Isy (5.0.16) Died. I want to migrate to a used EISY

[GDavis01]

I recently arrived at my vacation home to find that my trusty ISY (5.0.16) had died, which explained why I had lost any remote access.

I want to migrate the system to an EISY (5.8.0) that I had been using at my main home until we moved last year. The EISY has an active portal license. I also have a backup config file for the ISY. I only have Insteon devices.

I am curious about a few things before i proceed:

- I see that the latest firmware is 5.9.1 whereas I am at 5.8. Is it always advisable to update the EISY beforehand? (Update Packages)

- The fact that the EISY was used at another home with different devices should I restore the PLM before I start the migration? The WiKi seems to suggest that I should only do this after I Restore ISY.

- I am also assuming that restoring from the back up to the ISY will delete any traces of the installation I previously had on the EISY... is that correct?

[Guy Lavoie]

The two versions seem close enough, so upgrading beforehand would seem like a good idea. I'm not sure what you mean by restoring the PLM. Restoring a PLM is something you normally do when replacing a PLM on an existing system, or if you have communications issues and you think some links might be missing. The migration process says to connect the PLM to the new controller and run the upgrade, though that assumes that the PLM was being used with the same devices, on the controller you are upgrading from. What you might need to do instead is "Delete Modem (PLM)" to erase the links from the previous devices, before doing the migration. This would be like installing a new PLM, and then migrating.

[GDavis01]

Thanks for the reply.

After I posted my note I was reading about some of the issues related to running the Update Packages command. Have these been resolved?

You are right about the Restore PLM command... I have been away from the ISY for too long I forgot the terminology! So, as you say I probably should Delete PLM to get rid of the links before I do the migration and then afterwards Restore PLM to establish the proper links on the PLM.

[Guy Lavoie]

Yes, that's what I meant. The idea is to remove any links in the PLM that don't belong there, which would be all of them if it's being moved to a different home with different devices. Since a migration might be assuming that you're updating an existing system, it might not automatically restore the PLM (since the links would already be there). If that comes up, then a Restore PLM might also be needed after the migration.

A few people have run into some issues with the Upgrade Packages process. Though I have yet to hear of one that wasn't recoverable by UDI support. The fact that you're not upgrading a live system should give you a bit more piece of mind if something happens and you require support.

Edited May 23 by Guy Lavoie

[oberkc]

I am unsure whether your intention is to use the PLM from the vacation home or the former main home.  If from the main home, I would be extremely tempted to perform a factory reset before installing it in the new location.  

I would be almost as tempted to do the same on the EISY, except for the portal license.  The license, of course, can be added back but would require some effort with Universal Devices.  

[Brian H]

One thing to consider. The OLD PLM's six digit ID is in all the modules will not respond to the new PLM' six digit ID. I believe replace modem will go out and write all the needed changes in the modules being controlled.

[Guy Lavoie]

As @oberkc referred to, there was no mention of whether the PLM will be the one that was used with the now dead ISY994i or if it's the one that has been with the used eisy. I would certainly try the one that was already in that house first. In that case, it would be just like doing a ISY994i to eisy upgrade. 

Another thing: the ISY had release 5.0.16, which is the last version (5.0.16C actually) that supports the Zwave 300 board. Do you have Zwave devices too? If so, those won't migrate, and you'd need to reinstall them (and have the needed Zwave 700 series dongle or Zmatter dongle on your eisy).

Edited Saturday at 08:04 PM by Guy Lavoie

[GDavis01]

Thanks for the replies. I had forgotten to select 'Follow Topic' so I didn't actually see them all until a little while ago! 

To close the loop on this thread and a couple of other related ones...  I tried the migration from the backup of the dead ISY to the previously used EISY and I'm not sure why but I had a lot of issues with the result! (none of the 3 keypads worked, other than the Main button connected to the load; some programs worked, some didn't; scenes didn't work; some devices on the UD Mobile app would show a status that didn't correspond to the actual device...etc). I could have submitted a ticket but I only had a very limited amount of time at this location so I decided to do a clean install to get the devices connected to the EISY and then do the programming remotely.

I factory reset both the EISY and PLM. Initially I could not get the PLM to connect and tried that it could take numerous PLM unplugging and EISY reboots, but it eventually turned out that after the factory reset of the EISY the system setting for Insteon Support was not checked! 

I then connected the key devices to the EISY (20 so far) and will connect the others (10 – 15) when I’m there next. We are building an additional housing area on the property and so I will also be adding more devices there (+12) that I had previously been used at our former main home. (Our new home has Control4 which is another issue!!)

The programming will be fairly time consuming but I saved the programs from the admin console of the failed migration so I at least have something to work from. A good lesson learned is that I should do backups more often because the last backup was quite old and missed a lot of the programming tweaks I have done over time! On the other hand, it is also an opportunity to clean up the programming that I no longer use and perhaps rethink my logic in some areas.

Now to deal with a few comments…

-       I used the PLM from the former main home and I did do a factory reset. The PLM is a 2413U which I bought with the EISY in 2023.

-       My system is all Insteon, there were no ZWave devices

My system seems to be working well and now just needs some work on the programming and network resources.

 

[Techman]

@GDavis01

Your problems may have been caused by using an older ISY backup that wasn't compatible with the EISY. 

Going forward it's a good idea to do a backup anytime you make changes. The current version of the backup program only takes a few seconds to complete.

[Guy Lavoie]

As I like to say about backups: There are two groups of computer users, those who have lost data, and those who will.