rut roh

[MarkJames]

I dunno wtf has happened but it's starting to worry me.

 

My system started coming up with 'cannot communicate with ' for every single device.

 

I restarted the ISY and it came up in safe mode

 

So I reset my PLM and reboot everything and ISY connected to it fine - no safe mode this time.

 

But when it came up it took like an hour and a half going through every device getting an ERR 1 and putting an exclamation point beside each item it in my device tree.  I have something like 140 devices so it took ages.

 

So I reset and restored the PLM.  It 'looked' like it quickly wrote PLM links with success msgs (it went by very quickly - maybe 2 seconds?) and gave me a reset PLM message.  But when I do the diagnostic on my PLM and show PLM links table it's empty though it does show connected.

 

So I figured my PLM might have issues - though ISY seems happy with it.

 

I pulled out a brand new one (2.2 v9E) and plugged that in.  I did a restore PLM on that and it looked/acted the same as the first time and again I have no PLM links in the table.

 

I'm a bit stumped now.  Any suggestions?  I have no ISY communication with ANY of my devices.

 

mark

Edited April 28, 2017 by MarkJames

[paulbates]

Mark

After putting the new PLM in, I would restore from a recent, known & good backup. Then restore modem.

 

Paul

[MarkJames]

Mark

After putting the new PLM in, I would restore from a recent, known & good backup. Then restore modem.

 

Paul

 

Yeah - It's looking more and more like the ISY has somehow gotten corrupted.  I got the PLM links to write but I still have no communication with any of my devices.  I'll try restoring my last backup and see what's up.

 

It'd sure be nice if there was a way to stop it from going through every single device when I reboot.  Even now as I'm restoring it keeps coming up with 'failed to communicate' errors.

 

 

 

mark

Edited April 28, 2017 by MarkJames

[paulbates]

I believe that the ISY links table gets corrupted by a PLM that's 'lost is marbles'. What's currently in the ISY reflects that. 

 

Given the PLMs notoriously bad track record, I back up just about every time I have a "change session", and turn the back up file's name into brief comments of what I did

 

Paul

[MarkJames]

I believe that the ISY links table gets corrupted by a PLM that's 'lost is marbles'. What's currently in the ISY reflects that. 

 

Given the PLMs notoriously bad track record, I back up just about every time I have a "change session", and turn the back up file's name into brief comments of what I did

 

Paul

Well this is getting more and more confusing.

 

So I restored my last backup and rebooted.  I'm sitting here waiting (I think I'll go out for a bit) as it goes through every single device again  Event viewer is nothing but ERR 1.  

 

I can't imagine that I have the same problem with a PLM that's less than a year old AND a brand new one out of the box.  I've had half a dozen PLMs fail over the years and this isn't the way they've acted.

 

 ISY can't seem to communicate with any devices at all - not one.  I'm not really sure what to try next.  I already switched outlets for the PLM to see if something weird happened to that circuit and th at made no difference either.

 

Do you know if there's a way to wipe the ISY clean and just try it out empty so I don't have to go through this each time?

[paulbates]

I would probably try factory resetting the PLM, then restore the ISY, then restore PLM

 

If that doesn't do it

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Resetting_Your_ISY

 

Paul

[MarkJames]

I would probably try factory resetting the PLM, then restore the ISY, then restore PLM

 

If that doesn't do it

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Resetting_Your_ISY

 

Paul

Well - now I've factory reset the ISY, factory reset a brand new PLM, and replaced my network cable just for good measure.

 

 

 

I put the blank ISY in linking mode but I cannot link anything to it.

 

I tried entering the address of a known good device that's plugged in and powered up but it won't detect it.

 

I'm completely stumped.

[paulbates]

Bring a lamp/appliancelinc right to where the PLM is, plug it in, try linking mode and also "new insteon device" and type in its address

 

Paul

[MarkJames]

May be some progress here.  I've plugged the PLM in to a different outlet and now I can link from my blank ISY.

 

So I reset my original PLM and plugged it into that outlet and I can link from the blank ISY with that too.

 

At the moment I'm restoring my last backup and hopefully things will improve after that.  The only concern I have is that my ISY is on 4.5.4 and my backup is 4.4.6.  I hope that doesn't matter

 

Thanks for the help, Paul.

 

mark

[paulbates]

 

 

At the moment I'm restoring my last backup and hopefully things will improve after that.  The only concern I have is that my ISY is on 4.5.4 and my backup is 4.4.6.  I hope that doesn't matter

 

Thanks for the help, Paul.

 

mark

 

Good news Mark. It won't matter on the version. The back up is the firmware version. Typically a newer AC version doesn't hurt, but you can simply go to the 4.4.6 firmware page and download / install that AC

 

Will be curious how you end up!

 

Paul

[MarkJames]

Yup - it's booting now and getting device status messages again.  I'm gonna have to restore my PLM yet once it's queried all the devices but I think it's gonna be OK.

 

Whew!

 

That was very weird.  My PLM, as it turns out, is fine.  It seems to be something related to the outlet the PLM was plugged in to.  Once all is working fine again I'm gonna move the PLM back to the original outlet and see if that is, indeed, the case.

 

Again - thanks for helping out, Paul.  It sucks being stuck with stuff like this.

 

mark

[MarkJames]

Yup - working again!

 

I have NO idea what was wrong and, tbh, I don't care - I'm just glad it's a) working and I didn't have to buy yet another new PLM.

 

mark

[MarkJames]

Actually working again with a caveat

 

NOT working in the outlet that was the problem.

