Trouble Establishing Communication between Elk and ISY

[tpolito]

I recently installed an Insteon setup for someone with about 30 devices, an ISY, and an Elk M1 Gold system. The Insteon devices are all loaded into the ISY, and that is all working great. The Elk is all installed and working great. However, I cannot get the Elk and ISY to establish communication between the 2. I loaded the Elk RP software, and enabled the non-secure port 2101. I documented the IP address and port number. I then entered that information, and the user arm/disarm code into the Elk section of the ISY, but I cannot get the Elk status to show up on the ISY admin console interface. I feel like I am missing one small, obvious step, but I cannot get it to work. Any ideas?

 

One thing that I will note, and I am not sure if it is relevant or not, is that I am having trouble enabling internet access to the ISY. I will post more about this in a different thread, but I didn't know if that could have any factor in the Elk/ISY communication.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello Tom, apologies for tardy reply.

 

Your configuration seems to be OK. Please note that when ELK RP is connected, ISY gets disconnected. So, please make sure ELK RP is disconnected before testing.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

Yes, I made sure the ElkRP was disconnected and closed before trying. I cannot seem to figure out what I am doing wrong.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tom, apologies for tardy reply.

 

Are you certain that ISY and ELK are on the same network?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

I am about 70% confident in my home networking skills, so I hesitate to say for sure, but I would say that yes, they are on the same network. They are both connected to the same router.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tom,

 

Thank you. Do you see status update changes on the Admin Console for any of the other INSTEON devices that you have?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

If I understand your question correctly, then the answer is yes. The Admin Console is properly showing the status of the Insteon devices, and when I initiate a change from the Admin Console the device does change. Also the programs are working fine. In other words, the ISY is working fine, with the exception of the Elk communication. (Except the power LED does not light up when the ISY is on).

 

Also, the ElkRP works fine in communicating with the Elk.

 

So its like both peices are working fine, I just can't get them to talk to each other. I am confident the problem is with me, and not the equipment. I followed the instructions to set it up, but I just wonder if I accidently enabled some feature somewhere that is causing a conflict or something.

 

Thanks again for the continued help,

 

Tom

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tom,

 

Apologies for tardy reply.

 

One more question: when you go to ELK RP, under M1XEP/TCP, is port 2101 enabled?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

Yes it is

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tom,

 

Can you please let me know the firmware version of your M1XEP as well as your ELK?

 

I have already sent an email to ELK tech support since there's another customer with the same exact symptoms.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

I see the following. Is this what you need?

 

In the "About" menu on ElkRP

Main Program - version 2.0.8

M1G Control - version 5.0.8.0

 

In Account Details

System firmware 5.2.4

 

Where will it tell me the M1EXP firmware version?

 

I will make sure I update to the latest firmware versions and try again.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tom,

 

Got the following reply from our ELK contact:

Hi Michel,

 

I’m doing well. I hope all is well with you too.

 

The latest M1XEP firmware (1.3.26) is about five months old now. I haven’t heard of any pattern or rash of connectivity issues with it (or previous versions for that matter) other than a couple reports of people using the iPhone app. But the latest version fixed that. I haven’t heard complaints from any ISY customers. What problems are you seeing? Inability to connect? Dropped connections? The latest version includes some useful diagnostics and tracing tools. To use them, you’ll need a PC app you can find here –

http://www.elkproducts.com/LiteratureRe ... x?ID=76083

or linked from this page –

http://www.elkproducts.com/downloads.html (see “M1XEP Diagnostics Utility (1.0.2)”)

The latest XEP version, used with the PC utility, provides some tests, simple reports, and a debug/trace window. If you can capture the problem in the debug/trace, save it and email it to me, I can see if I can find some irregularity.

 

 

Would you please try the diagnostics and let me know what you find?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

OK, I am now getting in over my head I guess. Looks like the problem is with the DNS addresses. When requesting a DNS, the diagnostics utility says that "an ivalid value was received, possibly because there is no router, or it does not support that function."

