Need help on devices not responding

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9

you can try turning off the switch.. if it has an air gap.. then shutdown hub, remove power for 30 seconds.. power up hub and immediately go into zwave details and hit refresh till you get a failed on the device then try remove. if not you can wait and see if nightly job removes them, or get a zwave stick to do it..

here is more

10

Thanks for the advice. After I try the shutdown hub method, I have 5 Not_Responding devices, 1 failed device and 3 ok devices with "Discover" under device and 1 device with S2 Access Control and blank under device. I try repair on the failed and Not_Responding devices but didn't do anything. The log show time out on repair. Does it mean I need the zwave stick or do I need to remove all the above devices and add to the hub again?

11

repair is never going to work.. they are not correctly paired devices.. you need to fail them and use remove not repair.

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12

After a few try, I finally able to get the Not_Responding devices to change to fail and giving me the option to Remove. If I do the remove, does it mean I need to pair them again to the hub? Also I think I find the 3 ghost device but there is no remove button to remove them in the Z-Wave Details page. It is the device with no name but there is no activity in the z-wave detail page. Not sure how to delete them.

13

show you zwave details page.. the failed pairings will have no in: and out: data on the page.

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I guess the first 4 devices are ghost device that require the UZB to remove. What about the device that show failed? If I hit the remove button, does it mean I need to pair them again? Thanks.

15

The first node 01 is your hub. Don't delete that one!

16

Some thoughts:

  • A lot of us have had similar issues so you are not alone!!! Things are getting better with each firmware update so hang on!!!
  • The Z-Stick+ (or UZB stick) + Z-Wave PC Controller SW is a great way to take care of the ghosts and do some finicky pairings (like my Aeotec Recessed Door 6). I like the Z-Stick+ because I can use it to exclude things remotely (it has an internal battery).
  • Adding repeaters like the "Aeotec Range Extender 7" or "Ring Alarm Range Extender 2nd gen" really helps with reliability and inclusion. Yes I know that powered devices like switches should repeat just fine but in my experience for whatever reason this has been problematic.
  • Sometimes those devices can reappear after reboots/discovers/refreshes and also going back into inclusion mode. Not sure what the trick is but I've gotten things to show up from time to time.
  • Mentioning my recessed door sensor 6. When I tried to pair it with the C-7 it would force pair as S0.. I could not get it to pair unauthenticated. Once paired it would not respond. Using the Z-Stick as a secondary controller was able pair it again with no security and all was well.
  • If you seem to be locked out of inclusion do the power off/pull plug/wait 30 secs/restart and immediately try again.
  • As @kahn-hubitat mentioned the nightly process should (hopefully) take care of this.
  • Another issue that you hopefully haven't experienced is random S2 devices getting excluded and dropping off the hub after doing an exclude on a specific device.
17

Thanks erktrek for the suggestion and Sakman for the heads up. This afternoon all switches won't response. I check the log and get "Z-Wave Network responded with Busy message" every 10 second.
I did the shutdown and pull the power method and some of the switches come back while other still not working. I already order the Z-Stick and should be here on Friday. Hopefully getting rid of the ghost will solve my problem. The nightly process didn't help with my problem. I have all the switches appear in the devices area, they just won't response most of the time.
I just check the z-wave details page and most of the devices are "not responding, failed and unknown". Is hitting the remove button same as exclusion mode?

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18

Yes

19

Thanks for the reply. I guess this is the same as exclusion mode. The nightly process didn't take care the problem. Still waiting to try out the ghost removal method.

20

Not quite the same as Exclusion.
As I understand it, when Exclusion is used both the hub and the device forget they used to be paired.
When Remove is used, only the hub is instructed to forget the device.
Therefore the device will likely still think it is paired and should be Factory Reset before attempting to rejoin it to a hub.

21

There are 3 components to a Joined device...

  • The device itself with a Home Network number and a Node number, stored in the ZWave chip inside the device, both of which are sent by the Hub.
  • The ZWave chip inside the hub, which also has a Home Network number and a Node number, typically #1. It also has a memory slot for all 234 ZWave devices possible, many to most are empty.
  • The DB within the hub that retains the Node Number (DNI) and the various things we define: name, type, automations used by, data, current states, etc.

