reakhavok Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Hello all. I've recent encoutered an issue and would like some help with trying to troubleshoot the issue. I have a "welcome home" scene that has been working great for 2 years. Basically if all the lights in my house are off, and its past sunset and my garage door opens then i have 2 lights that come on at 40%. basically we never come home to a dark house. This has worked flawlessy for 2 years. I recently bought 4 new insteon devices 2 switchlinc dimmers and 2 togglelinc relays (for my kids rooms and 2 bathrooms) I did NOT include these new lights in the "welcome home" scene. But ever since i added those new devices my welcome home scene only half works. meaning my entry way light comes on, but my living room light doesnt work. It is sporadic, the living room light has come on once or twice I used my ISY to do a scene test and it comes back saying entry way light successfull, living room light fail. If i run the scene test over and over i eventually start getting success for both lights and then failures again. can anyone give me some advice as to how I can start troubleshooting the issue. Im not really sure where to go from here. I do have 2 access points that I could move around if that would help?? i dunno. Thanks
oberkc Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 My first suggestion is to return your house to the pre-new-device status (in your case, pull the power tab from your new switches) and see if this restores proper operation of the welcome home scene. To confirm (or eliminate) a couple of other possibilities, did you add any new lights to your house, or change the type of lamps (CFL, LED) in any of these fixtures? For example, do your new devices control a low voltage fixture or CFL? Did you change the bulbs in any of the fixtures that are part of your welcome home scene? Have you recently added any electronic devices to your house? This could be coincidental to the addition of your new insteon devices.
reakhavok Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 oberkc, Thanks for the suggestions, I wanted to remove my new devices to see if they were the culprit but didnt want to unwire them. I didnt even think about just pulling the power tab. Great Idea thanks!! I have not added any devices or changed any lights out, I looked around yesterday to see if my wife made any additions I wasnt aware of. The only thing that changed was swapping out those 4 mechanical switches for insteon ones I will try pulling those tabs tonight!
oberkc Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 I am not overly hopeful that this will solve your problem, but it is worth checking. What is often not clear to me is whether hooking an insteon switch into a noisy load would contribute to communication problems, even when the switches are off. Or...does replacing a dumb switch with an insteon switch create new communication problems if that switch controls a noisy load. BTW, what are the loads on the four new switches? How did you add the devices to your ISY (manually or "start linking")? Did you experience any problems (or even apparent delays) with adding these devices to the ISY? I wonder about the possibility that there is a corrupt link database in the device or ISY and what affect that may have on the performance of your existing scene.
justin.cool Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Dear reakhavok, As for your scene test failures from the ISY-99: I my limited experience, I believe you have to make sure there are no programs running / initiated by the devices under test. Until I disabled all programs I could never get the scene test to pass more than one device in the scene.
reakhavok Posted January 19, 2011 Author Posted January 19, 2011 so i pulled the tab on ONE of my new devices and all my scenes started working again as expected. So now that I have narrowed down the culprit how do i go about fixing it. Why is it that when I add an insteon switch my insteon network gets flaky? i thought it was suppose to get better with each device.? could it be i need to rewire that switch and make sure ive got good connections or do i need to add an access point??
oberkc Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 i thought it was suppose to get better with each device.? That is my understanding, also, all other things being equal. could it be i need to rewire that switch and make sure ive got good connections or do i need to add an access point?? I believe I have experienced wiring connection problems only once. This is not high on my list of suspects. I am curious about your use of access points. Do you currently have ANY? Is your electrical system 240V with two legs of 120V? The original scene test failure is still curious. I am still suspicious of communication issues, whether the result of lack of access points, loads, or whatever. This is the area to which I would look. Regarding scene tests, make sure that any program which could affect a device in the tested scene is temporarily disabled. If this is the case and you still experience scene test failures, I would be finding the reason. One easy thing you may try is to remove the offending device from the ISY. After this, perform a factory reset on the device, then re-add it to the ISY. It is possible, I suppose, that something got messed up during this process originally. This (removal and re-add) should happen quickly. Watch for suspicious delays during this process. Open the event viewer (set to level 3) and make sure that commands are coming and going at regular and quick intervals. If not, I would take this as further evidence of communication problems.
Sub-Routine Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 Hi reakhavok, If you are sure it is the one switch I suggest trying a factory reset on that switch. If it still causes interference to your system I can only suggest replacing the device. Sometimes when devices do not work correctly they can spew noise and that is what this seems like. Rand so i pulled the tab on ONE of my new devices and all my scenes started working again as expected. So now that I have narrowed down the culprit how do i go about fixing it. Why is it that when I add an insteon switch my insteon network gets flaky? i thought it was suppose to get better with each device.? could it be i need to rewire that switch and make sure ive got good connections or do i need to add an access point??
reakhavok Posted January 19, 2011 Author Posted January 19, 2011 I believe I have experienced wiring connection problems only once. This is not high on my list of suspects. I am curious about your use of access points. Do you currently have ANY? Is your electrical system 240V with two legs of 120V? I do have 240V with 2 120V legs, and I currently have 2 access points one on each leg. Im also not only trying the scene test option in ISY, but im actually triggering the scene as it would be in a real situation. If i have my web browser open to the ISY when i trigger my scene I will get a message pop up that says "cannot communicate with living room light"
oberkc Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 It sounds to me, then, as if you may be in for a bit of troubleshooting, trying to identify what it is causing the communication problems. I would still try the option to remove from the ISY/factory reset/add. If you are able to identify an outlet close (same circuit) as your living room light, you can run an extension cord from there to the PLM. Perform the remove/reset/replace action while on the extension cord and see if this helps. If so, you may need to filter the devices currently sharing a circuit with the PLM. Otherwise, I am running out of ideas, besides trying to identify the devices in your house that are interfering with the communication.
ELA Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 Hi realhavok, I recently encountered a communications issue and feel that I now have a more reliable setup. The reason I am responding is because you asked about moving your Access Points. Keep in mind I am a rookie As part of my troubleshooting I diagrammed all the circuits in my Insteon circuits. I included all device locations (what phase they are on) and Access Points (or Dual Band devices) in particular. This allowed me to see where the RF coupling might not be optimum (even though the built-in Access point test worked). It also allowed me to see where the powerline signal may have to travel a long distance without encountering another device (or repeater). I feel that relocating my Access Points based on what I saw on the diagram was helpful. Pay attention to whether there are any large metal objects between the Access points.
art Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 If the factory reset doesn't pan out, I would swap the offending device with the other of its kind. Does the problem move with the hardware? or is the position of the hardware the culprit? I could reason that if your pre-existing setup is on the fringes of working, adding another device on the system (which consumes some of the RF) could POSSIBLY give the effect you're describing even though your new device also re-transmits the signal. It would have to be a "perfect" set of circumstances, but not beyond the realm of possibility. I only offer this paragraph if nothing else works. And others, by all means squash the thought if you think I'm out to lunch - I have a thick skin.
reakhavok Posted January 19, 2011 Author Posted January 19, 2011 Thanks everyone for your advise. Im going to try and work thru the suggestions here and whatever else i can think of to try and get this figured out. When i get some more info or maybe even a solution ill update again. thanks!!
reakhavok Posted January 20, 2011 Author Posted January 20, 2011 hmm well my first shot was to do a factory reset on the switchlinc that has been giving me problems. and so far that has seemed to do the trick.. everything is spot on now. but ive only tested it for about an hour. gonna let it run over the coming days to see if it continues to work!!
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