Solved - PLM receives but doesn't transmit

[edentel]

I've been on and off the forums all day looking for a solution and the problem keeps getting weirder. My house with 50+ Insteon devices has been stable for over a year. During the storm we were without power for 5 days. When power came back everything seemed fine. Switch to switch was working fine. The ISY was talking to my Elk panel just fine and triggering Insteon events.

 

We realized one switch had flaked out. Leave it alone and it was fine. Tap off, nothing. Tap on and the light show would begin. It would light the brightness indicators one at a time from bottom up. Bottom one, next one, 3rd, 4th, 5th, then flash the load (single 60W bulb). This pattern would just repeat until the airgap was pulled. I've never seen one act like this...it was clearly trying to tell us something, but nobody at SmartHome would tell me what it meant, they'd just replace it under warranty.

 

Ok so I grab a known good spare and swap it out. The switch works fine again. Ok now to ISY to program it. I detect the new switch fine in ISY and try to do a swap. It just hangs. The ISY appears to reboot and after logging in now the admin panel gives me the safe mode warning. I reboot, no warning, but it can't communicate with anything. Reboot again and safe mode.

 

I read the forums here and it looks like the PLM is bad. I keep playing around with things and it dawns on me I'm seeing the Rx light flash on the ISY when I hit the switches. Well something is getting through.... meanwhile ISY is complaining it can't talk to anything. While this is going on I pop up the event viewer. I watch ISY try to scan a switch and say it can't communicate. I go to that switch and hit on, wait, off. On the event viewer I see everything process just fine. Clearly the PLM is talking to the ISY but the ISY isn't paying much attention.

 

What the heck could have blown up? I've got a mix of Inteon Switchlincs, Relaylincs, Outletlincs, Keypads, and Venstar themostats. I did see the Venstar notes and pulled them, no change. At this point I'm half tempted to wipe and reprogram everything as the WAF is so low that it's digging a hole to China.

 

Any pointers would be appreciated...

[edentel]

So I deleted a few devices and tryed to add them again. If I choose start linking the dialog box just closes after a few seconds before I can actually link anything.... confusion continues.

[edentel]

Turns out there was an XM radio in the next room whose power supply died in the night. Turned off but plugged in there was no evidence...turn it on and the power supply started humming.

 

Unplugged it and everything went back to the way it should be. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.

[Brian H]

Glad you found the problem.

Nothing like having a working system, effected by a failing electronic device.

 

Although Insteon communications is better than X10. I know of someone where a neighbors failing CFL in a porch light. Killed their X10 system.