Is system up and working?

[marktheknife]

After reading through this thread, I also have no idea what the original problem was or what series of steps led to its resolution.

The hub documentation pages have a lot of very helpful information for users that are unfamiliar with the basics of administering their hubs.

[bobbyD]

@ksrothschild

we are supposed to have things seamless instead of being frustrated

You are 100% correct. Home automation is about enriching and simplifying users' lives. No one in the right mind would want to go through your experience on regular basis, and they shouldn't.

However, like everything that involves computerized technology, there will be downtime periods in the life-cycle of a product, for various reasons. No system can achieve 100% uptime in perpetuity.

That is why it is imperative for users to be familiar with their system and prepared to take actions when incidents occur. Depending on individual's technical abilities and time available, there are many ways to minimize the unforeseen downtimes.

At Hubitat, we understand how important the reliability is, for a system that is designed to literally "keep the lights on" when you need them. Thus we offer a multitude of tools to limit the downtime, many of which are unique in the smart home industry:

• Activity Logs - the Logs page provides the visibility needed so that users can quickly identify the main cause of a problem.

• Local backups - automatic and manual local backups can be saved periodically to protect against human errors and software failures.

• Soft Reset - can be performed when software failures occur and the hub's interface is no longer available due to internal database issues.

• Diagnostic Tool - a built-in service that comes with every Hubitat Elevation hub, and runs independent of the main platform to provide owners with helpful tools to restore the hub's functionality.

• Networking tools - while the hub cannot help resolve local network issues, we offer advanced network settings related to the hub's network connectivity, as well as a physical hub's network reset.

• Cloud backups - automatic and manual cloud backups can be saved periodically to protect against software and hardware failures via Hub Protect service.

Ultimately nothing can safeguard a user better against extended downtime periods than using simple algorithms when designing the home automation, as well as reputable devices from trusted manufacturers.

[rlithgow1]