 

Not sure if this matters or not, but I checked the router's configuration, and the DHCP Server is enabled, which I beleive it should be.

 

I can email you screenshots if that would help.

[tpolito]

OK, made some progress. I used ipconfig to find the DNS servers and manually input that into the ElkRP (does that sound ok or is there a better approach?). Once I did that, I was able to establish communications between the Elk and ISY. I imported my lighting into the Elk.

 

Everything seems to be working correctly now.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello Tom,

 

Thanks so very much for the update. This is quite interesting since using DHCP should provide DNS configuration to ELK.

 

I still do not understand what DNS has to do with communications with ISY since all communications are initiated from ISY to an IP address (no DNS). Did you also change the gateway?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

I did not change the gateway, just manually entered the DNS servers into the m1XEP settings. I'm not sure if that is the preferred method, but it is the only way I could get it to work.

 

Also, I spoke too soon when I said everything seemed to be working ok. I can control Insteon devices based on the status of the alarm (it took me a while to remember that keypad buttons cannot be controlled directly, and have to be part of a scene to be manipulated, but I got that working now). What is still not working is arming the system from a KPL button press. I can arm the alarm when the "A" button of a KPL is pressed, but not any of the other buttons. I also tried arming the alarm based on a scene being turned off, and that didn't work either. I had to leave, so I plan on going back and spending more time troubleshooting that issue. But hopefully that is minor compared to the DNS issues that I was having.

 

Tom

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tom,

 

Thanks so very much for the update. As far as not being able to arm ELK based on KPL button, please do the following:

1. Open Event Viewer on the last level

2. Press that specific KPL button locally on the switch itself. Do you see traffic in the Event Viewer? If not, then that's the problem

3. If yes to 2, then if you go to ELK Java Remote app, do you see the status of that KPL changing?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

The Event Viewer in the ISY Admin Console does see the KPL button Press. The Elk Java Console does not see the change for the KPL status; however, I can control other lights from the Elk Java Console.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello tpolito,

 

So, basically the signals are not getting to ELK but you can control devices from ELK. To me, this means device mismatch OR that the option field has not been set in ELK for each device. Would you be kind enough to export your ELK configuration one more time and import it into ELK?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

OK, I did some more testing, and this is an updated summary of what is going on.

 

-When I arm the alarm, I am able to change the status of a KPL button to reflect the status.

-I am able to control devices from the Elk Virtual Java Console.

-If I turn on or off a switchlinc, or the "A" button of a KPL, the status is reflected in the Elk Java Console.

-I can arm the Elk based on a switchlinc press or the "A" button of a KPL.

 

It seems like the only thing I cannot do is have the Elk recognize a press of the "B" thru "H" KPL buttons. Is there a special way to handle this (kind of like to control a KPL button it must be part of a scene)?

 

Here is what I am trying to accomplish. I have a "goodnight" scene that has buttons from 2 separate KPL's that are controllers for the scene.

 

-When I setup my Elk rule, should the if condition be based on the scene being turned off, or the individual KPL buttons being turned off? (I have tried both)

-Also, Would the fact that I have the KPL button set to non-toggle off be causing the problem? In other words, is the Elk looking for an off command from the KPL, or is it looking from a change in status from On to Off?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello tpolito,

 

Do you see those buttons on ELK's Java virtual keypad?

 

Also, does the status of those buttons change in the Admin Console when you turn them on/off physically?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[tpolito]

Yes, and yes.

 

If the Elk module is close enough to completion, I will just wait until then. If we are still a little ways away, I would like to try and get this working.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello tpolito,

 

The ELK module is quite close but I do not think the issue you are having can be solved by the module.

 

If the status of those buttons is reflected in ELK's Java console, then the problem is either the logic in programs in ELK or ELK itself.

 

With kind regards,

Michel