PLM failure symptoms

[larryllix]

It seems you will have to start over by factory resetting your ISY along with every device in your house. If you do not have a good backup at this point you will be starting from the beginning again, writing programs and creating scenes. My guess is your ISY may have lost all records of the scene links installed in your devices.

Techman was trying to help you with diagnosing techniques, but you insist on degrading your system, that could have been used as a testground to find and solve  your original problem.

[redridge]

2 hours ago, larryllix said:

It seems you will have to start over by factory resetting your ISY along with every device in your house. If you do not have a good backup at this point you will be starting from the beginning again, writing programs and creating scenes. My guess is your ISY may have lost all records of the scene links installed in your devices.

Techman was trying to help you with diagnosing techniques, but you insist on degrading your system, that could have been used as a testground to find and solve  your original problem.

You may have missed my last edit.  The ISY did load the proper scene info into the new replaced keypad, but doesn’t recognize it a minute later when button activated.

[redridge]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

It seems you will have to start over by factory resetting your ISY along with every device in your house.

I have over thirty keypads.  Over this process I have realized that means I have 240 addressable Insteon devices in those, plus 30 or so odd load controllers separate from the keypads.  Pretty sure from the progressing wait times I experienced it would take me a month or so to do that.  It's a dilemma.  I am currently trying to delete and rebuild a simple scene by removing members, deleting it, then re-adding the members.  It is amazing how long just that takes.  If that works I could in theory slowing rebuild without using flashlights around the house to see and eat by.

[Techman]

Being that you seem opposed to running the suggested diagnostics which will help us narrow down your problem(s) then at this point you're probably on your own.

Here's a guideline for troubleshooting    https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Main_Page#Troubleshooting_2

 

 

 

[redridge]

12 hours ago, Techman said:

OK I went back and found your post

"Can you put the ISY viewer into level 3 mode then try to communicate with a device. Copy and paste the event viewer results in a post."

            In which way do I try to communicate with a device?

"Can you run a diagnostics on one of your devices, then do a (link) compare. Does the compare show any mismatched links?"

           I don't understand "do a link compare".    Sorry!

 

[Techman]

This is from the ISY user's manual

 

11.1 Diagnostics

The ISY includes built-in tools to help troubleshoot problems that might occur, such as

Programs that do not behave as expected or communication issues to or from INSTEON

devices.

11.1.1 The Event Viewer

The Administrative Console’s Event Viewer can be an invaluable tool in helping to diagnose

problems. To access the Event Viewer, click on the Tools pull-down menu, then

Diagnostics, then Event Viewer.

The Event Viewer window displays information on what is happening on your ISY, such as

commands sent to devices, information received from devices, programs that are executing,

and much more. There are several levels of detail available using the Change Level button

(level 3 being the most detailed). Use the Save Log To button to save the current Event

Viewer output to a text file.

Refer to Appendix J: Event Viewer Log Details for details relating to the various logs

generated by the Event Viewer.

11.1.2 System Status

The System Status screen shows you basic information about the ISY, such as the date and

time it was last started, the size of the installed SD card, and how much free space is

available.

To access the System Status screen click on the Tools pull-down menu, then Diagnostics,

then System Status.

11.1.3 PLM Info/Status

This screen tells you if the ISY is communicating with an attached PLM, and also displays

the INSTEON address and firmware version of an attached PLM.

To view this information click on the Tools pull-down menu, then Diagnostics, then PLM

Info/Status.

11.1.4 PLM Links Table

To see the link table in your attached PLM click the Tools pull-down menu, then

Diagnostics, then PLM Links Table. Hitting Start begins reading the Link Table from your

attached PLM.

- 71 -

Once complete, you can hit the Count button to see the total number of links read from

your PLM. This can be useful as PLMs have limits to how many links they can store.

Unfortunately this limit does vary depending on which version PLM you have.

There is a Stop button available on this screen which, if pressed, aborts the reading of your

PLM’s Links Table. Save and Load buttons are also available to export or import the Links

Table to an XML file.

11.1.5 Show Device Links Table

To view the links table of an INSTEON Device, click the Tools pull-down menu, then

Diagnostics, then Show Device Links Table. Choose your device; adjust the starting and

ending addresses (only if needed) and hit OK. This will start reading the selected Device’s

Links Table.

