Yeah that does seem inconsistent. Perhaps there's another explanation. Sometimes it seems like the zwave stack just holds onto any slight chance the device is still alive before removing it. Clearly some sort of DNR is in order! It's a bit easier with a stick since you get more diagnostic info in flight, so to speak.
Is there any way to get developer support on this? I found this thread which indicates that that is corruption in the zwave DB. Zwave Zombie Node - #38 by thebearmay
Also, I can reliably cause this to happen if I:
click refresh
click remove
without clicking refresh, click remove again.
It doesn't show up if I click refresh
Seems like a developer might want to look into this and maybe assist, especially as I'm on the latest version along with having updated the zwave radio. Possibly even log a bug report with the zwave chipset manufacturer. And this weird behavior is why I'm still thinking it would make sense to just wipe out the zwave radio and start from scratch, but I'm not sure what that would do to all my zwave devices in the regular devices tab (iow: if I could delete the zwave devices and then exclude and finally add them back in and associate them somehow to my current devices, that would be ideal)
The only way to do this would be reset the zwave radio, then factory reset each device. Then join them back which creates a new entry in the device list. Then use "App Swap" to swap any linked integrations from the orphaned device in the devices list to the new device. Then delete the orphaned device.
Even doing all that there is still a high chance you will get some failed pairings along the way and have ghost device again.
I got the zwave stick and successfully removed the devices. Now I think I need to get rid of some of the crazy routes that have the signals crisscrossing the house. What is the best way to accomplish this? Should I start with the device closest to the hub and repair or the device itself? Should I only repair the device itself? If I have to do everything in the chain, how long do I wait for the network to settle before doing the next node?
They should do it on their own, for certain plus devices will. Non plus devices you may need to run a repair on. You will not see an immediate change in the routing table, it may take a while for the device to figure out new routes that it found are better.
You could try a full repair, on my C7 as of the zwave 7.17 firmware (have not tried on 7.18) I could complete a full repair without much trouble.
Sometimes they just pick seemingly stupid routes and you can't do much about it. Once the device is working good you have to just learn to let it do its thing.
