Insteon i3 Keypad Buttons B, C and D Status Not Reported

[GBrenkman]

Hello, I installed an i3 Keypad months ago and just getting around to using it. I added the device to Administrative Console (AC) and see the four buttons plus "Keypad Flags". I'm not using it to control any load, just want to trigger programs based on pressing a button.

The top (A) button correctly shows status On/Off in AC and I've got a program responding to that button.

However, in AC Button B and C shows status is ON, and button D shows status is OFF even though all three LEDs are dim on the keypad. If press any of the buttons B, C and D, the LED status toggles between dim (I assume OFF) and bright (assume ON), but the status in AC remains B On, C On, D Off.

Nothing for B, C and D shows up in Event Viewer (set to Level 3). I can't write any programs for the B, C and D buttons until I get AC to show the correct status.

Using eISY with version 5.8.3. I've done a reset to factory default on the i3 Keypad (pull out Set button [Air Gap] the press and hold Set button until long beep finishes).

Any ideas why the B, C and D status never changes? Do you think I've got a defective Keypad device?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[IndyMike]

14 hours ago, GBrenkman said:

Hello, I installed an i3 Keypad months ago and just getting around to using it. I added the device to Administrative Console (AC) and see the four buttons plus "Keypad Flags". I'm not using it to control any load, just want to trigger programs based on pressing a button.

The top (A) button correctly shows status On/Off in AC and I've got a program responding to that button.

However, in AC Button B and C shows status is ON, and button D shows status is OFF even though all three LEDs are dim on the keypad. If press any of the buttons B, C and D, the LED status toggles between dim (I assume OFF) and bright (assume ON), but the status in AC remains B On, C On, D Off.

Nothing for B, C and D shows up in Event Viewer (set to Level 3). I can't write any programs for the B, C and D buttons until I get AC to show the correct status.

Using eISY with version 5.8.3. I've done a reset to factory default on the i3 Keypad (pull out Set button [Air Gap] the press and hold Set button until long beep finishes).

Any ideas why the B, C and D status never changes? Do you think I've got a defective Keypad device?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

A blank event viewer is rather telling.

Could you perform a Device link table read/compare and post the results.  Trying to determine if your I3 device has the correct links or if it's just a problem child.

Right click the device on the AC Tree and select diagnostics\show device links table

You should see something similar to the following (older 8 button KPL).  The 1st entry (A2 00) is a responder link from my PLM.

The remaining links (E2 01, E2 02) are controller links to the PLM for each button. 

 

 

Edit: I do not have any I3 devices so I can't test on my end.

If you do not see any "E2" controller links back to your PLM address, you could try creating a dummy scene with a secondary button as the controller.  That should force the ISY to write a controller link to the I3 device.

Edited May 18 by IndyMike
Added

[tmorse305]

I have i3 devices, here's what I see from my AC.

 

 

 

Edited May 18 by tmorse305

[GBrenkman]

Hi IndyMike, following your recommendations, I had one entry in the Device Links Table.

I implemented your suggestion of adding the B, C and D buttons to a dummy scene and that seemed to do the trick. Now when I press B, C or D buttons, the on/off state is reflected in the Admin Console. Then I was able to write programs that trigger based on the B, C or D status.

Thanks very much for your clever solution. I would never have thought of that. Even though I don't understand WHY the dummy scene was required in the first place, I'm glad it did the trick!

[GBrenkman]

11 minutes ago, tmorse305 said:

Hi tmorse305, although I had success with IndyMike's suggestion, I still only have the one entry (shown above) in the Device Links table for the i3 Keypad device.

 

[IndyMike]

@GBrenkman,  Very odd that you have no entries in the link table.

2 questions:

1. Do you have a ISY994, or Polisy/Eisy.  I don't think the ISY994 firmware will work with I3 devices (although you may be proving me wrong).
2. What happens when you click the "compare" button on the link table window.  I would think it would show many missing links.

[GBrenkman]

I have eISY. Here's what Compare shows:

Do you know a way to correct this?

[Techman]

Right click on the device then do a restore device.  If that doesn't correct the missing links then you may have to uninstall and reinstall the device.

[IndyMike]

13 hours ago, GBrenkman said:

I have eISY. Here's what Compare shows:

Do you know a way to correct this?

Again, very odd.  With the link table that you are showing, the ISY should not be able to control the device, and the device should not be talking to the ISY.  I honestly can't explain what you are seeing.  It's almost as if the ISY can't properly read the Device Link Table.  @tmorse305 has demonstrated that the ISY can handle I3 devices and can read the link table.  That leaves me confused.  It's possible that your I3 KPL requires different communication than @tmorse305's device.  If it is a bug, I would think we would have heard about it before now. 

The normal way to correct a Device link table would be to perform a device restore as @Techman suggested.  Unfortunately, I think we have something else going on here.  If you do perform a restore, please monitor the process using the event viewer (level 3) and post the results.  If there are communication errors during the restore, they will be shown in the event viewer.

If the restore does not work (and we don't see communication errors) it's probably time to open a ticket with UDI.

[tmorse305]

34 minutes ago, IndyMike said:

It's possible that your I3 KPL requires different communication than @tmorse305's device

I should have mentioned the table I posted is from an i3 KPL.  Maybe a bad device?  Communication issue?  The level 3 view during restore will be interesting to see.