Once complete, you can hit the Count button to view your Device’s total link count. This

can be useful as Devices do have limits to how many links they can store. Unfortunately the

limits do vary depending on the device.

You can also hit the Compare button to compare the links read in from the Device to the

list of links the ISY believes the Device should have. If there is a discrepancy, you may want

to run a Restore on the device to correct the links table. For more information on the

Restore function, see 3.2.6 Other Functions (Restore, Disable, Query, etc.).

There is a Stop button available on this screen which, if pressed, aborts the reading of your

Device’s Links Table. Save and Load buttons are also available to export or import the

Links Table to an XML file.

11.1.6 Show ISY Links Table

To view the list of links that the ISY believes a device should have, click the Tools pulldown

menu, then Diagnostics, then Show Device Links Table. Choose your device and

hit OK and the links table displays.

You can hit the Count button to view your Device’s total link count. This can be useful as

Devices do have limits to how many links they can store. The limits vary depending on the

device.

There are also Save and Load buttons available to export or import the links table to an

XML file.

[redridge]

Success!  A small one that took about 1/2 hour.  I was able to delete and rebuild a scene button on the replaced keypad. The new scene operates properly, changes the flag for the mid-level pilot light program, and shows up on the activity screen.

My question is, am I leaving artifacts all over the place in doing it this way rather than starting all over (and moving out of my house for a month)?

[redridge]

13 minutes ago, Techman said:

This is from the ISY user's manual

 

 

Thanks buddy! 

[Michel Kohanim]

@redridge,

The problems point to a restore on a dead PLM and thus all the PLM links are 0'ed out (scenes fail, no status updates, and newer devices cannot be written to). This is true because of all the long system busy events while ISY tries to rectify the problem. Since we know that the new PLM is working (you linked and tested a device) - and apart from starting from scratch - the only solution is to find a backup you had from before the first time you started having these issues. If you can find that PLM, then what you need to do is Restore Devices.

 

With kind regards,
Michel

[redridge]

4 hours ago, Michel Kohanim said:

@redridge,

The problems point to a restore on a dead PLM and thus all the PLM links are 0'ed out (scenes fail, no status updates, and newer devices cannot be written to). This is true because of all the long system busy events while ISY tries to rectify the problem. Since we know that the new PLM is working (you linked and tested a device) - and apart from starting from scratch - the only solution is to find a backup you had from before the first time you started having these issues. If you can find that PLM, then what you need to do is Restore Devices.

 

With kind regards,
Michel

I was wondering if you'd chime in thanks.  Those geniuses (your friends) want me to start completely over and spend another month on this I don't have time.  I have been selectively repairing what needs to be repaired.  Since all my Insteon device links are intact to each other, I do not have to delete the "Scene" that was originally created per say, I just needed to delete and re-populate them with items that react to or trigger a program.  I realize what that means as far as a broken data base but it will get my devices back to work the way they were just before I noticed these problems.  I call it Insteon Depression and I am just recovering from it.

I have to plan things to do while the updates are running they still are quite long but I have somewhat realized what I was up against and am starting to see how this all works.

I do have a file saved from May 13th, but that was after I started seeing some problems.  Can I save backups as I progress with my ad-hock repairs and then finally go back to my May 13th save, load it and see if it was still ahead of what I have been manually fixing?  And can I go back to my latest save from this period if I determine I just want to carry on?

[Michel Kohanim]

@redridge,

Yes, you can take incremental backup and then go back BUT, if you do that, you will have to do File | Restore Devices which takes a long time. If you don't have any good backups, it's best to continue on the path you are on (as long as you do it through ISY) and then take frequent backups for the next time around.

With kind regards,
Michel

[redridge]

4 hours ago, Michel Kohanim said:

@redridge,

Yes, you can take incremental backup and then go back BUT, if you do that, you will have to do File | Restore Devices which takes a long time. If you don't have any good backups, it's best to continue on the path you are on (as long as you do it through ISY) and then take frequent backups for the next time around.

With kind regards,
Michel

Thanks I think it's going pretty good.  Still some strange things going on but I did originally enroll a lot of these devices on the bench before installing.  And I do want to fully absorb the manual some time but's it's going to be a busy summer.