Links Tables and event viewers are empty

[SkipMorrow]

First post here. I can create new scenes, control them and control individual devices. But strangely, when I go to Tools->Diagnostics, the event viewer, PLM Links Table and ISY Links Table are all blank/empty. I left the event viewer running for an hour or so, turned lights on and off, and never got a single event. I tried all of the different log levels (0-3). I have two PLMs, one brand new, and one that's at least a year or so old, same results with each of them. I have also tried the File->Restore PLM, but nothing happens. I don't see anything happening on screen, and when I go to view the links tables, they are still blank.

Thoughts?

[paulbates]

Hi Skip

Welcome to the UDI Forums! Try this:

If the ISY Links table is empty, something is wrong. How did you link your devices initially, with the ISY, or manually using swtiches.

Paul

[SkipMorrow]

Yes, the ISY links table is empty. To be honest, I don't exactly know how all of the devices got in there. When I got the ISY a few weeks ago, I plugged it in, started playing with it, added one or two devices in my study so I could play, and I clicked on something that caused it to do the big progress bar dialog box that comes up thing and it kept on going and going. Fortunately it was getting late, so I just let it keep doing its thing overnight. The next morning, all of my devices were in there. So I can only guess it queried all of my devices, found all of the links for those devices, and spider-manned it way through my network. Pretty cool, I actually thought. Anyway, I am having trouble getting a fanlinc and KPL set up correctly, so I was clicking around and found these link tables and message diagnostics. And they are all empty. So it got me wondering if I gooned something up. And here I am.

I've been using insteon for over ten years, mostly with some HA software called "PowerHome", which I've used to do all of my link management. I just got this ISY and I am really excited about it all being networked, so I do hope we can get this going! Thanks in advance for your help

[mwester]

Ah, yes.  THAT mechanism.

Tried that, and like you, I too thought that was just a fabulously cool feature -- and then, as I tried to tweak things and add devices, and nothing quite worked just right, nor did it look or behave like the documentation, wiki, and forum examples, I came to realize that this mechanism just doesn't work as well as one might hope.

In a nutshell, the way the ISY puts the links together and manages them is subtly different from the way other devices do them, and it just doesn't work in the end.

So, here's my advice (based on what I ended up doing):

1) record every device and the desired behavior, based on the way it now works (i.e. the virtual 3-way switches, etc, etc).
2) remove the existing/old automation controller entirely (if you haven't already)
3) factory reset the ISY
4) do the basic setup of the ISY to get it on your network so you can work with it
5) one-by-one, factory-reset each Insteon device, and add it to the ISY
6) using the ISY, re-setup your original behavior -- now the ISY link table will be populated, as well as the device(s)
7) setup some of the cool features (e.g. programs, network resources, etc) that you can only do with the ISY

Try as you may to avoid the factory-resets, you'll end up just like the rest of us -- factory-reset and following the steps above...

[paulbates]

Skip

Ok. So I migrated to the ISY from another solution as well a few years ago. I tried the "Crawl" method and got inconsistent results. One thing to know is that the ISY needs to be the manager of your insteon network, and that means all device links, even the ones between devices, need to be created by the ISY. When that's the case, the ISY Links table will have all devices in it and the "system of record" for your insteon network.. and there will be no manually created links between devices that were created via the Insteon instructions that come with the devices

Here is what I eventually did and the ISY has worked well:

• Documented the links between devices (eg keypads to lights, etc). I had homeseer so I had a list to refer to
• One room / function at a time
  • Factory reset each insteon device
  • manually add them to the ISY
  • recreate scenes(groups) from the ISY link menu
• Don't try to do it big bang / all at once. start simple and move on as you feel good with it

The crawl method wasn't predictable enough for me

Edit: Agreed with mwester

Paul

[SkipMorrow]

OK, I can deal with that. Yes, I have been dealing with all kinds of gremlins with this software over the last few weeks. I have considered doing exactly ask you suggest. Not a huge downer--I've got like 25-ish devices, so I think I can get it all done in a day, such as this weekend even!

[SkipMorrow]

OK, I factor reset everything. It looks like this was good advice. My KPLs are working perfectly. My scenes are all behaving. All is good! Thanks