New program not working ,multiple time stamp entries in log

[Michaelv]

I was trying to troubleshoot a program I was creating and I had to use the event viewer to look at device communications between Insteon dimmer switches.  I cleared the log,  it and went on to my trouble shooting. When I came back to look at the log, this line appeared 487 times with the same time stamp. There was some insteon traffic mixed in. I did not want to post the entire log as it was 27 pages of mostly that time stamp line.

Mon 06/24/2024 05:08:51 AM : [            Time] 05:08:56 1(0)

Why is this happening? I can't get my new program to work, yet, but I am curious that this might be part of the problem.

The program I wrote was just a simple turn a group of scenes off when I press a button on a 6 button insteon dimmer switch. 

I have attached part of the log showing the communication and it has some of the strange time stamp entry, most of which I cut out. I tried several of the buttons in the switch to see if the viewer would pick up any of them. program did not run. other programs seem to be running OK.

??

Eisy log 6-24-24 edit.docx

[paulbates]

Sending that many insteon commands back-to-back will create collisions on the insteon network, doing it 5 times will be worse.

If they are all insteon devices, you can create an insteon scene for this and no program will be necessary

[IndyMike]

2 hours ago, Michaelv said:

I was trying to troubleshoot a program I was creating and I had to use the event viewer to look at device communications between Insteon dimmer switches.  I cleared the log,  it and went on to my trouble shooting. When I came back to look at the log, this line appeared 487 times with the same time stamp. There was some insteon traffic mixed in. I did not want to post the entire log as it was 27 pages of mostly that time stamp line.

Mon 06/24/2024 05:08:51 AM : [            Time] 05:08:56 1(0)

Why is this happening? I can't get my new program to work, yet, but I am curious that this might be part of the problem.

The program I wrote was just a simple turn a group of scenes off when I press a button on a 6 button insteon dimmer switch. 

I have attached part of the log showing the communication and it has some of the strange time stamp entry, most of which I cut out. I tried several of the buttons in the switch to see if the viewer would pick up any of them. program did not run. other programs seem to be running OK.

??

Eisy log 6-24-24 edit.docx 18.04 kB · 1 download

Your program is written to trigger on "FAST ON".  You are executing a standard "ON" at the switch. 

 

[Michaelv]

Quote

Sending that many insteon commands back-to-back will create collisions on the insteon network, doing it 5 times will be worse.

If they are all insteon devices, you can create an insteon scene for this and no program will be necessary

Ok, I will back off on the repeats. The problem I encountered with making the scenes work is that it would not let me use that single button as a controller for the four different scenes I want to run at the same time. I could make one scene with all those nodes in it but that would be over 70 nodes. Would that be too many nodes for one scene?

[Michaelv]

Quote

Posted 36 minutes ago

  2 hours ago, Michaelv said:

I was trying to troubleshoot a program I was creating and I had to use the event viewer to look at device communications between Insteon dimmer switches.  I cleared the log,  it and went on to my trouble shooting. When I came back to look at the log, this line appeared 487 times with the same time stamp. There was some insteon traffic mixed in. I did not want to post the entire log as it was 27 pages of mostly that time stamp line.

Mon 06/24/2024 05:08:51 AM : [            Time] 

05:08:56 1(0

)

Why is this happening? I can't get my new program to work, yet, but I am curious that this might be part of the problem.

The program I wrote was just a simple turn a group of scenes off when I press a button on a 6 button insteon dimmer switch. 

I have attached part of the log showing the communication and it has some of the strange time stamp entry, most of which I cut out. I tried several of the buttons in the switch to see if the viewer would pick up any of them. program did not run. other programs seem to be running OK.

??

Eisy log 6-24-24 edit.docx 18.04 kB · 1 download

Expand  

Your program is written to trigger on "FAST ON".  You are executing a standard "ON" at the switch. 

 

 

[Michaelv]

Quote

Your program is written to trigger on "FAST ON".  You are executing a standard "ON" at the switch. 

