dbb1 Posted January 13, 2022 Posted January 13, 2022 This has been driving me nuts. I've read several posts that seem to mimic the issues I'm seeing, but I haven't been able to resolve anything. The ISY994 Pro f/w and UI are both on v5.3.4, but the random off/on was happening while on the latest v4 firmware prior to the upgrade. Lights are 2477D dual band and have worked flawlessly for years until about mid-summer. The kitchen lights began going on/off, sometimes fairly rapidly. Of course I rebooted everything with no luck, but the problem eventually seemed to go away on its own. Then the family room lights began going off of an evening, then coming back on a few minutes later. Now the kitchen is back in the act. Although I can't make a direct correlation, I did install a new Pentair Intelliflo pump this last year, which I understand is very noisy, but I honestly can't make a correlation with the pump installation and when the light issue began (but I know it's happened when the pump was not running). I've also installed new Venstar thermostats. There also does not seem to be a correlation with any of my programs or other devices, or a certain time, either. The odd thing is that both the family room and kitchen are multi-way switches - three-way in the family room, and two-way in the kitchen. None of my other, single switch controls seem to be affected - yet. I've deleted the switches from the ISY, factory reset them, and linked them back in (tried both the auto-detect and manual address entry methods), then moved them to my desired folder and scenes (also used the "paddle-hold and link" method to group the mult-way switches with each other). That seemed to take care of the issue in the family room at least, until last night, when the kitchen lights began acting up again, so I did the same for those two switches. Thought I had it all sewn up, but then later in the evening the switches stopped controlling the lights in both places altogether. Redid the family room, but gave up on the kitchen. I don't know what else to try. Should I hit the reset button on the PLM? Restore it? The PLM is one of the newer ones, after the original one died after a couple of years of use. Even though I've been running this gear for a number of years, I don't have much experience troubleshooting the platform or searching through logs - I never had to, so I'm not sure what some of the tools do. Sorry for the wall of text, but am at my wits end. My wife is wanting me to pull it out and go back to basics.
matapan Posted January 13, 2022 Posted January 13, 2022 Can you post a log of the events which occurred around the time the lights would flash on and off?
larryllix Posted January 13, 2022 Posted January 13, 2022 A few years back I had what appeared to be one of my gathering room scenes came on a random. This drove me nuts tearing my ISY programs apart. I never found the defective program. After about a year and a half, I was reading my error logs and found that after my humidifier was turned on a bad packet was recorded by ISY and no command acknowledge was recorded. Scanning the file, I found a few of these and a few with proper acknowledge signal also. I went to the OnOffLinc and simply unplugged it and then plugged it back in again and the problem never happened again and the OnOffLinc still operates flawlessly for the last 3-4 years operating the same humidifier. Conclusion? This OnOffLinc was producing a Scene On command in response to the On command ISY sent to it. The little CPUs and ROMs in these Insteon devices can do anything when they crash internally. I had another Insteon unit (can't remember the type) that sent out it's status in reverse. Off = On/On = Off. Don't give up. Factory reset and restore each device, one at a time. It only takes about 30 seconds (each) once you know how.
dbb1 Posted January 14, 2022 Author Posted January 14, 2022 On 1/12/2022 at 6:35 PM, matapan said: Can you post a log of the events which occurred around the time the lights would flash on and off? Thank you, I most certainly will if I can locate one. I may have to wait until it happens again. I think I currently have the 3-way family room switches squared away, but they lost their configuration the other night and I had to re-do them. I've pulled the kitchen 2-way switches out of the configuration, but will try it again this weekend. Any thoughts on this happening to only the multi-way switch installations?