An Exclude works to remove ALL THREE.
A Forced Remove clears the DB row for that device. I think it tries to clear the slot in the Hub's ZWave radio chip, but it may not be successful. This leads to ghosts.
A Remove is only to clear the slot in the Hub's ZWave radio chip, and may not be successful.

Not successful is largely due to the protocol used to prevent accidental removal. A remove won't occur if the device itself is responding, so presumably during a working Exclude, the device's Home Network and Node number are cleared first, such that it no longer responds to the Hub's ZWave Radio at the Home Network/Node.

So.. the failure goes something like this... the Exclude is started and the remote device receives the "clear" command but doesn't do it. It has to have received it, otherwise the hub will retry. Now the hub thinks the device is cleared and starts the ZWave Radio slot clear.. but it fails because the darn device is still "pingable."

Then comes the Force Reset dialog box and that will only clear the Hub's DB. The ZWave Radio will still fail, and this leads to the device showing ONLY in the ZWave Details list.

I'm truly oversimplifying and rounding the corners to try and make the explanation match what we see, not precisely what happens under the hood. :smiley:

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22

Thanks for the explanation. I am still waiting for the z-stick to remove the ghost device. During the last few days, more devices start to fail and now I notice the node 01 is no longer in my Z-Wave detail list. When I check the Z-wave log, for the one that is not responding, this is the message:
seqNo: 134, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 761ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown
I am not sure what that mean but it appears on all the devices that are not responding. Also, I reach out to support and it has been nearly 2 weeks and I haven't heard anything from them. Does anyone know what's the turn around time for a response? Thanks. Hopefully the ghost removal method will solve my problem cause the recent update didn't do anything.

23

Have you updated your C7 to the latest firmware ?
It is very stable for me but I am on C4 hub so ymmv.
If not, Iā€™d suggest doing so and then correctly power down you hub, wait 5- 10 or so minutes and then power the hub back up.
DO NOT just pull the power !

24

Thanks for the suggestion. I did the update but I didn't do the power down. I will power down and check back in the morning to see if that help. Thanks.

25

I believe they removed the hub node and it's "virtual" counterparts (1-5) from the details page to avoid confusion and attempts at repair/removal. It doesn't show up on mine now either.

Platform Changes

  • C7: Z-Wave UI improvements:
  • Removed hub node from Z-Wave details page.
26

Thanks for the info. I got the Z-stick and able to remove all 3 ghost devices. Once that is done, I am able to control all the devices with no problem. I did a z-wave exclusion to remove the stick and went to bed. The next morning I notice 3 of my switches are not responding (the same one I have problem in the very beginning). I also notice the z-stick is still in the device list and details list. When I try to do the exclusion again, it shown an unknown device has been removed but it still remain in the detail page. I finally just hit the remove button and it disappear. I shut down and power plug off and the problem devices still show failure. I can't control them and the log and event show no activities. I hit the repair key and this is the log:

repair
repair1280Ɨ960 448 KB
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I don't know what is the next step to fix those switches. Those switches are all wall switches and 2 of them is the GE enbrighten smart switch and the other one is Inovellis S2 smart switch. I have 24 switches in total and they are not that far apart. The mesh network should be pretty solid since this setup was used for the Smartthings before and I have no problem. Support from Hubitat has not response, any help is appreciated.

27

Safe shutdown and then pull power for one minute when it comes up everything should be fine. Check your zwave details page for any additional devices with nothing in clusters. If not any than you should be good. Just needed to shutdown again after clearing up the z-stick removal sounds like the radio was buggin out at the removal.

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28

Thanks for the info. I end up just hitting the remove button and shutdown and power off. When I plug power back in, the z-stick doesn't show up anymore. However, the devices are still not working, I even move the hub next to those switches and that didn't help. I end up doing a general z-wave repair which shows nearly half of my nodes have failed. I then did a repair on each node that show failed. Not sure why it work but it did. I am now able to control all the switches through the dashboard. Hopefully tomorrow it still works. Thanks everyone for the help and advice.

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