My C7 hub died from an apparent power surge (tried everything, new power-supply, cable and it does come on at all). I have a backup of the C7 and today received my C8. What are my options, if any, to restore this backup on the C8? I saw the C5/C7 to C8 migration videos but without a working older hub I am not sure what options I have and I don't want to experiment with the new hub. At least if I can restore the rules that would be a huge plus. I can always add the devices back again. Thank you all for any help.
Unfortunately, with a dead hub you cannot migrate using the automatic tool unless there was a previous cloud backup. You can see if there is one, but likely there is not.
You can load your local backup to your new hub. The rules and dashboards and even the names of the devices will be there. What does not import is the radio databases.
For Zigbee, if you pair the device again, it will fall back under the old name and besides the time taken it should be pretty seamless.
For Z-wave, you will have to pair the device, and via either Swap App in the Settings tab, or by manually editing every device DNI. Both methods trade places from the old missing device to the newly paired device. Note the Swap app only handles devices without child devices. You may have to manually fix (edit) rules with child device and choose the new device. The DNI swap is outlined by bravenel from a couple years ago if you really need to go down this route for some reason.
Cloud and LAN based stuff you will probably need to go through one by one and be sure that it is connected back to the cloud device/server. Things like Alexa and Google are likely to break from trading hubs, and the errors spamming the hub will likely take down the hub.
2 Likes
Thank you so much for the recommendations. Recovering the rules and dashboards is a huge plus. I have no problem pairing the Z-wave and a handful of Zigbee devices. I will try the options you recommended to fix the rules. Thank you for the clarification and your recommendations.
1 Like
Pair your mains based stuff first working from closest to furthest. Then pair your battery based stuff the same way. (Don't forget you'll either have to factory reset or run exclusion on each z-wave device)
2 Likes
Yes, that is the plan. A few devices and rules per day.
I have been a Hubitat user for a very long time and I never thought of losing the hub in this manner. I have another location with a much more complex setup and I cannot lose and most importantly not be able to recover in a mater of two days. So what I understand is that backups to a hard drive can only restore ALL the setup (devices, rules, etc.) to the same type hub. Is this correct?
No, a local backup only contains the hub database, but it can be used on any hardware (ex going from C7 to C8 as you plan to do). This has all the apps rules and "devices" (from the device list) in it. The local backup does NOT contain the zwave or zigbee radio data, so the device pairings on the radio side are not carried over in a local backup.
A key thing to understand is you have your devices list which is pat of the hub database and then you have the devices in the radio. The two are linked together with the DNI.
Only a cloud backup has the radio data.
Zigbee devices are easy however, since they will re-attach to the same DNI and device.
Zwave devices however, will pair with the next in line DNI, and then hopefully* create a new device.
*One note on Zwave, I think (have not confirmed yet) that if you pair a new device and the DNI it gets matches an existing old "device" from the backup it will attach to that device entry. This is similar to how Zigbee works except for Zwave it could be a totally different device so is not desired behavior.
For that reason I would suggest after you restore your backup you should edit the DNI of all the old zwave devices and add an X or something unique in front of each one so they do not collide with the devices being paired.
2 Likes
Thank you ALL for your help on this matter. When you say edit DNI of all old zwave devices and add an X, where do you do that. I have just restored the database and I am so glad just to have a list of devices, apps and rules restored. Years to create and adjusting these rules and there is no way I would have remembered everything. As expected I now have a list of devices which are not connected to the Z-wave Radio Devices (nodes) list as this is now empty (under settings). So I presume the DNI edit would be in the Z-wave Radio Devices list, but since it is empty I cannot edit anything. Nevertheless, I will go ahead and pair my first wired device and see how it goes.
on the device page
1 Like
On each individual Device Info page.
Count the number of ZWave devices you have. The first one you add to the new C-8 will use Node ID of 6 (the first 5 nodes are reserved by the hub) If you have 10 devices, then you will be using (ideally) Node ID's 6-16.
You need to "protect" only those 10 numbers from duplication. If you go though each ZWave device's Device Info page, if the current DNI (aka Node ID for Zwave) is 16 or less, click edit and add an X
For EVERY Zwave device, alter the Device label to have the word OLD in it.
To repeat, visit each ZWave Device Info page and alter the name, and the DNI if needed.
Then, when you add devices begin with an Exclude. Do not start an Include until you know the exclude worked. You will see the message "unknown device excluded" -- this tells you that the hub and device AND your memory of how to get the device into Exclude is all working. You reduce the chance of creating Ghosts with an Exclude before Include.
Name the new device the same as the old, but without the word OLD of course 
Use the Swap Apps Driver tool to swap old for new. Then you can delete the old because it's been just a placeholder.
2 Likes
@csteele has you covered above, its on the device page, the little edit button next to Device Network ID. If you do not edit those first you could have possible collisions where a newly paired device will assume one of the old (and probably totally different) devices. Then you have another headache to unravel.
1 Like
You guys are ALL awesome. So, with all this information I reread all the replies again and now I can make the connection between the two lists. Tonight I have paired about 15 devices and I still have many more to go. I am using the Swap Apps Driver tool and while I am at this exercise I am also updating the firmware on the devices. I have a boatload of Zooz devices and they do a very good job providing updates and Hubitat does a great job updating them. Once again I want to thank all of you for your help and clarification. I hope all this information will be useful to others doing the same process.
2 Likes
If you want to unlock all the settings be sure to search for the community Zooz drivers (especially mine 
), unless you have them all already.
2 Likes
