I have had to use device swap and re-pair soooo many times with zigee !
and yes it is cool 
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IMO its not really as big of a deal as people make it out to be.
I always have 2-3 unplugged devices on my mesh, basically same a ghost node. Never causes any problems.
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Well .. it seems like a problem for the OP and many others I see on this forum, IDK
I have enough problems as it is .. with this darn thing !
Then to create other problems that I can't fix! LOL
Really depends on the devices and the mesh...I had a ghost that was a "long-term" guest a year or two ago. I finally removed it using the UZB stick method just because it bothered me, but never had an effect on my other Z-Wave devices. I've also had some Z-Wave devices offline for varying periods of time w/out issues. But...if things act up, it ain't fun.
Really seems it is a problem .. would be cool if someone ( dev ) or the higher ups would
create a driver or a app or someway to just remove the darn things from the chipset.
and all you would do is reboot the radio or hub. and wooolaaa it was gone. 
Seems weird you have to go through such extremes and buying AUSB stick and Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera. Just to delete a device that you don't want. I don't know. I don't know how this stuff works, but just seems to me it should be way easier, just kind of like how zigbee is.
I mean if a USB stick can do it .. why can not the HUB do it ?
The hub can't just blow devices away because it can't do what a USB Z-Wave stick and the PC Controller app can do, as the hub is a certified Z-Wave Controller and has to follow the rules required to maintain that certification.
Basically, when you use a UZB stick and PC Controller you're playing in Z-Wave developer land, where much more is possible. W/the hub (any certified Z-Wave hub) you're constrained by what SilLabs (chip/FW source) provides/requires/constrains.
From the Ghost Removal topic:
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Hmmm Ok then .. that's just B*St LOL
Well ... I guess a dev could do it ..just not the HUB Manufacturer. Hint Hint ..
Anyway, thank you for the information. I might just stick to Zigbee. Just so much easier to change stuff around if you need to without having to deal with all that!
Doh .. ( 1 ) Last question .. what happens when a switch /plug/bulb goes bad ?
Then you can not exclude a device what happens then ?
The hub/Z-Wave chip/FW can do what the it can do...not someting a dev can solve using the hub. That's why we use PC Controller...
Regarding devices, it's just about what you want to automate and the available device types to do those automations. Z-Wave, Zigbee, and now Matter (WIP). If you can find what you want for all your needs in Zigbee you can become a Zigbee castle. 
Zigbee's major cryptonites are Wi-Fi interference and looser implementation of standards by manufacturers. If you can maintain a good RF environment, and keep a compatible set of repeaters and end devices, victory can be yours.
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You can use Swap Apps Device to swap out the old device w/a new one you add to your hub in all your automations. Then deal w/the dead device.
The hub also offers a Replace function from the Z-Wave Details page (should show up when you refresh a dead device). It isn't a 100% success option, but in the past has worked for me in those situations. I think w/recent FW there have been some issues w/Replace but I haven't kept up w/that so don't know status. Replace is nice as when it's done the new device is active in all the automations that your old device was in.
The Refresh/Remove process is of course also available from the Z-Wave Details page, and may also be used to remove the dead device.
if the Replace and Remove options don't work, then it's off to the UZB stick...
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Really appreciate all the information. you're awesome!
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Sent my wife's phone number to you via PM. Please call her immediately and inform her of my awesomeness.
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I had five or six ghost devices. I was able to remove a couple using the HE remove tools, but no matter how many times I tried, I could not remove the others. Eventually I fired up Windows in Parallels on my Mac, dug out an old Aeotec Gen 5 stick I had, and followed the PDF instructions, and got the ghosts removed. It took several tries to remove one of them (SPECIFIC_TYPE_SOUND_SWITCH, don’t even know what that belonged to). Was really hard to figure out which powered device the ghosts belonged to.
I gotta say, this is terrible. SiLabs really needs to improve this aspect of their Z-wave stack.
Now, I'm an expert macOS developer, and have done a fair bit of embedded work. I even have a SiLabs 8 series dev kit here because I want to make a special LED driver. I barely know the Z-wave SDK and stack, but if someone else who knows a lot more would like to work with me, I’d be willing to work on a macOS tool to help with things like this ghost removal. I don’t want to try to re-create the whole PC Controller app in Simplicity Studio, but maybe we can cobble together something that’s good for removing ghosts.
Oh I got ahead of myself. I was waiting for my hub to reboot after putting it back where it belongs.
I still can't reliably use many of my devices. I have no more ghost nodes, but nothing has improved.
I updated to the latest HE software today, and for the first time ever I got an app CPU load alert. I checked it out, and saw that my Node-RED integration was using 100%. I thought maybe such heavy CPU load was preventing my rules from working properly, so I disabled that, and it came down.
But it made no difference.
Watching the logs, I can see that a button remote press gets record most of the tie, but not always. However, the corresponding rule and lights don't get log entries when it doesn't work, and on the rare occasion that it does work, there are log entries for the rule and the light.
Siri commands are almost always reliable. I can ask Siri to turn lights on or off, and within a couple of seconds, those lights respond. This leads me to believe there’s something wrong with my rule processing.
There is no need to power off any other devices, it does not do anything useful to help with removal. It is a long standing myth.
Go to Logs > App Stats / Device Stats
Turn on all the columns in display info.
With the default sorting, get a screenshot of the full page including the stats at the top. Just the top section that fits on one screen is good, just want to see the top 10-15 or so. Do that for both App and Device stats.
Also might be good to see a new screenshot of the zwave details after the hub has been running for at least 12 hours since last reboot (please specify uptime when you post).
Someone ought to update that otherwise lovely ghost-removal PDF, and maybe some of the related posts
The requested screenshots (would be nice if there was a way to get a reasonably-formatted text dump of all this information, just for the purpose of sharing the information).
Looks like your hub was up for 13 hours but hardly did anything in that time, does that sound right? Seems like a very idle hub. Does not make sense that rules would not process. I have seen rules failing on hubs with poorly coded drivers and apps hammering away at disconnected IP connections, but otherwise the rules seem very stable.
Are you sure that some of the times the rule failed you actually got the button event on the hub? Or is it possible every time it fails it is because the event never makes it to the hub?
Some of your devices with no routes showing look like seasonal devices? Warning: some people here may freak out and say you must exclude those. I am not one of those, I often have 2-3 unplugged devices as well. I think especially when the neighbor count is 1 (hub only) that no other devices should ever try to route through it, so no real harm.
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Yeah, it doesn't do much if I don't press buttons.
In the logs I can see, for example, the button press event show up, but nothing else gets written, and the light doesn't turn on (or off).
When it does work, I see the button press event, and the light device gets an entry, and so does the rule (at least, the ones for which logging is enabled).
To be clear: I do also often have issues where my button devices (both battery and house-powered) fail to show up in the logs. Sometimes they'll work for a while, other times they won't, even when I'm within a few feet of the hub.
Generally, Siri commands always work, which means the hub has no problem communicating with the various switches and dimmers all around the house.
What are the walls in the house made out of it, and what are your electrical boxes made out of? Just looking at the z-wave details it seems like a lot of devices may be struggling with the connection but they really should not be unless your house has a massive footprint.
Take a look at this post. Has some rules of thumb
