First all on event

[beninsteon]

Hi,

I've read about them here before, but never experienced an All On event in the year + of owning my ISY.

Tonight, when I came home I found most (but not all) of my Insteon devices on.

I think I know what caused this to happen, but I don't exactly understand why.

I am also running HomeSeer, which is monitoring the status of my chromecast devices. I created a new HomeSeer event tonight that triggers an Insteon scene through the ISY REST protocol when my Chromecast stopped. Unfortunately, this event was running continuously (and hence triggering an insteon scene multiple times per second) all night from around 730m-11pm. Around 930 I had the "All-On" event. The ISY log file has about 2 triggers/sec.

I have of course disabled the offending HomeSeer event. Just wondering why the ISY would trigger "All On" when it became overwhelmed. The event has me somewhat rattled. Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Ben

[MWareman]

Just wondering why the ISY would trigger "All On" when it became overwhelmed. The event has me somewhat rattled.

I think that’s a mischaracterization. ISY never sends an All-On message. Otherwise, ISY would know all devices are on - and it doesn’t.

What is happening is a message collision on the power line, and it looks confusingly similar to the All-On message - and older devices are acting on that apparent message. Newer devices now ignore the All-On to avoid the problem.

It’s possible that spamming the ISY API with messages could have caused such a collision between the ISY sending scene on messages rapidly and devices confirming the new status back to ISY - which would be retried if the insteon network is congested.

[paulbates]

To add to Michael's spot on assessment..

Your PLM was transmitting 2 messages / sec. That's a broadcast storm that saturates the powerline with little room for anything else, all in with latency and acknowledgements.

There were no acknowledgements back from the ISY scene messages. However, if other devices, especially wireless devices like motion sensors, door sensors or especially thermostats were transmitting messages (they double transmit in some cases); those find their way onto the powerline and the likelihood of an "all on" from colliding messages is about as high as it gets.

And those devices typically send device-device messages or scenes that all do get acknowledgements, which would very likely get blocked and create 3 retries when the saturated powerline can't cope with the broadcast storm. That gets ugly pretty quickly

Paul

Edited March 31, 2018 by paulbates

[beninsteon]

Thanks for the info.

I don't have any RF-only devices, but nonetheless I can certainly see how things got congested. The ISY log had over 22 thousand triggers between 730-11pm yesterday.

The big problem here wasn't the older Switch/Dimmer/KeypadLincs going on (you're right that newer ones weren't affected), but the IOLincs getting triggered (and, for example, turning off the water in the house). Has Smarthome/Insteon made a new version of the IOLinc that ignores "All On"? If not, I think I need to change my IOLincs to another relay (eg. GlobalCache IP2CC).

Thanks again,

Ben

[paulbates]

Ben

That topic has been kicked around here but I don't know that I saw anyone verify that there is a newer iolincs don't respond to the all-on message. They remain a single band device. The manual doesn't address the all on, but none of the manuals do for things like switchlincs where it has been addressed. 

My guess is that its probably addressed, but in reality I don't know. Many of my +50 devices are older ( 7 - 10 years old) and include 3 iolincs, but I've not had an all on so I've not addressed it. 

Here is a Smarthome thread about this topic.

Paul

[beninsteon]

Thanks.

Is it true that the "All On" glitch has only been reported with the ISY (which I've seen @Teken mention), or has this been reported to affect other controllers as well?

If so, could speak to an issue with the ISY, or selection bias considering the ISY is probably the most common Insteon controller among tinkerers.

Ben

Edited March 31, 2018 by beninsteon

[paulbates]

My understanding is that its ISY only, but for reason. There is a staggeringly long thread here on the forums about it. I don't anyone has done a poll, but my interpretation is that some ISY Insteon users have seen it and its mostly associated with the ISY processing event from wireless devices like motion sensors that send their messages twice. 

• Motion sensor sends a message> 
• ISY receives that message and >
• ISy sends another insteon command like turning on lights.. at the exact moment that... >
• Motion sensor sends its second copy of the same On... collision.

Michel has published specific directions about avoiding that and I've always followed it. 

My interpretation is also that a majority of ISY Insteon users, like me, have not had it happen.

To me, what happened to you was directly attributable to the HomeSeer/ISY interface issue and was resolved. Is there a lingering risk, sure. But how long have you had your ISY before this even and no All On problems?

Paul