 

That's pretty odd.  The only thing I can think of is that I had a new heat pump wired in last week and perhaps something changed about the circuit it was on.  I'll spend some time later checking out that outlet and see if it's lost neutral or ground or something.  I'm pretty sure Insteon doesn't care about ground but maybe it's noise from the heatpump circuit or some other electrical reason that I'm not savvy enough to understand.

 

Weird, weird, weird,

[paulbates]

Cool! Glad to help, been in similar situations myself. 

 

You might need to put a noise filter on the heatpump.. my noise problems have been related to low voltage lighting transformers and old style furnace motors.. both strong enough to blank out one or more circuits

 

Paul

[mwester]

And this is why I'm replacing Insteon devices with z-wave devices as they fail...  the days of a "clean" sine-wave on the power line are long gone, and every appliance, light bulb, phone charge, wall wart, and now even major infrastructure items such as furnaces, heat pumps, and A/C units contain switching power supplies that disrupt Insteon devices.

 

You can't filter everything.  Just not practical.

 

Never-the-less, in case you feel you must try, the biggest baddest filter out there is the x10 pro XPF filter (available on Amazon) -- it'll handle 20 Amps MAX, and you'll need two of them if your heatpump is on 240 VAC.

 

There's nothing bigger available - I know, I've looked.  

[MarkJames]

AFAIK z-wave doesn't have fast-on/fast-off.  That's a deal killer for me.  Plus there are just so many more types of devices available for Insteon.

 

I'm not going to be filtering anything.  I just moved my PLM and everything is back to hunky-dunky.  

 

While the older Insteon devices failed quite often and were slow to read/write I find that the new generation - particularly the dual band - are more or less bulletproof.  They read/write much faster, react virtually instantly to group on/offs, and have the fast-on/fast-off capability that I use a lot of.

 

mark

[paulbates]

If you don't have it, a whole house surge protector in the electrical panels is a good insurance policy. 

 

I've had one since x10 days, and I still have the majority of my original insteon devices going back about 10 years.

 

I agree that there are tradeoffs, and a lot plusses on the insteon list. Agreed on consistent double tap across devices, a consistent look/feel/operation. The insteon design kepads are very functional.  On the minuses are these annoying capacitor manufacturing flaws and very little diversity, especially in the (analog) sensor department.

 

Paul

Edited April 29, 2017 by paulbates

[MarkJames]

If you don't have it, a whole house surge protector in the electrical panels is a good insurance policy. 

 

I've had one since x10 days, and I still have the majority of my original insteon devices going back about 10 years.

lol - same same

 

Second one for me.  I had a surge destroy the first one.  Better the protector than everything past it, though!

[Brian H]

Actually working again with a caveat

 

NOT working in the outlet that was the problem.

 

That's pretty odd.  The only thing I can think of is that I had a new heat pump wired in last week and perhaps something changed about the circuit it was on.  I'll spend some time later checking out that outlet and see if it's lost neutral or ground or something.  I'm pretty sure Insteon doesn't care about ground but maybe it's noise from the heatpump circuit or some other electrical reason that I'm not savvy enough to understand.

 

Weird, weird, weird,

I would suspect the new Heat Pump is the issue.

May have some electronic controls that are making line noise or the board has a big fat AC capacitor across the power feed to kill noise. That type cap will also kill Insteon Power Line signals.

[MarkJames]

I wish I understood electrical issues.  I know enough to be able to wire a house with no problem (yes, including 3-way and 4-way switches!) but that's as far as it goes.

[larryllix]

I wish I understood electrical issues.  I know enough to be able to wire a house with no problem (yes, including 3-way and 4-way switches!) but that's as far as it goes.

If the heat pump is new I would ask the company to come back and tell them it is causing electrical noise on your system. They may have some simple fixes for it like..

 

Re-tighten some connections they did

Install some toroids on the feeding conductors.

Install MOVs across the feeding circuits.

Install a whole 240v filter on the 240v and/or 120v.

Use a disturbance/harmonic  analyser to actually analyse the problem.

 

My guess is this will cause you more problems down the road and may be combined with another newer noise maker and then it will get really hard to fix.

[MWareman]

AFAIK z-wave doesn't have fast-on/fast-off. That's a deal killer for me.

The homeseer dimmer supports the central scene class, and has double and triple tap scenes that can drive different events...

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[MarkJames]

The homeseer dimmer supports the central scene class, and has double and triple tap scenes that can drive different events...

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Nice!

 

That's very interesting - thanks Mike.  

 

I don't have the Z-wave dongle for my 994IR yet - I'm considering it if only for the goofing around factor of Z-wave locks.  I keep getting close to buying one but I have a few touchpad locks already so it's not really a big deal to just give whoever I want a disposable code then change it later (or not depending on who it is)

 

My understanding is that Zwave takes a number of devices in order to solidify the mesh network that supports it.  I imagine the larger the property the more devices that would be?

 

mark

Edited April 29, 2017 by MarkJames

[MWareman]

Well, a solid zwave network should start with two or three non-battery devices, ideally devices not in a grounded electrical box that also support encryption and beaming. Even if you don't need noise makers, the Aeotec Siren makes a really good network builder. Then start adding other devices....

 

Also to note, the central scene support in ISY is very new (5.x)...

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[MarkJames]

Well, a solid zwave network should start with two or three non-battery devices, ideally devices not in a grounded electrical box that also support encryption and beaming. Even if you don't need noise makers, the Aeotec Siren makes a really good network builder. Then start adding other devices....

 

Also to note, the central scene support in ISY is very new (5.x)...

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I just looked at the cost of them.  They're quite a bit more expensive than Insteon as well.

 

At this moment I'm not in need of any new switches.  But I'm gonna keep them in mind for the inevitable failure of some of my many insteon devices.

 

mark