Going back to 994i after migration?

[johnnyt]

Has anyone gone back to their 994i after migrating (or trying) to Polisy/eisy? If so, any hiccups? Did you have to restore your backup or just plug the 994i back in?

The migration section of the user guide on wiki as of today does say the following in the "Eisy/Polisy" section. I assume it applies when one comes from 994i, not just between a Polisy and an eisy, but would like confirmation of that from folks who have done it.

"If you don't actually change your Z-Wave network by adding/removing Z-Wave devices after migration, you can back out the migration by connecting whatever Z-Wave dongle you were using before migration and restoring the backup you made prior to migration."

Also I only see mention of backing out zwave. For Insteon, I assume as long as one uses the same PLM the same applies.

Because I have over 150 zwave nodes, almost 190 insteon nodes, close to 1000 programs, and given things haven't gone as smoothly as I'm sure they will one day, I'd like to do a "dry run" to see what things need better support and report them / wait for fixes before I do the real migration. If it's a manageable amount of pain I wouldn't go back, of course. While I will hope for the best, I'm planning for the worst.

Any info would be appreciated.

 

[tlightne]

I do not know for certain but to go back to the 994 I would think you would have to exclude the Zwave devices from Zmatter and then include them into the 994.  But hopefully someone with more experience will chime in... 

[Geddy]

1 hour ago, johnnyt said:

I'd like to do a "dry run" to see what things need better support and report them / wait for fixes before I do the real migration.

IMO (and purely as a user) with a system as complex as yours I wouldn't even attempt a "dry run" out of worry of what happens in an attempt to go back to an old system. I know that there's been a few bumps along the way, but it's a lot better than the initial release time of the eisy. And going to Polisy had been fairly easy, but the ZMatter board did add some complexity in that regard. 

Even if you wait until you feel it's a little more safe there's bound to be something that will bite you because it's your system and UDI can't program for everything in everybody's system to migrate without a hiccup. Just got to be ready for anything.

Many have probably updated without major issues that they haven't even had to post on the board. While as with everything else in the world when there are issues you hear about them 10-fold. (You know the "saying" that it's easier to complain sitting behind a keyboard than to somebody's face...well...forums give everybody that medium.)

The issue becomes - "when is the best time to migrate"? Well, given the number of people actively going through the process now I'd actually say RIGHT NOW would be perfect. You'd have the most support from other users on the forums with issues. You'd also be a great help to UDI for migrating a complex system for finding any additional bugs that need to be ironed out. 

If you wait the user-to-user support on the forums becomes "well, when I did it (x-months ago), I did x-y-z to fix that issue". That would prove two things...x-y-z didn't get fixed (mostly because UDI didn't know about it by way of support ticket). And that if you thought waiting would be better it still wasn't.  

I'm kicking myself for not migrating to the Polisy from the ISY994 sooner. I waited until I had the eisy to migrate from ISY994 all the way to eisy. I have about 100 nodes and less than 100 programs. My system was uber simple. (IMO) I had everything migrated within 30 minutes. That was about 2 months ago now. 

The other side of me is saying...why wait? Just do it! Rip off the band-aid! Make the leap! Come on in, the water's fine!

2 hours ago, johnnyt said:

While I will hope for the best, I'm planning for the worst.

I would say plan for the best, but be prepared for some bumps along the way. There is a very strong user support system here to help you in the process. 

 

 

[ShawnW]

2 hours ago, johnnyt said:

Has anyone gone back to their 994i after migrating (or trying) to Polisy/eisy? If so, any hiccups? Did you have to restore your backup or just plug the 994i back in?

Hi @johnnyt - @larryllix has gone back from Polisy to 994. 

  In my opinion - with the number of Z-Wave you have and the massive number of Programs you have, I couldn't even imagine trying to go backwards with that!!!

  One thing I might do in your situation though, make a list of part numbers of Z-Wave devices you have and then do some searches for those part numbers in the forums to see if anyone has had problems with them in eisy or migration specifically. It seems to be where most of the recent pain comes from and much less so the operating system. 

  I too have given up the idea of a 'dry run' - it would most likely cause way more pain than it's worth, and could literally hamper your actual migration when you do it. 

  Good luck - let us know how it goes!

Shawn

[johnnyt]

Thanks for your suggestion @ShawnW. I will be sure take an inventory using the "Generate Topology" tool, screenshots,  and exports of everything that's exportable.

I have to wonder/ask where you got the indication/impression that going back would be a huge pain. If, as indicated in the user guide, the process is simply to (not add/remove any devices and) do a restore of the file on the 994i that was created by the 994i in the first place, how could it be such a big pain? It's not even clear why I would need to do the restore because one of the instructions before restoring to the Polisy/eisy is to:

Power down your ISY-994 (very important). ISY-994 needs to be powered off because when you migrate, both your ISY-994 and Eisy / Polisy will think they are controlling the Z-Wave network.