Yes, I wrote the trigger as fast on but when I tried to check the communication with event viewer, I only tapped the button once to see if there was communication. I tried the fast on command several times before I posted this topic and it did not work.

[IndyMike]

2 hours ago, Michaelv said:

Yes, I wrote the trigger as fast on but when I tried to check the communication with event viewer, I only tapped the button once to see if there was communication. I tried the fast on command several times before I posted this topic and it did not work.

So you posted a program and logs from actions that you knew WOULD NOT WORK.  Thanks for including that little detail in your post.

Have a nice life.

[Hoosier Daddy]

On 6/24/2024 at 8:24 AM, paulbates said:

Sending that many insteon commands back-to-back will create collisions on the insteon network, doing it 5 times will be worse.

If they are all insteon devices, you can create an insteon scene for this and no program will be necessary

@paulbates, could you expound on this comment please? Are you suggesting to create another scene with all of the devices added, or something more elegant? Why would a program not be needed to set the devices to 'off'?

Thanks in advance.

[paulbates]

6 hours ago, Hoosier Daddy said:

@paulbates, could you expound on this comment please? Are you suggesting to create another scene with all of the devices added, or something more elegant? Why would a program not be needed to set the devices to 'off'?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, I'm suggesting putting them all in another scene. Elegant is s matter of definition.. a single scene that shuts all devices off simultaneously with very little insteon traffic and no time used up involving the plm or program.

A program would not be needed if the scene also included an insteon switch as the controller, which I believe was the op's requirement: Hit a switch at an exit door when he's leaving the house and have multiple inside lights go off at the same time. I had 25 insteon devices in a similar scene arrangement in my last house

[Hoosier Daddy]

2 hours ago, paulbates said:

Yes, I'm suggesting putting them all in another scene. Elegant is s matter of definition.. a single scene that shuts all devices off simultaneously with very little insteon traffic and no time used up involving the plm or program.

A program would not be needed if the scene also included an insteon switch as the controller, which I believe was the op's requirement: Hit a switch at an exit door when he's leaving the house and have multiple inside lights go off at the same time. I had 25 insteon devices in a similar scene arrangement in my last house

Thank you for the explanation. I didn’t understand this aspect of using scenes vs program statements to control devices. This may explain my occasional device communication problems where I’m switching 5-10 lights with program statements and one of them doesn’t respond.

[paulbates]

1 hour ago, Hoosier Daddy said:

Thank you for the explanation. I didn’t understand this aspect of using scenes vs program statements to control devices. This may explain my occasional device communication problems where I’m switching 5-10 lights with program statements and one of them doesn’t respond.

YW. If you do a number of insteon device commands back-to-back in an isy program, there should be a several (3?) second wait between each command to allow the command to reach the device from isy/plm plus the return acknowledgement from the device to isy/plm

[Michaelv]

I was always concerned that having so many devices in a scene would be problematic. I would have to put 75 devices in one scene to achieve what I was trying to do here. Is there a limit on how many devices can be in a scene? Can a controller of a scene be used in multiple scenes?

[IndyMike]

On 6/24/2024 at 8:24 AM, paulbates said:

Sending that many insteon commands back-to-back will create collisions on the insteon network, doing it 5 times will be worse.

If they are all insteon devices, you can create an insteon scene for this and no program will be necessary

I'm sorry, but I respectfully disagree...

The ISY uses a rather specialized method of controlling scenes - it does not perform "group cleanup commands".  In order words, it does not request scene devices respond to the scene command.  The ISY ASSUMES that the scene command was properly received and acted upon.

The following is a copy of the event viewer when I turned off my basement scene (group 00.00.27).  There are 17 devices in the scene.  NO status or confirmation is requested from any of the devices.

