Fastest my hub has ever been

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121

Things have been very fast for me generally, but last night I had a bog down. Some simple motion>light automations either didn't work, or were frustratingly slooooow, and responses to button presses were so delayed they didn't seem to be working, etc.

My motion and button devices are all Zigbee, so I decided it might be the right time to induce a panic, as I have been moving all my devices over from ST and adding new devices, and hadn't done any "clean up" during that time. I shut down and unplugged the hub for 30m and then plugged it in again late last night. This AM things are snappy again.

I do have a hub reboot set to run every morning at 4:30 AM. I don't have any specific reason to do so other than "it can't hurt, and it might help.' I wanted to confirm those assumptions. On other devices (phones, routers, etc.) my experience has been a reboot is generally neutral at worst, and can be beneficial. (Though I've never rebooted them daily.)

It's no effort, reboot runs automatically early in the morning when no one is using the mesh. Are there any reasons why it would best not to reboot the hub as frequently as I am? Is it as harmless (worst case) as I think it is?

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I dunno but the Z-wave network can take some time to settle (I've read up to 3 days). If you are rebooting every night then that might prevent it from settling or repairing itself completely. In the past I've used the "Rootn Tootn Rebootn" app that rebooted when things got really slow - that way it wasn't done all the time and only when absolutely necessary.

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123

Thanks, I hadn't heard about the Zwave network needing time to settle - possibly that related to Zwave+ devices, which can re-route on their own when necessary (as opposed to Zwave devices which require a repair to re-route)?

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Yes, as long as reboot is not done by yanking out power cable, it is harmless at worst.

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The HE docs mention this.. but of course things change.

How to Build a Solid Z-Wave Mesh - Hubitat Documentation.

This is for a new build out of course but I wonder if it applies to adding new devices as well.

edit: I defer to @gopher.ny's assessment with him being a lot more knowledgeable than I about these things.

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Thanks...I don't see any mention of rebooting the hub having any impact, other than in the Force Remove section:

A reboot of the hub will typically allow the system to remove the node during the next scheduled cleanup.

Would be nice to know if rebooting delays/affects Zwave+ devices' explorer frames activities, that seems like it would be the only unintended impact on Zwave, since non plus devices require a repair to update their routing, and I'm not up running Zwave repairs at 0-dark-thirty when my reboots are occurring. :wink:

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127

Yeah and it appears that the z-wave modem stays active through a reboot (not extended power loss) so maybe "settling"/optimization still occurs and is independent from the system itself. I am totally getting out of my depth here... so pure speculation.

edit: kinda what you were saying.. :smile:

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I'm going to defer to @bcopeland on all things Z-Wave. He knows far more about Z-Wave intricacies than I do.

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129

FWIW, I have a couple of small dashboards defined, but have been running with the Dashboards app disabled (red check); I see the periodic 5 sec spikes nonetheless. Should the polling still happen in that scenario? I'll try deleting the dashboards entirely to see if that makes any differnce.

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No polling, you have to have a live dashboard open in a browser for that. I still have no definite answer on 5 second spikes.

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131

Yes.. Shutdown is required to power down the radio

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Does rebooting interfere with a "repair" or is that a function of the radio / radio firmware?

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Repair is happening from hub code so yes..

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One more question.. if I add device(s) to the network could rebooting interfere with that? I'm guessing that aspect is handled by the radio firmware so it wouldn't.

The reason I'm asking is rebooting every night seems a bit excessive but not sure if there is really a downside.

(thanks again for taking the time to respond!!!!)

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Ok.. I think we are getting crossed in our terms.. Rebooting does not affect anything that is not currently actively running.. If you are repairing or adding at the time of the reboot, yes that could be very bad.. But if you aren’t actively repairing or including, it’s fine..

But.. I would spend the time to find out why you are having to reboot.. You shouldn’t have to reboot all the time.. My production hub only reboots when running updates.

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Nooooo I'm good!!!! :smile: I am not rebooting.

I was responding to @danabw but was getting out of my comfort zone and expertise.

Thanks for the info...

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137

No problem.. Every-time I have had a “slow-down”, I have been able to trace it down to bad code or a spastic device.. But that’s the engineer in me.. Reboot is a quick-fix for those unwilling or not capable of diagnosing the problem.

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138

Ah, so this what the underside of a bus looks like...thanks, @erktrek :wink:

@bcopeland - aside from a Zigbee stall last night I haven't had any slow-down issues. I have just been rebooting prophylactically (nice, big word moment!) to keep any issues from builing up. I reboot my phone weekly for the same reason.

If there is no downside to rebooting very early in the AM when we aren't using our hub (and I haven't heard one yet) and there might be an up-side, seems like a little free insurance.

Crazy talk? I'm not an engineer, but I do have my own toy train, so it's not like I'm totally unqualified. :smiley:

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139

As long as it is not at the same time as the nightly maintenance, rebooting should be fine.

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True! That was my only worry, which I had forgotten about. And from what I've read, staff have not divulged when that maintenance occurs, correct?