I am attempting to re-add a new Aeotec Trisensor 8 to my Hubitat C8 Pro.
First, my confession. I first installed it with Smartstart and it was probably perfectly fine. However, I did not recognize the LR mode and some of the security settings. I did do the research and then I was really lost. Ultimately, I decided to reinstall it.
When reinstalling with the traditional device add process, the device appears but the preferences never appear. So I unpair, factory reset, reboot and attempt to re-add with SmartStart.
The mobile app lists the device properly. I watch the logs and events and nothing comes through.
I believe that my goal should be to add it with smartstart as that is what resulted in the best outcome originally.
What cleansing step am I missing that would allow me to re-add with smartstart?
Although I think there are benefits awaiting me with Smartstart, I have never fully understood the process and the security options it presents. (despite reading all I can find)
You might have some ghost nodes and sometimes that prevents new inclusions from adding. If you post screenshots of the z-wave details page we can have a look.
Also, sometimes just doing a shut down and unplugging the hub for 30 seconds helps.
Thanks for the information on ZWave issues. I have worked my way around my original issue including abandoning an Aeotec Trisensor 8 for lack of options I need. I will continue using Aeotec Multisensor 7's.
But, I learned a great deal about the radio aspects of the hub. I do have what appears to be several orphaned radio entries. I have not been able to get the entire zwave details page to copy save or print effectively at the moment. I have sorted by status to reveal a number of my orphans which I cannot remove. I am not experiencing a known problem because of them. However, they do not map to any current and working or broken devices.??
But, with a careful reading of your response, POE caught my attention. I use the supplied power block to power the C8 hub. However, the ethernet connected comes from a Ubiquiti Unifi switch and POE is enabled on that port (just the default). I will proceed to disable POE for that port after sending this.
Thanks as always for the help.......here is what I have done......
I have ten 'ghosts'. I have read all I can find on the community site. I tried refresh/remove in various ways to no avail. I also tried a zwave repair. Then, I turned off the entire AC to the house and proceeded with C8, network and PC UPS supported. I ran the repair again. I tried more refresh/remove. I still have ten ghosts.
The good news. After about fifteen years of various zwave configs, I think I finally learned why you should UNPAIR a device instead of a FORCE REMOVAL. I imagine this might be why my ghosts appear. It makes sense but, it was never explained to me and I found comments in your responses that have lead me to this conclusion. Also in the good news category, I am not aware that I am suffering any operational issues except perhaps difficulty with some device add issues. That is to say, happy wife, happy life.
The bad news is that I don't think I have the chops continue on this deep dive to correct the ghost nodes. I am very disappointed with some of the comments suggesting we are prohibited from writing code to nuke these ghosts, remediate the implementation. I am sure there is more to it than I am aware but, I now have a feeling that this may have also been part of the problem with other zwave implementations I have struggled with in the past. At least Hubitat and the community here have brought me a better understanding of the issues.
If there was a single bullet solution I would give it a try. But, I am pretty wrung out on this at the moment. If you are aware of someone I could engage for hire and authorize remote access, I would welcome them in to repair this and audit my relatively new implementation (about 90 days).
Unlike prior experiences, I remain very happy with what I have been able to accomplish here and may be able to restore my mojo in a few days.
Thanks again.....
Force removal won't create ghosts, it should clear it. What creates ghosts are failed pairings or removing a device without excluding. If you can get a force removal prompt that actually helps... That said, for those stubborn devices that just won't remove because they had neighbors, use this document. It will require a usb z-wave stick paired as a secondary controller. Below is a step by step.
It is a myth that turning off the power will help anything. Where did you read this? I have been on a mission to get rid of this info because it is just a waste of peoples time.
Yes the force removal just removed the devices from the hubs list, but not the radio.
With a windows PC and a $20 USB Z-wave stick you can remove them, its a little tricky to get setup at first but those instructions I partially quoted above has a full guide on setup and use of the dev tools.
Otherwise, SiLabs has finally removed the handcuffs from certified z-wave hubs, so from what I understand HE is now free to use anyway gateway they want to interface with the z-wave radio. This means that we may finally see a resolution to this long standing problem! Not sure when it will happen, hopefully within the next few major platform updates.
That is exactly what a force removal is, removing from the device list without excluding. It is called Force Removal in the UI.
My understanding has always been force removal also removes it from the radios database. I've also seen that behavior with the silabs software when I was experimenting with it a while back.
It does not, if you try to remove a z-wave device from the device list it puts the hub into exclusion mode and tells you to exclude the device. If you wait for it to time out you get the option to force remove which just removes it from he hub list and does not remove it from the radio. This is from the perspective of the HE UI, has nothing to do with the SiLabs software.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !
I was a little intimidated when I downloaded the instructions for the SI Labs/PC Controller. But, I pulled myself together and got started on this morning. Now that I am a little older and wiser I do indeed RTFM as it were. I had a gen 5 stick in the box and loaded it up. I had previously printed the list of my ghosts. I followed the steps and they disappeared one by one. I see no anomalies in my ZWAVE DETAILS.
My only contribution to the procedure would be this.....my ghosts did have route info but did not none reported a comm speed in that box. My ghosts never had a recognizable name in DEVICE field.
The discussion that brought me to this success was very beneficial to me. I was happy to see that this housekeeping capability may soon be somehow available for maintenance.
Thank you both for keeping up with my thread, you have given me greater confidence in my system !!
Are you are referring to where somewhere it says to identify a ghost to look for a node with no route? That IMO is also false (@danabw ), the biggest clue to me would be, as you said, if there is no device attached to it. The route can be blank for any number of reasons, and also some dead nodes will get stuck with a route and it never goes away.
So doing it from the device page doesn't do it, but removing it using the force remove popup from the z-wave details page does in fact remove it from the radio. (I've never removed from just the list) I confirmed this with Bryan.. It should be smoother once the zipgateway is removed
AFAIK, you click refresh and you sometimes get a remove button. There is no pop up. Says nothing about "Force Remove" either, just simply Remove on a button.
Unless something was added since I tested this extensively during the 2.3.9 beta.
Yeah things have changed with the Z-wave details page since I originally wrote that. Routes are no longer always filled in for active devices so I need to edit that.
I'm just saying Rick's reference to a pop-up on the Z-Wave details page seemed like it was was caused by him thinking about the dialogue on the Device page, momentary error/confusion.