Sat 07/06/2024 09:37:22 AM : [INST-TX-I1  ] 02 62 00 00 27 CF 14 00 ISY Command to PLM Sat 07/06/2024 09:37:22 AM : [INST-ACK    ] 02 62 00.00.27 CF 14 00 06          LTOFF-F(00) PLM Acknowledge I could just as easily have replaced group 00.00.27 with 00.00.FF and turned on every device in the house.
As a result, there should not be an issue with "chaining" multiple scene commands together.  There is no return traffic that would create a collision. Device Direct commands do request a status.  As a result, there is a possibility of a collision. Older discussion of scenes and retries: https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/11690-understanding-retries-in-isy/

Edited July 6 by IndyMike

[IndyMike]

 

6 hours ago, Michaelv said:

I was always concerned that having so many devices in a scene would be problematic. I would have to put 75 devices in one scene to achieve what I was trying to do here. Is there a limit on how many devices can be in a scene? Can a controller of a scene be used in multiple scenes?

75 devices in a scene is not a problem.  Your "My Lighting" is essentially a scene.  Your ISY queries it every night at 3:00 AM using the Schedule 1 program (unless you have modified it).

Schedule 1 - [ID 0005][Parent 0002]

If
        From     3:00:00AM
        For      10 minutes
Then
        Set 'My Lighting' Query
Else
   - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')
 

Alternatively, I would not create a large scene and assign a Device as a controller.  The device (switchlinc, KPL, Etc) will execute the Scene ON command that I posted above, but will then perform "group cleanup commands" to every device in the scene.  For a large scene, this can take quite a long time.

When your device flashes red, it is trying to tell you that it was unsuccessful in communicating with a scene member.

A device can only be a controller for 1 scene (except for the PLM).  A device may be a responder to many scenes.

 

 

[paulbates]

19 hours ago, IndyMike said:

I'm sorry, but I respectfully disagree...

The ISY uses a rather specialized method of controlling scenes - it does not perform "group cleanup commands".  In order words, it does not request scene devices respond to the scene command.  The ISY ASSUMES that the scene command was properly received and acted upon.

The following is a copy of the event viewer when I turned off my basement scene (group 00.00.27).  There are 17 devices in the scene.  NO status or confirmation is requested from any of the devices.

Sat 07/06/2024 09:37:22 AM : [INST-TX-I1  ] 02 62 00 00 27 CF 14 00 ISY Command to PLM Sat 07/06/2024 09:37:22 AM : [INST-ACK    ] 02 62 00.00.27 CF 14 00 06          LTOFF-F(00) PLM Acknowledge I could just as easily have replaced group 00.00.27 with 00.00.FF and turned on every device in the house.
As a result, there should not be an issue with "chaining" multiple scene commands together.  There is no return traffic that would create a collision. Device Direct commands do request a status.  As a result, there is a possibility of a collision. Older discussion of scenes and retries: https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/11690-understanding-retries-in-isy/

My comment was sending multiple device commands back to back created Insteon colllsion problems, not scenes. In fact that's why I recommended scenes.

Edited July 7 by paulbates
Replaced "broadcast" with "Insteon collision"

[IndyMike]

9 hours ago, paulbates said:

My comment was sending multiple device commands back to back created broadcast problems, not scenes. In fact that's why I recommended scenes.

@paulbates - My apologies, I misunderstood your comment.

The program that @Michaelv posted was already using scenes.  From his comments my understanding was that the program was not triggering correctly for some reason.  

[paulbates]

Np Mike.. that comment was responding to hoosierdaddy, who was asking about scenes vs ISY programs with multiple Insteon commands back-to-back

[Michaelv]

One Last observation, So, I made that scene with a total of 88 devices and 1 controller, which is button C on a Insteon 2334-2 Keypadlinc Dimmer. While the scene works, if I press the controller button again, all the lights that are supposed to shut off,  come back  on. If I press it again, they go off again. Is there a way to configure the controller so it on turns this scene off? What should the status button light do? I guess I would want the status light off all the time and maybe only illuminate while being pressed. 

 

What do you think makes the most sense?

[Techman]

Set your "C" button to "non-toggle off".  The button press will then only turn the scene off when pressed.