Fun fact: Timezones on the cloud/migration process are screwy.
The correct time was 7:05am Pacific
The hub knows the correct timezone:
The correct time was 7:05am Pacific
The hub knows the correct timezone:
That's expected. I've done it a hundred times. Putting the hub in exclusion mode then having my kids touch a switch and excluding the wrong device as result. I know better not to try to exclude devices while others are in the house.
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That's expected. I've done it a hundred times.
Yeah, it didn't bother me other than throwing a wrinkle in this process. The C5 is back. The full reset of the C8 Pro does not seem to have helped, even though the Z-Wave still looks healthy.
(In fairness though, I only tested one item, so I could get the C5 back online for your diagnostics.)
That's not good. So you have an empty Z-Wave Details table and no devices listed on Devices page, yet you are unable to include a Z-Wave device?
Oh no, that's not what I tried. I tried restoring from the cleaned-up C5 backup.
I can go back, wipe the C8 Pro again and try just adding a device. But not with the C5 online.
Unless they are on top of each other, which may cause a problem, it shouldn't matter if the C-5 is online. But if they are near each other, then yes, I'd say take the C5 offline, first.
Tripple checked your C5 logs. There is a lot of garbage accumulated with at least 3 hidden ghosts and several unresponsive devices. Based on your feedback, it seems that the C5 stack is able to handle the noise better than C8s. With the state your C5 mesh is in, I am surprised anything is working, you probably have horrendous latency. Perhaps you didn't even notice or you just got used to it. The Z-Wave backup is saving fine, but you are importing all that garbage over. The biggest problem is that C5 hides ghosts and stranded devices. We have not spent much time testing the migration of unhealthy C5 mesh networks, as there is nothing we can do to sanitize the data, and you are getting the effects of that. One way to remedy the problem is cleaning up the C5 mesh, then run another cloud backup. Unfortunately, with the way the C5 hubs handle ghost nodes, you are looking at 50/50 chances of migrating a functional network even after clean-up.
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Okaaay... how do I clean up hidden ghosts? Is it the same process described in the "Hubitat Remove Ghost Instructions" document? Will they not be hidden in Step 14?
I do have a USB Z-Wave stick coming this afternoon.
No, most of the documentation covers newer hubs with the latest features. There is no easy way to clean up C5 hubs, that's why we had to upgrade the hardware to support better Z-Wave software.
Okaaaaay, while I appreciate the openness, it would have been nice to have had a while ago. Basically, this is telling me that the promised migration is not actually available to me, even with freshly purchased USB Z-Stick, correct?
That was literally the selling point of the C8 Pro to me. That I wouldn't have to rebuild the mesh. What options are left to us?
I understand your frustration, but to be fair most users (I would say a majority) don't have anywhere near the amount of issues you have been having. I find it hard to believe you have received two bad new hubs, there must be something unique to your setup, network, or environment.
I don't have much of a theory about what is going here, but what I find odd that you can't add a Z-wave device to the new/clean C8 hubs.
There has to be something interfering with the radio in your environment to cause this. Is this in a cabinet? Is the hub sitting on a Wifi router? On top of another device that might emit radio waves of any type? Shielded due to being between something like mirrors or heating ducts?
If you take the new hub and a Z-wave device to a different location, like a friends home, does the pairing work?
There are ways to do a manual migration, but it does involve re-pairing devices. If you only have a very few devices, that may be a good option. Zigbee is very easy, you put them into pairing mode, and they fall back into place. With Z-wave, you have to do a little bit messing around with swapping devices and some work on the device settings page (for each Z-wave device) to unbind the device from the Z-wave table. But it isn't all that horrible, that is how I migrated from the C7 to C8 with well over 50 devices. You could probably have done this and been done by now instead of banging your head on a failing migration, for whatever reason it isn't working.
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I understand your frustration, but to be fair most users (I would say a majority) don't have anywhere near the amount of issues you have been having. I find it hard to believe you have received two bad new hubs, there must be something unique to your setup, network, or environment.
Yeah, you missed the plot. I have a very early C5. About five years old. Apparently it isn't that the hubs are bad; they just can't deal with data and meshes degraded over that length of time.
I don't have much of a theory about what is going here, but what I find odd that you can't add a Z-wave device to the new/clean C8 hubs.
Haven't yet tested it on a clean hub. It took a while - like a week, if you read the thread - to determine that it was my restored Z-Wave configuration that was killing the radio.
You could probably have done this and been done by now instead of banging your head on a failing migration
Thank you, Captain Obvious! 
Yeah, we know that now. But the reason I bothered with the upgrade was, it was supposed to be easy. And you apparently don't have old Somfy and Zebra blinds/remotes. Those are a serious PITA to pair.
Will the USB-Z-Wave Stick help clean up the mesh on the C8, or is the idea basically that I'm hosed due to tools not available on the very-early C5s?
You could use the USB-Z-Wave Stick to clean up your C-5 so that you get a clean Cloud Backup. Remember that the SOC (radio chips) used are significantly different between the C-5 and the C-8 (500 series vs 800 series) The Software that SiLabs has to run the USB-Z-Wave Stick uses an older interface protocol (API) allowing it to work with more USB-Z-Wave Stick manufacturers. It's presents a very low level interface to Z-Wave. It will not be click-and-done. It will be click-read-click-read-click, with start over's in there too. 
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Thank you. Any guides are appreciated, because I actually don't know enough to remember that. Even though I wrote the LANNouncer plug-in/device/etc., I actually know nearly nothing about Z-Wave. I know programming hard-core, but never dove into H/A devices or protocols.
Are you suggesting the best approach is to start on the C5, try to clean it up, and then migrate and repeat on the C8P?
I would suggest that is about the ONLY chance you have of trying to migrate successfully. And even that is not a guarantee at this point.
In terms of "repeat" there wouldn't be a need to repeat the cleaning portion if they are all successfully cleaned on the C5 side 1st (as then there would be nothing left to clean on the C8 after migration).
That said, if it were my hub I would just re-pair everything from scratch. I've done it on my 120+ device mesh in a (long) afternoon. It isn't fun, but wasting time isn't fun either.
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Use of USB stick is not officially supported, so use at own risk. We don't recommend that method.
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Is there a method you do recommend, for the situation I'm in? Inquiring minds want to know!!!
The only thing they could officially support is resetting the z-wave radio. This is not so much a limitation of Hubitat and a failure to be able to make a way to do it as it is a limitation of the SiLabs SDK.... In order to maintain certification they have to stay within the guidelines set for that certification. That said, here are the instructions...This works on the c5, c7, and c8/pro
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Is there a quick way to "delete the OLD device", considering it's not in the radio or Z-Wave list anyhow? The Device page puts the hub in exclusion mode, which takes a while to time-out.
