Zwave not working as intended... advice on how to start over?

[danbutter]

So for a quick overview...I have had zwave in my ISY for years. Started with the 300 series board, upgraded to the 500 series board have been on the 5.0 firmware track for years also. About a third of my zwave network are 300 series and the other two thirds are zwave plus devices.

I have always had issues with a couple outlying devices and cold temps, but overall a stable network.

So about a month ago my ISY started to work with less than optimal results. Following advice I replaced my SD card and things came back up for everything except my zwave network.

It works, but it will randomly lose devices. Either they become unresponsive or disappear from the ISY all together. If unresponsive for example a lock will show with the red exclamation point.  If I manually lock or unlock the status is instantly reflected in the AC, but if I try to query it right afterwards it says unavailable and can't reach it. Plugs or switches that used to reflect a status update when the physical button is pressed don't anymore. I can query and see the correct state, but never had to before so why now? The zwave menu in the AC only has learn mode so I can't even try to shift primary control to another controller. If I hit learn it starts and closes in the same second in the event viewer.

So it isn't reliable like it used to be. It isn't useable anymore.

So to start over is all I can think of. 

Before I do this what would you guys recommend doing? I have already copied all of my programs with zwave devices in them. Anything else?

 

Thanks for reading!

[lilyoyo1]

Firmware and UI

[danbutter]

15 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Firmware and UI

Do you mean just make note of what they are?

I tried to upgrade to 5.2.0 and it didn't work out well. I then tried to go back to where I was before and again ended up with all of the issues above.

I intend to go back to 5.2.0 then factory reset the zwave board and start adding everything back again.

I sure hope there isn't something wrong with my zwave board and a factory reset works.

[DennisC]

Before you started did you back up the Zwave devices and then backup the ISY?

Did you restore Zwave after reverting the firmware back?

Does your firmware and UI versions match?

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, danbutter said:

Do you mean just make note of what they are?

I tried to upgrade to 5.2.0 and it didn't work out well. I then tried to go back to where I was before and again ended up with all of the issues above.

I intend to go back to 5.2.0 then factory reset the zwave board and start adding everything back again.

I sure hope there isn't something wrong with my zwave board and a factory reset works.

 I was asking what were your firmware and UI. One of the most common issues is a firmware and UI mismatch from not clearing Java cache or using the wrong Admin console. 

[Techman]

The Zwave 500 board is known to have issues with ISY firmware below 5.2.0

If you didn't backup your Zwave before you updated your board to the 500 series you'll l probably have to rebuild your Zwave network. Prior to rebuilding your Zwave network your ISY firmware and UI must be 5.2.0

 

 

[danbutter]

Okay my firmware and UI do match. I most definitely cleared the java cache and re-downloaded the start.jnlp afterwards.

I backed up the zwave when moving from the 300 series board to the 500 series board, but never after that.

I don't see where it says to do that in the 5.2.0 thread. The section on zwave prereqs talks about shifting the primary control, but it also mentions firmware 4.55 in that so that seems like the old 300 series board. Shifting control is something that isn't an option for me anyway.  

So as I mentioned above I plan to upgrade to 5.2.0 again and then factory reset the zwave board and then start adding devices again.

Does this sound like a good plan?

 

[DennisC]

Have you tried synchronizing all nodes from the Zwave menu? If that doesn't restore Zwave functionality you could also restore your Zwave from the backup you said you took before the upgrade. You can find that option under the Zwave menu.

[danbutter]

I can certainly try it, but with other issues like the option to shift control to another controller simply missing I think there is more wrong with my zwave setup.

I'll try to sync before I upgrade and I'll report back.

[danbutter]

So if the sync pulls the info from the zwave module and compares it to what is in the config why does so much stuff disappear?

I added it and it was in the AC and functioned, but is now just gone like it was never there.

By doing the sync I lost about half of my daily garbage/ghost nodes even though I have freeze ISY nodes set to YES.  It just plain doesn't work....at least now. I think it used to.

I also lost quite a few other devices that I have had for years.  Even ones that worked well. I'm not going to inventory the ones that disappeared as I plan to wipe it tomorrow morning.

I sure hope this works!