I just purchased a C8 Pro. I set it up and registered it, and then began the process of adding my 50+ Z-wave devices (which I had successfully excluded from an older hub). I was able to add all 50+ devices to Hubitat, and all of those devices were controllable. I then created a cloud backup, which succeeded. Everything was fine at that point.
A short while later (within an hour after creating the backup), I tried turning on one of the devices, and it didn't respond. Soon I discovered that none of the devices were responding. Hubitat claimed the commands were being sent, but no lights would turn on or off. Since then, I've tried numerous troubleshooting steps (multiple times), but nothing seems to work.
Here's what I've tried (and in some cases ... multiple times.):
- Rebooted/Restarted multiple times. (Also tried shutting down and unplugging for 30+ seconds.)
- Tried running a Z-wave repair. (The repair process starts, but seems to freeze at the "Pending" state, and never goes beyond that ... even after many hours. I eventually have to cancel.)
- Performed a "Soft Reset", then restored from cloud backup. The restoration succeeded and all 50+ devices reappeared in the app, but the devices still wouldn't respond to commands.
- Performed another soft reset, followed by a Z-Wave Radio Reset. (via the Diagnostic Tool ... Advanced.) Reset operations claim to succeed, but the devices still can't be controlled after restoring from the cloud.
- I've also tried performing a soft reset of the system, and then instead of restoring from the cloud backup, I've tried just adding one or two devices in manually. The hub never detects the devices, nor can I exclude them. (I also can't exclude those devices, nor does performing a factory-reset of the Z-Wave switches themselves allow them to be added successfully. The hub simply never "sees" the device.)
What's strange is that everything was working (at least for an hour or two), and then all of a sudden, the devices stopped responding. (I have the hub on a dedicated UPS/Surge Protector, but given that the hub still boots up and can be connected to from the app, I don't think it was a power issue.) It's also interesting that the Z-Wave repair operation won't even run.
So, does anyone have any thoughts on what I should try next, or do I have a dead hub (or perhaps a dead Z-Wave radio)?s
Thanks in advance.
Have you tried the controlled shutdown, unplug hub, wait 15 seconds, replug hub, thing?
edit: sorry, re-read post
Hi. Thanks for the response. Yes, as I mentioned in my post, I've tried shutting down (via the app), waiting for it to say that I can safely unplug the hub. I then unplug the hub and wait 30 or more seconds. (Once I actually waited 20 minutes.) When I eventually plug the hub back in, it boots right up and is once again accessible from the app, but the lights still don't respond to commands. (I've tried this "controlled shutdown" numerous times.)
With the z-wave mesh, it just takes one device to take everything down, and it seems to be hard to find the bad actor.
Curious why you didn't go the migrate route, and excluded each one and then included on new hub? Was the old one acting up? Or, you just wanted to start from a clean slate?
You're using the original wall wart that came with the hub?
You don't have any old Jasco switches, do you?
This is no doubt frustrating, and I hope some of the other community gurus will be able to jump in here soon with more ideas.
In the meantime, if you join the Hub Owners group here in the community, then you'll be able to post screenshots and send PMs as necessary (those actions are otherwise restricted on new accounts as a spam/bot mitigation).
Hang in there!
The "Old" hub (which is not a Hubitat hub) was working fine, but it's a 700 series hub that doesn't support advance features and so I decided to upgrade to an 800 series hub instead. That was my only motivation for going with the C8 Pro.
In terms of migration, I did successfully exclude each device from the old hub before attempting to add it to the hubitat. (And as I said, they all added fine, and were working ... at first.)
Yes, I'm using the original power adaptor that came with the Hubitat.
Yes, I do have a mixture of Zooz and Jasco devices, but they're all new (within the past month or two.) The Zooz are all 800 series devices, while the Jascos (Enbrighten/UltraPro) are all 700-series devices.
Thanks, I'll try joining the owners group.
Perhaps you created some ghost devices when you added those 50 devices. That can choke things.
I thought of that, but I did try performing a soft reset, followed by a Z-wave radio reset, and then (with no devices in the system, ghost or otherwise), I tried manually adding back just one device, and the hub never detects it.
By the way, I believe that I've joined the owners group (I clicked "Join".) So, do I have to repost this message there as well?
No, not at all - your question posted here is fine - joining that Owners group just enables you to post screenshots and send DMs (both of which may be helpful to get this resolved) right away without having to wait to build up trust points (for lack of a better term) here in the community.
