Replaced PLM, now some programs aren't working?

[oh2bnMaine]

My PLM is 51.10.76.  This is the motion detector that doesn't seem to be working.

 

I have been doing this link table check on a lot of devices. I found a link to a device that made no sense (actually, I'm finding a lot of these). I tried to clear the link, but wasn't having any luck. I deleted the device and the links persist. 

Is there a standard process for clearing these bad links?

[kclenden]

20 minutes ago, oh2bnMaine said:

My PLM is 51.10.76.  This is the motion detector that doesn't seem to be working.

Your links table looks normal.  For example, here is the links table for one of my motion detectors (my PLM is 40.52.35):

Notice that the first six lines look identical except for the address of the PLM.  The rest of lines in my link table are related to a scene that I have the motion detector in.

25 minutes ago, oh2bnMaine said:

Is there a standard process for clearing these bad links?

Well it depends on what you mean by bad links.  Links that start with 22 or 62 instead of A2 or E2 are links that have been deleted.  Rather than actually delete them, the device merely marks them as inactive.  It does this by setting the most significant bit to 0 (thus an A which is 1010 in binary becomes 0010 and thus changes to a 2 in hex and an E which is 1110 in binary becomes a 0110 and thus changes to a 6 in hex)  So those aren't actually bad links.  Then there are bits that control the SmartHop count which can change a leading E to an F or a leading A to a B (or change a trailing 2 to an A).  While the ISY will show those as mismatched records, they aren't actually.  They're merely records that the device changed after the ISY created them.

[oh2bnMaine]

I think I have things working! My bathroom programs are working. All three of them. Let me describe my solution and see if there's any logic my madness.

1. Factory reset switch
2. Delete switch from ISY
3. Link switch to ISY
4. Check Device Links (should be empty or just 00000)
5. Restore Device
6. Rename Device
7. Check Device Links (and compare to PLM table)
8. Confirm switch changes show up in ISY Admin Console
9. Confirm programs work as expected

I found that in certain situations I did not need to do all these steps, but every time I followed all these steps I was able to get the switch connected properly.

Yes, this means that last night and this morning, I performed the above steps for all devices in the house. It took hours. But I'm glad I did it. Everything is much cleaner now.

All motion detectors are working. I even added a little flourish for my office. I have it set so that the light in the office flashes whenever there is motion in the driveway (up the hill and on the other side of the house). This lets me know when someone is moving around (or drives over to see me). I don't have any devices in the office that beep. Up in the house, light switches around the house beep when there's motion approaching the deck/driveway.

 

[kclenden]

13 hours ago, oh2bnMaine said:

1. Factory reset switch
2. Delete switch from ISY
3. Link switch to ISY
4. Check Device Links (should be empty or just 00000)
5. Restore Device
6. Rename Device
7. Check Device Links (and compare to PLM table)
8. Confirm switch changes show up in ISY Admin Console
9. Confirm programs work as expected

In general your process seems sound, but a couple items have me confused:

#4 - It seems to me that after linking a switch to the ISY you should find two links in the Device Links table, not an empty table.  There should be an A2 and an E2 link.

#5 - If you deleted the switch in step #2, how do you later do a restore?

[oh2bnMaine]

#4 - Of course, keep in mind that I honed this finely tuned machine over hours of sitting watching sports on TV, so I could have my order of operations and results witnessed screwed up.  I didn't always do steps 1 & 2 in that order. My observation mentioned in step 4 could have been the result of me doing some of the steps in a different order. Maybe I did the factory reset after adding the device back to the ISY? 

#5 - I'm not sure if this step really did anything. I was tired of trying a ton of stuff and finding that I should have done more, so I came up with a list of steps that touched on everything. 

[oh2bnMaine]

My PLM links table, with all scenes reinstalled, has over 150 lines in it now. And all programs are working as designed. Over the past 48 hours, I have only seen one switch flip to a red exclamation point...and that goes away when I do a query of that specific device.

Thank you to all who've helped me through this. Before this ISY/PLM issue I never really understood the paradigm used for controlling the switches. I didn't understand where information was being stored and where the activities were initiated from. I think my understanding has improved by leaps and bounds. 

Now, to get back to my place in Florida and implement what I've learned about scenes and state variables. I have a bunch of switches beep when the motion detector detects motion. In order to not get too annoyed, I added a countdown timer that limits the alerts to once every X seconds. My wife will be able to change the timer to use whatever value she prefers.

[kclenden]

3 hours ago, oh2bnMaine said:

My PLM links table, with all scenes reinstalled, has over 150 lines in it now.

Thanks for sharing your complete journey.  Often people don't close the circle leaving others experiencing the same problem to wonder if (and how) the problem was solved.

[oh2bnMaine]

I also have confirmed that one of the switches that I thought was dead because I was having communication issues with it is, in fact, alive and well. I added it to the garage as the first device in that building. The garage is 100 feet from the closest Insteon device. So, clearly, the switch was never broken. I'm relieved I saved all the "broken" switches over the years. I'll re-purpose those as the need arises.