Lutron Caseta question

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1

@mike.maxwell, @bravenel, @bobbyD

So I've been running Lutron Caseta in Hubitat for awhile... and its been working flawlessly up until a few days ago when I started utilizing a dimmer switch in my master half bath more frequently since I've finished the remodel of that bathroom. In the last few days I've had the dimmer get stuck on a particular dimmer level (one time it was high, other time it was low), and when you try and turn on the dimmer to full it attempts to go up and you see the lights on the dimmer go up one or two and immediately go back down to the existing setting. If you try and turn the dimmer off, it goes off for a second, and immediately comes back on. The only way for me to fix this is to pull the power to my pro hub and wait a few minutes and plug the hub back in and wait for it to boot back up, and after that the dimmer functions normally. I believe all the other switches and dimmers function when this happen, however I can honestly say I'm not 100% sure I've attempted to fiddle with another switch or dimmer as I was focused on the problem dimmer.

In Hubitat I see this when the dimmer is stuck on and won't turn off.

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:12.199 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.928 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1.0%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.560 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1.0%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.528 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1.0%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.500 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1.0%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.222 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.029 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1.0%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.032 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.158 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:11.186 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1.0%

dev:212019-08-14 04:51:10.955 pm infoMaster Bedroom Half Bath Light was set to 1%

As you can see the logs are quite frequent and my hub goes sluggish and even locked up the first time it happened since it was running for quite some time this way before I noticed the light wasn't turned off (it's on a motion sensor).

After I reboot the Lutron Hub, I start getting these errors after it's come back up...

dev:272019-08-14 05:00:02.839 pm errorTelnet connection dropped...

dev:272019-08-14 05:00:02.828 pm infoTelnet connection to Lutron interface established

dev:272019-08-14 05:00:01.805 pm errorTelnet connection dropped...

dev:272019-08-14 05:00:01.789 pm infoTelnet connection to Lutron interface established

dev:272019-08-14 05:00:00.769 pm errorTelnet connection dropped...

dev:272019-08-14 05:00:00.739 pm infoTelnet connection to Lutron interface established

dev:272019-08-14 04:59:59.721 pm errorTelnet connection dropped...

dev:272019-08-14 04:59:59.700 pm infoTelnet connection to Lutron interface established

dev:272019-08-14 04:59:58.681 pm errorTelnet connection dropped...

dev:272019-08-14 04:59:58.668 pm infoTelnet connection to Lutron interface established

dev:272019-08-14 04:59:57.651 pm errorTelnet connection dropped...

dev:272019-08-14 04:59:57.639 pm infoTelnet connection to Lutron interface established

dev:272019-08-14 04:59:56.618 pm errorTelnet connection dropped...

I have to reboot the hubitat hub in order to re-establish communication to the lutron telnet session.

Any idea what may be happening here before I reach out to Lutron customer support for their input? I just want to be sure that Hubitat is not in some way causing the issues I'm having or if it's just a particular dimmer that's acting up? Have any of you seen this behavior before?

2

I haven't seen this before. It appears that you may either have a LAN issue, defective SmartBridge or defective hub -- as reason for the telnet connection constantly going up and down like that.

Please contact support@hubitat.com directly.

3

I’ll reach out to support but the Hubitat hub, lutron smartbridge are on the same switch on the same vlan. I wouldn’t suspect a network issue here. Both hubs are statically assigned an IP. I’m pointing to an issue with the lutron smartbridge but wanted to see what your thoughts were. Thanks! I’ll submit a ticket and see what comes of it.

4

What type of switch are you on? I had an issue with a certain switch that made the hubitat connection go up and down quite often which could cause the telnet connection to go up and down too. However, that only happens with very certain switches.

5

Are you physically controlling the dimmer (with buttons) when this happens, or via hubitat?

6

It turned on via motion sensor then was adjusted with the dimmer buttons, and then it went haywire and wouldn’t shut off.

7

It’s the PD5NE dimmer... the $99 ones.

8

Which switch did you see this issue on?

9

I am on a managed Netgear switch. Since you use VLANs, I assume you have a managed switch. Try setting the port your hubitat is connected to to 100M half duplex and see if it stabilizes.

10

This sounds like a Lutron issue, not Hubitat. Troubleshooting steps:

  1. Delete the dimmer from any Hubitat automations.
  2. Test it from the Hubitat device page, using the dimmer itself, and the Lutron app. Note behavior/examine logs
  3. Check the wiring - hot, load, and neutral are all secure and correct. You have to connect the load and hot to the correct dimmer wires - they are not interchangeable.

If you are still having problems it's possible to have a bad dimmer. Either exchange at retailer or contact Lutron support. You will get a new one at no cost.

11

Are you hitting the 10W minimum load? The behavior you described (although not sure if it would show up in hubitat logs) is similar to what I experienced with too-small of a load on the cheaper (no neutral) dimmer. I fixed it by installing a Lutron LUT-MLC, but I don't think this is applicable to the PD5NE.

12

No. I have 5 LEDs on the dimmer within the acceptable range. I have just one on my hall dimmer (same model) and that functions just fine.

13

I realize this is an old issue but I'm wondering if you could share what the fix was. I've been having some stability issues and the last line in my logs before the hang is "Telnet connection to Lutron interface established" to my Lutron SmartBridge. Odd thing is that although this is the top line in the log before the hang, it's timestamped out of order by 20-30 minutes. There are other events with a later timestamp, but are farther down in the log.

Obviously there are things in my setup that are different and I don't want to hijack the thread, but am curious if there was something about the SmartBridge that caused your issues.

14

Did you get this sorted out?

15

Hey Bruce, Thanks for checking in. Unfortunately I haven't yet, and still am seeing some instability, but I don't believe it is related to the Lutron message in the logs that I mentioned. That entry seems to show up with the wrong timestamp, but is logged at boot rather than as the last message before the hang.

I've pared down quite a bit, removing rules, simplifying logic, controlling for various events, but am still seeing the hangs.

However, my new theory is that perhaps my monitoring of the situation is itself now causing the hangs. I have had several web pages open to the hub, including live logs, and a continuous ping running from a Windows 10 PC. This machine goes to sleep periodically and I've noticed that the hub would hang a few seconds after it wakes up. I'd see a few pings reply and then it would die.

So perhaps it was something else originally and I've taken care of it, but then caused a new problem by leaving web pages open and a ping running. The timing and number of occurrences was too much to be a coincidence.

16

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