I would re-phrase your enhancement request to say the Z-Wave pairing should not result in "Ghost" nodes (in the first place). I think this is almost entirely in Silicon Labs camp but Hubitat does need to keep pushing it. This problem is not good for Hubitat or Silicon Labs (or us Hubitat users).
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That's my guess too. Maybe there's been an updated SDK that just has to be integrated. Maybe this is fixed when Hubitat address the Z-Wave Long Range firmware, but the problem has been around long enough that people have figured out additional systems that you need and written detailed guides to fix it - very frustrating that Silicon Labs let this linger and, as an end-consumer, we really have no influence other than indirectly through Hubitat pushing this to them as a priority.
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Consider yourself fortunate. Most often, they can be removed and a power off reboot does the trick. I had several that would not depart unless I used the stick. I also like the stick to pair some devices without security.
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Long time lurker, first time poster. Been with SmartThings for years and decided to come over to Hubitat for my new house build this year. I have mostly all Z-Wave with only 2 devices Zigbee. Most of my devices I brought over from the old house and are older Non-Plus sensors, switches, and range extenders. Had to supplement with Z-Wave Plus Switches and Aeotec Plus Range extenders. All was going well during install. Followed the Z-Wave Build guide to the "T" only adding several devices at a time, doing Z-Wave repair, and giving the network time to heal. The response from the hub was rock solid and lightning fast.
Then, after about 50 - 60 devices, I began having non-plus and plus switches alike not respond. So, I tried to remove the switches that were not responding and they would not come off at all no matter what I tried. On 2 of them, I accidentally hit "Force Remove" and there you have it, a ghost node! I am now up to 5 ghost nodes and can't remove any! My Z-Wave repair comes up with more that the five devices failing to respond but yet all seem to work except for the ghost ones of course.
Response from switches has noticeably slowed as well and the WAF is declining. It sucks that it was all going so good and then the ghost nodes and the messed up mesh crept up on me.
Anyway, I digress. The question was how does it happen? In my case, devices became unresponsive overnight, I tried to remove them, they would not remove, and in the many attempts to remove I accidentally hit "force remove" and got the ghost nodes. "Full disclosure" only three happened that way, the other 2 were totally my fault, I removed the switches from the wall before excluding them but same thing, I did a force remove on them. In my defense, I already had 3 ghost nodes going and would need to use the z-stick anyway.
Definitely add me to the feature request list!
I have been using zwave for 10 years.
Moved to HE 24 Dec 2020.
Until then zwave was solid, reliable and predictable , using gen 500
Since moving to gen 700 the moving of 100 zwave devices was a miserable experience for quite a few of the devices, others like the greenwave sockets 30 plus of them went in really easy.
Ghost devices have been a continuous issue.
As a Mac user it has been extra hard to sort out, as the silabs pc controller software needed to remove stubborn ghosts only runs on Windows 10.
The ghost devices were apparently causing issues and stopping zwave inclusion, so I had to get Windows 10.
For the sake of transparency I believe that HE should make it clear that a Windows 10 pc is required to resolve HE zwave issues.
The zwave 700 network I have running on HE is nowhere as solid and reliable as the 500 (with same zwave devices) I had before but not so unreliable I would go through the pain of moving all the devices back.
I am just hoping that it gets better.
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For ghost removal:
That is a good guide. Very helpful for those sophisticated enough to use it. But that's the problem -- the people on this forum are likely at the high-end of sophistication for a consumer electronics product like this. Silicon Labs / Hubitat / whomever needs to get to the point where nobody even needs to know the term "ghost node." I'm assuming the Z-wave Long Range firmware will have many changes in it (old bugs fixed, new ones created, etc.) and hope this ghost node / device node removal problem is among those fixed! The real solution to this problem is that there should never be a need for a solution to this problem.
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It is an excellent write up and I followed it.
It was extremely helpful.
It worked.
But would rather it was not necessary.
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You and everyone else. It’s not a perfect world.
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To clarify the interface, I suggest relabeling the "Remove" button on the Z-Wave Details page.
It should be labeled: "Button that does nothing but frustrate the consumer after an inclusion failure which, itself, should never happen." Might need a bigger button.
Eh, the remove button has worked probably 90% of the time for me.
That said, in my opinion the Zwave Alliance needs to fix this once and for all - it is ridiculous.
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I'm closer to 0%. I've just spent the last hour clicking Remove, rebooting, repairing, disabling and enabling the Z-wave interface, watching the browser reloading icon spinning, etc. etc.
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I will say that after about 2 tries if it doesn't work I bail out and go to my usb stick/PC controller and remove it (in about 30s).
So even when it doesn't work it doesn't bother me that much since I have the stick/PC Controller already setup and ready to use.
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Yeah, I get that, and can do that, but this is a consumer device and it should behave like one and act as you would expect from what the interface tells you. People on this forum are probably at the highest levels of technical knowledge for this device and know that "Remove" really means get a USB stick and set up a silicon labs account so you can download some techey and esoteric Silicon Labs Z-wave tools that you then set up on another computer to perform the function of Remove because the button won't do what it says it does. That frustrates me endlessly and with each firmware release I expect to see this fixed, but that doesn't seem to happen.
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100% agree.
Why would you expect that? If the issue is on the SiLabs (not Hubitat) SDK or firmware side, it won't be fixed until it is fixed there. Based on my experiences on other ZWave 700 hubs I have access to, I do think it is a SiLabs issue predominantly.
So far Hubitat has never updated the SDK or firmware on the C7 (actually maybe 1 firmware early on)... So no one should really expect this to be fixed 100%.
Worked around, made better, sure. But fixed? No.
I'm sure we'll get a new SDK/firmware this year though. Whether it fixes this issue or not, I don't know. I don't see anything in the SiLabs release notes that makes me super optimistic.
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Ahh.. For removal the only buttons you should be attempting is “remove” and possibly “refresh”..
Agreed 100%. One shouldn't even get to the point where they think "maybe if I reboot or restart the interface."
I'd expect that because, as a consumer, I expect the manufacturer to work with their sub-suppliers to fix problems. This being said - I recognize the Hubitat team is working hard to fix problems that are within their ability to fix. But someone, somehow, somewhere in the silicon labs or Hubitat or whatever part of the design and manufacturing side should have this fixed after all these months.
Well, I'm off now to set up a laptop with some software that I shouldn't have to know about to fix a silicon labs defect that is endlessly frustrating.
PS - to anyone on the Hubitat side reading this - I love the new "Rooms" feature and all the great stuff you are adding and realize you guys work very hard to improve this product. Despite my frustration with this issue, I do appreciate the efforts that you guys continue to make.
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I blame covid and remote workers. 
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Is there another platform that works the way you you have described? I've never seen one. As others have stated, this is an issue with SI labs, not Hubitat. Until SI Labs fixes it, there is nothing Hubitat, or any other platform can really do.
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