Need help with failing devices

What's the secret? I can't get Hubitat to respond at all, and I haven't gotten much help here either.

I've had my Hubitat for about a year. I see a failure every day or so. One of my lights fails every other day, an obvious software bug. I submitted a ticket to Hubitat support twice, and have never gotten anything but the automated responses.

I posted a few questions here, but got very few responses and never got any suggestions that helped at all.

I'm really trying very simple things, mostly lights on timers and one on a motion sensor. Any suggestions on how to post questions?

Thanks,

~~Andy

need more info about what device is failing and logs and probably an idea of what you mesh is like but most likely it sounds like either a bad device issue or weak mesh issue. i doubt it is a software bug.. i have 200 devices and rarely see failures.. only if the mesh is overload and certainly not every day ..

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Start a new thread about your issue and tag a couple of us so it gets attention, the community is very strong here. I am pretty new to Hubitat myself but am willing to share what knowledge the others have shared with me.

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There ya go, Thanks @bobbyD

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@andycoop tell us what you have for your setup

Hi there, I checked your tickets and the last was submitted back in June. If you have a newer ticket, do you mind sharing the ticket number so I can check on the status? If you are currently experiencing issues with some devices but not all, the problem might be the state of your mesh as @kahn-hubitat suggested.

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Thanks for setting this up. You've already answered my first question, which is, is this unusual? Since I seem to be getting more failures than expected, I'm hoping this is fixable. I had pretty much given up on it. So thank you for that.

I had 2 ticket numbers, 21399, and 22269. I reported two issues. One was a stuck tile for one of my thermostats on my dashboard. I was able to fix it by excluding it and re-adding it back in, along with physically swapping it with another thermostat. The other issue is a failing light that still happens.

I had a failure last night on one of my lights. It is set to go off at 10:55 PM. It is still on. Here is the log from the device page:

|switch|off||laundry outside was turned off [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-23 10:55:00.840 PM
|switch|on||laundry outside was turned on [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-23 04:02:06.009 PM EST|
|switch|off||laundry outside was turned off [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-22 10:55:00.784 PM EST|
|switch|on||laundry outside was turned on [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-22 04:03:04.707 PM EST|
|switch|off||laundry outside was turned off [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-21 10:55:01.251 PM EST|
|switch|on||laundry outside was turned on [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-21 04:03:01.042 PM EST|
|switch|off||laundry outside was turned off [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-20 10:55:01.105 PM EST|
|switch|on||laundry outside was turned on [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-20 04:04:04.686 PM EST|
|switch|off||laundry outside was turned off [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-19 10:55:01.368 PM EST|
|switch|on||laundry outside was turned on [digital]|DEVICE|digital|2021-11-18 04:05:13.149 PM EST|

The event that turned the light on at ~ 4:00 WAS not logged (although I suspect it happened, since the light turned on), and the event to turn the light off at 10:55 also did not get logged, although the other three lights controlled by that simple automation rule did go off.

That device does not show up in the log page, even though the "Enable descriptionText logging" and "Enable debug logging" are both turned on.

This is a typical failure. I have one that fails this way every other day. I used the old X-10 trick (I've been at this game for a long time) of sending the off command twice. That helped.

What else would you like to know about my setup?

Thanks,

~~Andy

I'm guessing some specifics about your devices and your mesh. Is the problematic device a switch, or a bulb? Is it Zigbee or Z-wave? If Z-Wave, have you checked for ghost devices?

3 Likes

And please provide some details about the physical distances between hub and devices.
Is your hub in a basement and your light bulbs on the 2nd floor ?
What type of light bulbs are you using ?
Do you have any repeaters in your Zigbee and Zwave meshes ?
If Zwave what channel are you using ?
The more you can share with the community the better we’ll be able to drill down to possible solutions.
So far I’d suggest you have communication issues between the hub and the devices either through excess distance, interference or a combination of both.

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@andycoop Please post a screen shot of your z-waves settings page to start us off.

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@andycoop

There are a couple things that will help us help you.

Please post screenshots rather than cut/paste. Cut and paste is just plain hard to read. Many people see that cut and paste and won't attempt to decipher them so they skip right over your posts.

You will need to tell us what make and model of devices are having troubles. We cannot see any of what you do, so you will need to provide information to go on. Otherwise all we can say is no, we aren't experiencing this.

You also didn't say whether you have looked at device stats, or app stats for anything using excess memory. I would (and do) turn on all options for stats on these pages. Use the :arrow_up_down: to expand and click the options at the top of the stats pages.

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Ok, here are screen shots of the Z-wave settings page.



Here is the list of devices I have:

image

Lastly, here are drawings showing rough placement:


I am not having problems with a specific device. Although I haven't kept detailed records, I believe I have seen missing events (didn't turn on, or off) on all the lights I have. I also see missing events on my thermostats as well.

Let me know what things I could try, or if there is any more information I could provide.

Thanks in advance for the help.

~~Andy

you have 5 ghost devices that NEED to be removed for reliability.. search on that term and you will find threads.. that is probably your issue.

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@andycoop Yeah, all those ghost devices need removed, You can try clicking the refresh button and see of the remove option comes up. If it doesn't you're going to need to find the device(s) that made them, disconnect power to them and then remove (they won't remove if the device is pingable) Or you will need a z-wave stick paired as a secondary controller to remove them. This is 100% what is causing your mesh issues.

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Ok, I made a first stab at removing the ghost devices. I was able to get the remove option to appear in all 5. I was able to remove one of them, but it took several tries. The other 4 seem to be stuck.

You said the next step is to find the devices that made them. How would I know which of my devices made them?

Thanks,

~~Andy

Possibly try comparing device types. Do they have air gaps? Airgaps will do the same thing as removing power from them. If not, you will most definitely need a z-wave stick to remove your ghosts

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Or go hard core ... put your hub and network on battery backup ... turn off main circuit breaker and try to remove ghost devices.

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Do you mean "device class"? 3 of the ghost devices are device class "SPECIFIC_TYPE_POWER_SWITCH_MULTILEVEL". Do you mean remove power from all the other devices that have that class, and then try removal?

If not, I guess it is UZB stick time.

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yep or if you cannot figure out the devices you can remove power from the whole house with the main

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Yes, you will want to cut power to all those devices to try and remove them if you don't want to go the z-wave stick route. But essentially this is what is entirely wrong with your mesh. Once you get rid of them, you should be fine on speed and reliability. I recommend to anyone starting out, if you have a failed pairing stop what you're doing and check for ghosts.

4 Likes