dbb1 Posted January 14, 2022 Author Posted January 14, 2022 On 1/12/2022 at 6:46 PM, larryllix said: Don't give up. Factory reset and restore each device, one at a time. It only takes about 30 seconds (each) once you know how. Haven't given up quite yet (see previous post). My factory reset method has always consisted of: - deleting the switch from the ISY control dashboard, - air-gapping them for 30 seconds or more, and - holding in the top of the paddle until the long-beep stops, and the switch lights ramp up Then I re-link them in ISY (have tried both letting the auto-link discover the device, as well as by manually entering them), while always using the default "remove links" radio button. In the case of the multi-way switch installations, I would then manually group them together using the paddle hold and link method, and then organize them to the appropriate folder in ISY. Not sure what else there is to do. I'm definitely going to have to read up on some of the tools, what they do, and when to use them, such as Restore PLM, Restore Device, Link Tables, etc. It's not all that straight-forward or apparent from the UI.
Brian H Posted January 14, 2022 Posted January 14, 2022 The 2477D manual said to hold in the Set Button until the beep stops.
larryllix Posted January 14, 2022 Posted January 14, 2022 ....also don;t link Insteon devices together using the paddle switches or linking switches on the devices, if you have an ISY. ISY needs to know about the link to preform some of the logic nicely for you and ISY makes it much easier to manage. Once links are all controlled by ISY you can just click on restore, after any factory reset. ISY does the hard lifting for you and restores things the way they should be. ISY is an excellent link manager.
MrBill Posted January 15, 2022 Posted January 15, 2022 17 hours ago, dbb1 said: Haven't given up quite yet (see previous post). My factory reset method has always consisted of: - deleting the switch from the ISY control dashboard, - air-gapping them for 30 seconds or more, and - holding in the top of the paddle until the long-beep stops, and the switch lights ramp up Then I re-link them in ISY (have tried both letting the auto-link discover the device, as well as by manually entering them), while always using the default "remove links" radio button. In the case of the multi-way switch installations, I would then manually group them together using the paddle hold and link method, and then organize them to the appropriate folder in ISY. Not sure what else there is to do. I'm definitely going to have to read up on some of the tools, what they do, and when to use them, such as Restore PLM, Restore Device, Link Tables, etc. It's not all that straight-forward or apparent from the UI. I tend to not delete from the ISY on the first attempt. It's a bit faster to just Factory Reset the switch, then select it in the admin console, right click and pick "restore device" which will most likely solve the problem, on the rare occasion that it doesn't then i try the method you've outlined 1)delete from ISY, 2)factory reset, 3) re-add to isy. Also what model switch are you factory resetting? As @Brian H points out the 2477D procedure is to hold the set button in until the long beep stops. Over the years tho there have been a few variations depending on model. If unsure google "Insteon XXXX manual pdf" replacing XXXX with the model number. Usually there's two manuals for each model, a quick start and a full user manual. Factory reset is in the full manual. Watch for insteon.com links and try to avoid 3rd party sites unless they are offering the OEM pdf file.
dbb1 Posted February 6, 2022 Author Posted February 6, 2022 Thanks Mr. Bill. As mentioned, I have the 2477D switches and I've been using the long hold set button method to reset them. I have these in a three-way installation for the family room, and a two-way switch install in the kitchen. I've reset these things so many times and re-added them to the ISY now, it ain't funny. It seems like the last attemp "took." They have now been working for the better part of two weeks with no random on/off events. The only issue I now have, is that the second switch in the kitchen configuration is doing a very slow 9 or 10 second ramp-up/down, which I can't track down. All the setting in the ISY for both of these switches are configured for .1 fast on ramp-up. One works as intended, the other has the slow ramp rate. I've used the manual ramp setting right on the switch, as shown in an Insteon how-to video (1 quick off taps followed by two quick on taps), but this doesn't seem to have any effect. But at least they stay on...
stillwater Posted February 6, 2022 Posted February 6, 2022 Slow ramp rate is probably set on for the specific controller as part of a scene definition -- Go to the scene on the left pane of the admin console, click on the appropriate red controller entry, view entries in ACTION column, edit by clicking on the line and entering correct settings in boxes at bottom, click update and all should be fixed.
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