Edited May 19 by tmorse305

[IndyMike]

20 minutes ago, tmorse305 said:

I should have mentioned the table I posted is from an i3 KPL.  Maybe a bad device?  Communication issue?  The level 3 view during restore will be interesting to see.

Actually, that's my fault.  I should have looked at your Link table - it clearly shows control links for your secondary buttons. 

What EISY firmware version are you running?  @GBrenkman is on V5.8.3.  Not sure if there were updates related to I3 devices.

[GBrenkman]

Hi all! I started and cleared Event Viewer and set to level 3. Then I performed the Device Restore that was suggested. The Event Viewer log is attached.

After the Device Restore, the Device Links table now does not have the "Missing this record" errors shown previously.

So, if this looks correct, I think I'm in good condition now.  Thanks very much for the assistance and suggestions.

During Device Restore ISY-Events-Log.v5.8.3__Sun 2024.05.19 07.49.47 AM.txt

[IndyMike]

4 hours ago, GBrenkman said:

Hi all! I started and cleared Event Viewer and set to level 3. Then I performed the Device Restore that was suggested. The Event Viewer log is attached.

After the Device Restore, the Device Links table now does not have the "Missing this record" errors shown previously.

So, if this looks correct, I think I'm in good condition now.  Thanks very much for the assistance and suggestions.

During Device Restore ISY-Events-Log.v5.8.3__Sun 2024.05.19 07.49.47 AM.txt 17.29 kB · 0 downloads

Your Event log shows excellent communication and no errors restoring the device.

Unfortunately, your device link table only shows controller links between buttons 1 and 2 and your PLM (highlighted below).  You should not be able to receive keypresses from buttons 3&4.  What blows my mind is that the EISY apparently thinks this is OK (not flagging missing records). 

By comparison @tmorse305's device has links to all 4 buttons and his PLM.  This is how things should have been when the device was initially linked to the EISY.

I know you're not supposed to fix what isn't broken, but...

If it was me, I would delete the device from the EISY, perform a factory reset on the device, and then re-add.

 

 

[GBrenkman]

@IndyMike Although I'm only using buttons A and B now, I would like to be able to use C and D at some point. So, I will try your recommendations tomorrow. Thanks!

[tmorse305]

13 hours ago, IndyMike said:

What EISY firmware version are you running?

I'm also running 5.8.3

[GBrenkman]

Hi folks, so I deleted programs and scenes for the i3 Keypad then deleted the device from Admin Console (AC). I air gapped the i3 Keypad and factory reset (long press Set button until beep ends). Now the Keypad shows top switch A with bright LED and B, C and D with dim LED, which I remember from the initial setup.

I then added the i3 Keypad back to AC. It shows the four buttons and the Flags with the options. I clicked the Query button for each of those five entries and the Flags entry then showed the options in the boxes at the top (initially those were blank):

I right-click the top button (master?) entry in AC and ran Dianostics > Show Device Links Table with these results:

Compare shows:

There are no programs or scenes using this i3 Keypad (the only i3 Keypad in my setup). 

Any thoughts?

[IndyMike]

@GBrenkman, from what you are showing in the Device Links Table, your KPL secondary buttons should not show up in the Event Viewer when pressed.  You have excellent communication - so that is not the issue here.  In my opinion (which is worth very little), this is a bug.  The ISY should have programmed each secondary button as a controller of the PLM.

Not sure if this is an issue with your specific device firmware (V.58) or if it's something with your use case (most people do program scenes with their secondary buttons).  Either way, your KPL is being initialized differently than from every other KPL out there (I1, I2, I2CS).

You can likely get around this by generating dummy scenes using the secondary buttons (as you did before).  As an alternative, you could generate a Ticket so UDI can be made aware of the issue.

Thank you for taking the time to walk through the troubleshooting.  Hopefully this will help others who encounter this issue. 

[GBrenkman]

@IndyMike, you are correct. There are no entries in Event Viewer when pressing secondary buttons B, C and D. However, their on/off status is reported back to Admin Console if I click the Query button when the master (A button) device is selected in AC. And just to be clear, this is an Insteon i3 Keypad (4-button), not a KeypadLink.

Ticket 24444 has been created referring to this thread.

Thanks again!

[GBrenkman]

@Techman @IndyMike @tmorse305 Here is the reply from UD for the ticket I created to report this problem: 

The workaround for now is to make sure those buttons are added as controllers to an ISY Scene (to get the necessary links written to the devices & PLM).  Hopefully we'll have it fixed for the next build.

So, this circles back to @IndyMike's suggestion. I've added the secondary buttons B, C and D to a dummy scene. The links were written to the devices and PLM). Since all three buttons were in the same scene, turning any one of them on, turned on the other two. I deleted the dummy scene, so the buttons act independently. 

The Device Links table now shows:

The on/off status of all four buttons now reflects correctly in Admin Console. 

I believe problem is now solved and thank you all for your help!

Gary

[IndyMike]

@GBrenkman - Perfect.  Glad you got things working.

Thank you for driving this to conclusion and notifying UDI of the issue (ticket 24444).  That helps us all.