This suggests to me that I could simply factory reset the Polisy zwave dongle, reset the IoX instance on Polisy (using ssh apt remove/install commands), then plug the 994i back in and it would just see all the devices as its own, blissfully unaware of the attempted coup.

Of course the reason I'm asking is that I don't really believe it's quite that simple. But what if it is?

Hopefully I'll hear from someone who's done it... or that tried it and can confirm whether or not it's an unmitigated disaster. 

 

[DennisC]

5 hours ago, johnnyt said:

I'd like to do a "dry run" to see what things need better support and report them / wait for fixes before I do the real migration. If it's a manageable amount of pain I wouldn't go back, of course. While I will hope for the best, I'm planning for the worst.

Any info would be appreciated.

 

Have you been reading the migration posts? Do you have devices that are different then what others have said work/don't work?

I would suggest the only way to do a dry run would be to purchase duplicates of your most critical devices and add them as new devices. 

Then you could see what works and where the holes are.

 

[johnnyt]

12 hours ago, DennisC said:

Have you been reading the migration posts? Do you have devices that are different then what others have said work/don't work?

Yes, of course. And yes, I do have devices that are different from the ones mentioned so far in posts. Not every single device I have has been covered one way or the other. It would be unreasonable to expect to have every device covered here. Perhaps if I waited 6 months or more but I don't really want to do that.

I've also tested still new devices not currently in use with 994i with latest IoP/zmatter board - they link fine (way better than with 994i) and I will import some programs to see if conditions and actions on these devices work.

I will do everything I can to mitigate the risk, and I am prepared to live with some issues, but I also want to understand whether or not if, after reading all the posts and all migration user guides, and having done all the prep work I can, should the migration result in show stoppers that can't be fixed quickly enough, is there's a way to back out? There seems to be one but I've yet to hear from someone that's done it.

So can I ask that the focus please be on the questions I asked? While I normally appreciate alternatives, right now I really just want to know:

Quote

Has anyone gone back to their 994i after migrating (or trying) to Polisy/eisy? If so, any hiccups? Did you have to restore your backup or just plug the 994i back in?

Thanks.

[larryllix]

16 hours ago, ShawnW said:

Hi @johnnyt - @larryllix has gone back from Polisy to 994. 

  In my opinion - with the number of Z-Wave you have and the massive number of Programs you have, I couldn't even imagine trying to go backwards with that!!!

  One thing I might do in your situation though, make a list of part numbers of Z-Wave devices you have and then do some searches for those part numbers in the forums to see if anyone has had problems with them in eisy or migration specifically. It seems to be where most of the recent pain comes from and much less so the operating system. 

  I too have given up the idea of a 'dry run' - it would most likely cause way more pain than it's worth, and could literally hamper your actual migration when you do it. 

  Good luck - let us know how it goes!

Shawn

My reverse migration back to ISY994 was during the toddler time of polisy when features were non-existent and many more bugs were encountered.

Since then I have gone back to polisy and abandoned my 2 ISY994s. Polisy now performs as well as ISY994 did so there would be no point in stepping back again, at this point. My beefs are still existing in both platforms now and minor AFAIK.

[johnnyt]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

My reverse migration back to ISY994 was during the toddler time of polisy when features were non-existent and many more bugs were encountered.

Thanks. So it worked no problem at that time? Do you remember if you had to restore the 994 or just plug it in and it picked up where it left off?

[larryllix]

4 hours ago, johnnyt said:

Thanks. So it worked no problem at that time? Do you remember if you had to restore the 994 or just plug it in and it picked up where it left off?

Can't remember if I just powered it back up, loaded the old image back into it, or how it was done now.

However, I had just moved and downsized a lot from a large home to an apartment and a lot of HVAC and security functions were not required any more, so I am not a good model to follow.

The PLM is the worst problem as it has to totally reconfigured to talk to your ISY994. If you are using a different PLM then every Insteon device has to be factory reset and reconfigured for that PLM. If you have lots of battery devices it can take more than a full day.

IOW: I don't recommend it at this point. I would tough it through with your polisy or eISY. If you cannot solve it, then open a ticket with UDI. Michel can log into your box and solve almost any problem. If he can't, it will become a priority for UDI to fix with a new version.

 

[johnnyt]

Thanks @larryllix

 

37 minutes ago, larryllix said:

The PLM is the worst problem as it has to totally reconfigured to talk to your ISY994. If you are using a different PLM then every Insteon device has to be factory reset and reconfigured for that PLM. If you have lots of battery devices it can take more than a full day.

Hmmm, I thought the insteon stuff was the least of my worries. My plan is to move the PLM I'm using on the 994i to the Polisy and, if the migration turned out to be a disaster, bring the very same PLM back to the 994i. Are you saying that if I go back after a migration that idea won't "just work"? Note that I wouldn't mind if I just had to restore the PLM and manually update a handful of motion sensors (I've done that many times) but would I have to restore every single insteon device too??