Did you happen to switch to "Z-Wave JS" as part of your C-8 Pro's overall z-wave setup?
If that term is all greek, then ignore the question.
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"Z-Wave JS" ? It's pretty much all Greek to me. 
When I set the hub up, I just followed the wizard prompts, entering the information that was ask for, and otherwise accepting the default values.
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Right on -- ignore any "JS" references for now then... In a nutshell, JS is a newer z-wave network-management option unique to the 8-Pro, but it's not enabled by default, so you're all good here in that respect.
I mostly just wanted to rule out JS as a potential contributing factor here, since JS is a newer option and it's having some growing pains of its own.
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ZWave JS is new software that controls the Zwave Radio. It was added to the hub recently when the firmware was update. I also think its use was automatic in the last firmware release.
Before you do anything else ypu may want to go to the settings menu. Then Zwave settings and capture snapshots of what is shown on the radio. Thay can help us understand what is being seen by the radio.
Did you exclude the devices you are trying to add back after the zwave radio reset. Performing that task will likely mean you need to exclude each device again to add them back.
I would also suggest using SmartStart to add the devices to the hub. Don't change any of the security settings when doing so. Just setup the name. Using smartstart will allow the 800 LR devices to pair in LR mode so they won't be part of the mesh and impacted as much by a bad device cloging the radio.
At this point
- Go perform a exclude on each device to ensure it is ready to pair.
- Pair the devices with Smartstart allowing security to be setup and to use LR for devices that have it.
- On the zwave settings menu set your hub to use Zwave JS if not already set to it.
- Monitor for ghosts from the zwave setting page under the settings menu. Ghosts are horriable for the mesh and will cause all kinds of issue.
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I would strongly suggest holding off on zwave radio resets as it is very rare to actually need to do one. Probably 99.9% of the time it wouldn't be needed.
Zwave JS did have some growing pains, but also come with some significant benefits as well. Generally the problems are with specific types of devices from what i have scene though. So unlikely to cause issues at this scale.
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Fair point -- my inclination was to avoid adding JS in as a new element on top of all this, but I will defer to the more experienced z-wave folks here in terms of that call.
I'm a JS convert myself and I've been happy with it overall, but I haven't done a lot of device inclusion/reinclusion with it.
Thanks, I will try those things and post my results. In answer to your questions:
>>>Did you exclude the devices you are trying to add back after the zwave radio reset." <<<
After performing the radio reset, I tried just adding a single device back in. My first step was to exclude it, but as I mentioned before, the hub doesn't seem to recognize the device at all, so it won't exclude (or include). I then tried performing a factory-reset on the "test" device (a Zooz 800 switch), but it still won't exclude or include. So, at the moment, I'm unable to perform your step #1 (exclude), and likely I won't be able include it either (Step #2)
>>> 1. On the zwave settings menu set your hub to use Zwave JS if not already set to it. <<<
Okay, newbie talking here. I can access the "Settings" tab, and I see the list of available "System Settings". I also see "Z-Wave Details", but on that page, the only setting that I can see that can be changed is "Region". The rest ff the page is just the list of devices. What am I missing here?
Can you post screenshot(s) of that entire (very top to bottom) "Z-Wave Details" page -- depending on the # of devices you have so far, it may take more than one screenshot, and that's OK -- just add them one after the other in a post here.
Even though a lot of that info may not make much sense to you now, it will help other users here better diagnose what's going on.
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If there are devices listed on that page then the radio wasn't reset. If you factory reset devices the device is no longer associated with thr zwave radio and you may need to do a forced removal from the radio.
Can you also confirm your hub firmware version. Is it on 2.4.2.something
Screenshots are always good to help show us what you are seeing incase there are some communication issues.
The zwave details page should look something like this on the top. This is on my phone. A tablet or desktop may have the spacing differet, but the stuff displayes should be the same. If i scrolled down you would see my devices.
The firmware is 2.4.2.134. However, you just pointed out something that I hadn't noticed before. Even though I've performed a soft reset (and the Devices page says that I don't have any added devices), the Z-Wave details page still has all of my devices listed (and three of them are now marked as "Pending".
Do you have the option shown in the screenshot to "Switch to legacy Z-Wave"
The pending status does not inherently mean there is problem. Just that the device hasn't talked to the hub since the last reboot.
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Yes, I have that option. (Legacy)
