Migrating to a new ISY

[Kevin Connolly]

I'm assuming that I can bring up a new ISY utilizing a back up from the old ISY. Is there also a way to migrate my portal to the new ISY easily? The portal looks like it's based on UUID.

[MrBill]

26 minutes ago, Kevin Connolly said:

I'm assuming that I can bring up a new ISY utilizing a back up from the old ISY. Is there also a way to migrate my portal to the new ISY easily? The portal looks like it's based on UUID.

On restoring backup... what version was the back up and what version was the default firmware on the new ISY?  You may need to upgrade/downgrade the ISY firmware to match.

On portal: Add the new ISY to the portal and accept the connection in the admin panel.  At this point the new ISY will be using a free 30 day trial subscription.  Next email support@universal-devices.com giving them both the old and new UUID's, as well as your portal login name, and ask them to transfer the subscription from old to new ISY.

 

[Kevin Connolly]

Well I haven't gotten the new ISY yet. That said, I was assuming that the backup I have is the data side of life associated with a minimal level of firmware. (ie if there was a new enhancement I had on the isy that I made the backup from there'll be an issue if I tried to load that up on a lower level firmware.)

Figuring most software is backwards compatible (except in the case of platform migration) I was planning on first bringing the new isy up to the latest firmware than applying the backup to that.

Correct procedure?

As for the Portal thanks for the heads up.

[MrBill]

2 minutes ago, Kevin Connolly said:

Correct procedure?

I would load the same version of Firmware that the backup was made with onto the ISY, after the backup is restored then proceed to upgrade to the latest firmware.  

That might not be needed if the backup was made with say 5.3.0 and you're moving up to 5.3.4, for that tiny step I would load the backup onto newer firmware.    Since you're running polyglot on a pi you must already be on v5, so if you're aren't too far back in 5.x versions it might be just great to restore a backup made with older firmware onto newer firmware.  5.0.8 might be a breaking point.. I don't know if there are others.

Before you buy a new ISY at this point I'd try a new SD card.. look for the A1 designation... 16gb or 32gb will work with the ISY.  If the SD card will get you by for now then order a Polisy and move your nodeservers over, and then you'll be ready to go when ISY migrates to Polisy.

[Kevin Connolly]

From checking the portal I was on 5.0.14. Checking to see where prior versions are stored since the rest of the known world is on 5.3-ish

[Kevin Connolly]

I did some checking, not exhaustive but a few pages in. I don't see where "older" versions are kept.

 

[MrBill]

Using Search I don't find that version either.  Which may mean it shouldn't be installed because it had a major flaw.  Does your system have a z-wave menu at the top of the admin console?  If so what z-wave version shows there?   if its 4.55.00 then go to 5.0.16C which is as far as you can go until the z-wave board is swapped out (there is an upgrade deal here).  If you don't have a z-wave menu, or the answer to the version question is 6.81.00 then it should be fine to load 5.3.4 and restore a 5.0.14 backup... I'm no expert on that tho, I don't think there were major changes between 5.0.14 and 5.3.4 that would effect loading an older backup, you might want to confirm with support@univerasal-devices.

[Kevin Connolly]

I'm not sure what Zwave version I was running. I do know that my zwave board is older than 2018 though. So by deduction it looks like 5.0.16C might be the way to go than upgrade to latest in the new ISY. 

For the old ISY, I'll try a factory reset with a new SD card and see what happens. From what you've said, when I applied 5.3.4 my ISY probably had a WTF moment. Ha

[MrBill]

11 minutes ago, Kevin Connolly said:

I'm not sure what Zwave version I was running. I do know that my zwave board is older than 2018 though. So by deduction it looks like 5.0.16C might be the way to go than upgrade to latest in the new ISY. 

For the old ISY, I'll try a factory reset with a new SD card and see what happens. From what you've said, when I applied 5.3.4 my ISY probably had a WTF moment. Ha

Yeah, you'll need 5.0.16C...  The other way you can spot the 300 board is to look at the Back of the ISY next to right of Port A there is a blue LED (it doesn't look like a blue LED unlit-- you can see that it is if you shine your phones flashlight on it).

[MrBill]

 

[Kevin Connolly]

It's definitely a 300 board or less....if there is a less. I remember I ordered it when it came out as an expansion board.

thanks for locating the release file.

I wasn't paying attention when I upgraded. I don't upgrade often. I try not to fix things that aren't broken. I rebuilt my Polyglot server because the SD card got toasted. Raspbian sets the swappiness to 60 which wears an SD card out after a year or so with all the writes. So after rebuilding the Polyglot I ended up with ghost nodes even after deleting on the ISY. 

While playing around chasing ghosts and the reasons for them I noticed that 5.3.4 was out and decided, since I'm in rebuilding mode, to upgrade....bad move on my part.

My father used to say: If you're going to be stupid you're going to get hurt. I was being stupid. Ha

Thanks for the help.

[MrBill]

25 minutes ago, Kevin Connolly said:

It's definitely a 300 board or less....if there is a less. I remember I ordered it when it came out as an expansion board.

thanks for locating the release file.

I wasn't paying attention when I upgraded. I don't upgrade often. I try not to fix things that aren't broken. I rebuilt my Polyglot server because the SD card got toasted. Raspbian sets the swappiness to 60 which wears an SD card out after a year or so with all the writes. So after rebuilding the Polyglot I ended up with ghost nodes even after deleting on the ISY. 

While playing around chasing ghosts and the reasons for them I noticed that 5.3.4 was out and decided, since I'm in rebuilding mode, to upgrade....bad move on my part.

My father used to say: If you're going to be stupid you're going to get hurt. I was being stupid. Ha

Thanks for the help.

There's only two choices for Z-wave, 300 and 500.  the 300 board reports z-wave version 4.55.00 and has a Blue LED to the right of Port A.  The 500 series reports z-wave version 6.81.00 and has no LED.

Series 300 boards are only compatible thru and including 5.0.16C

As far as your ghost chasing just delete the DB file, not sure the path on Pi and let Polyglot recreate it.

I had to go thru the pain of ISY SD card failure earlier this year and I became alot smarter during the process.  lol

Is that the original SD card in your ISY?  If so it lasted a long long time...

[Kevin Connolly]

Yeah, it's definitely a 300 board than.  and yup it's the stock SD card. 

I once had a raspberry pi run 24/7 for 8 yrs. I just replaced it last year. I now have 3 Pis on two bitscope blades running in a case I designed and my son-in-law printed for me. I run a Polyglot, DNS, VPN, and a NAS. because I have a VPN I have a secondary NAS back up at my son-in-laws house. I've found that once you get your system up and running to where you want it the best course of action is to never upgrade the software. Don't even think about it. Just let it run (I know...I broke that rule. Ha)

Since the recent issue with having to rebuild the Polyglot I now also have images of all my installs. In the event of an SD card or board failure I can be back up within minutes assuming I have the hardware in hand. 

Once I get the ISY back up I'm going to create an image of that SD Card as well.  

[MrBill]

I do tinker with my ISY alot... but I make certain to back up regularly.  Come to think of it tho, i need to backup polisy that's been awhile....  and my backups go in a directory that gets backed up to cloud space automatically. 

The best setup of all is Home Assistant, they have an ADD-on that backs up everyday and syncs the backup directory to Google Drive and prunes old backups according to however you configure a batch of robust settings.