 500 comes over the network, the next Get Next command will read link 501. Records 51 through 499 will be skipped. No Insteon message can reach the PLM from the network. The Get Next approach is simple but very exposed to wrong information if any Insteon message reaches the PLM. Some folks actually disconnect active devices to get good Show PLM results. Others have plugged the PLM into the filtered port of a FilterLinc (some need 2 FilterLincs).
SteveSBE Posted January 18, 2016 Author Posted January 18, 2016 Need to look for other Insteon traffic. I'll look at the trace if you can post. The number of link records must be exactly the same for it to be useful. I don't use the calculator but 250 versus 700 seems too large for the 250 number to be close. The Show PLM Links Table uses a Get Next command to read the next link record. If records 1-50 are read successfully but an Insteon command that references device 500 comes over the network, the next Get Next command will read link 501. Records 51 through 499 will be skipped. No Insteon message can reach the PLM from the network. The Get Next approach is simple but very exposed to wrong information if any Insteon message reaches the PLM. Some folks actually disconnect active devices to get good Show PLM results. Others have plugged the PLM into the filtered port of a FilterLinc (some need 2 FilterLincs). Lee, I re-ran the PLM Links Table / Event Viewer 4 times this morning before there would be traffic on the system. I saved each run's PLM Links table file and the corresponding Events Viewer (level 3) file. The related files are numbered 1 through 4 and in the four attached zip files. I compared all results between the 4 Event Viewer files and between the 4 PLM Links Table files. They matched exactly except for one "time" event in The Event Viewer files in runs 1 and 3. Just for kicks I also ran the PLM Links Table without the Event Viewer logging those events and got the same results as runs 1 through 4 above. And I just ran it again about and a couple hours later and it totaled to the same number of links as previous runs (not attached) but I didn't compare the specific results. The unique device IDs in the PLM Links Table matched those in the Event Viewer. However 2 of my 71 devices that are displayed in the ISY Admin Console were missing. I ran a Topology report and these 2 devices showed in that report too (but not in the PLM Links Table and Event Viewer). The first device was marked inactive in the ISY Admin console (21.96.90 B2457D2 LampLinc BiPhy v.41). The second device was in irrigation controller that was still active in the ISY Admin console but not found in the PLM Links Table (38.7E.1D EZRain/EZFlora Irrigation Controller v.28). What reasons would these devices would not show in the PLM Links Table? In case you wanted to see it, I also zipped and attached the spreadsheet that shows how I estimated the +700 links. Thanks, Steve Run 1 - Event and Links Information.zip Run 2 - Event and Links Information.zip Run 3 - Event and Links Information.zip Run 4 - Event and Links Information.zip My ISY Link Estimates.zip
LeeG Posted January 18, 2016 Posted January 18, 2016 The EZFlora has no reason by default to have a link record in the PLM unless it is a newer I2CS device. The Zones do not report state on their own initiative. Where is the LampLinc marked "inactive"? It will take some time to go through the posted files.
LeeG Posted January 18, 2016 Posted January 18, 2016 The Links Estimate seems unreliable. I would ignore those numbers. Explain actual Failures.
SteveSBE Posted January 18, 2016 Author Posted January 18, 2016 The LampLinc is marked "inactive in the ISY Admin Console. It is currently unused and unplugged. I understand about taking time to go through the files. As I mentioned, they are all identical except for the timestamps and the two "time" entries in the Event Viewer I mentioned. I put the data from the files into Excel to compare them and provided that in the attached zip files. It contains 3 tabs with my comparisons of the 1.) Event Viewer files; 2.) PLM Links Table Files; and 3.) device IDs from the Topology report vs. the unique device IDS in the PLM Links Table files. Hope that helps. Steve Compare Event Files - PLM Links Files - and Devices - From Run on 2015 01 18 700 am.zip
LeeG Posted January 18, 2016 Posted January 18, 2016 There are 250 links in the PLM. The Estimates information is not accurate. "The LampLinc is marked "inactive in the ISY Admin Console." Sorry but that does not tell me where it is marked "inactive". The node in Main, the node in a Scene, something in a Program. Since it unplugged it is not being used so not sure what the issue is. I am assuming the 250 PLM links are correct. A File | Restore Modem (PLM) will rebuild PLM link database if the 250 nmber is not considered accurate. Again, I think an actual issue should be explained an pursued.
jerlands Posted January 18, 2016 Posted January 18, 2016 I’m not having serious issues but was having periodic problems with the linking of devices and operation of scenes and programs. I wanted to get feedback about whether or not the issue is related to the number of links in the PLM. Your "Estimate of PLM Link Count" shows high number of motion detectors (42/3=14) and remotelincs (18 + 12 remotelinc2.) Anyway.. if your issue is in linking and normal operations then the problem could be with communications. You might run a trace in Event Viewer and post the results (Event Viewer level 3, activate problematic devices, copy to clipboard (icon bottom toolbar) then paste into message.) Jon...
SteveSBE Posted January 19, 2016 Author Posted January 19, 2016 Lee and Jon - My original and only question was about how I could get an accurate count of the number of links in my PLM so I could determine if I was maxing out my PLM and if this was a potential cause of random issues. I think you gave me the answer to my question. To summarize the posts: The PLM link count results of my previous runs of Show PLM Links Table ranged from a couple hundred to over 1,000 and was inconclusive and confusing. Using the ISY PLM Links Calculator technique (http://www.universal...c_plm_links.htm) I estimated there were +700 links but was uncertain of that calculation. Lee provided the technique of running the Event Viewer at the same time as I run the Show PLM Links Table and this technique gave consistent answers when running Show PLM Links Table. Since these runs give the same PLM link count consistently I concur with Lee that my PLM link count is ~250. This answers my original question. It seems that my manually created estimate of +700 links based on the ISY PLM Links Calculator found at link http://www.universal...c_plm_links.htm was not correct and is not useful for me. So my believe is that any issues I have are not caused by an overloaded PLM and I can look elsewhere for causes of issues. It also gives me confidence to add additional devices and scenes without overloading my PLM. Thanks for your help. Steve
LeeG Posted January 19, 2016 Posted January 19, 2016 Any time. The actual PLM link count is 251 as the Show PLM Links Table function starts at 0. You do not have a total PLM link count issue. Would be happy to help with other symptoms.
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