The first entry in my Z-Wave topography table on my C7 has no device listed and no routes. After clicking refresh, the 'remove' option appeared. I clicked that, but the entry is still there. All of my other devices seem to be working ok. Should I worry about this device?
It's what we call a Ghost.
It can cause Mesh harm under enough circumstances that I encourage you to remove it. The remove button is not instantaneous. It is usually caused by an Include that started but didn't finish. You probably tried it a 2nd time and it worked. But that first attempt is half complete. Leave the page and come back (I'm hesitant to use "refresh" for your browser when in a couple lines, I'll use "refresh" for the Button.) If the device hasn't vanished, click it again, or click refresh til the remove button reappears. If after the 2nd attempt, with at least a minute between, then you will want to power down the device that caused this. Then, when you go though it for the 3rd time, it will be more likely to leave. There are further steps, so come back if this fails.
"Power_Switch_Multilevel" is a dimmer. Probably the next dimmer in your list is the bad guy. 
2 Likes
Meaning the next dimmer in the list that paired correctly is probably the one you should power off while trying to remove the ghost device. Do not remove the good pairing.
4 Likes
Not to sidetrack this discussion, but advice to power down the original device often repeated, yet I don't see how it could be necessary: Z-Wave networks only know a device by node ID, and if the device successfully included with the new node ID, the old/"ghost" one no longer has any association with that device that the controller can possibly know. Powering it down can't hurt, but it shouldn't make a difference.
This is not to say that ghost nodes haven't been hard to remove. There were some bugs in early 700-series controller firmware, and unfortunately, Hubitat was one of the (perhaps the) first on the market. Silicon Labs believes those have been addressed now, and they also moved to a new database format that should make corruption far less likely, with database corruption sometimes hindering these efforts in the past, too (though I think this only applies to new networks created since that change). I also don't doubt that some people did have better luck after removing power--but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just the patience (a key with Z-Wave sometimes...) of having waited long enough to do so that really did the trick.
I am happy to be proved wrong, and again this advice is harmless most of the time anyway, but I thought I'd mention this in case we're making this harder for people without a good reason.
1 Like
I totally agree under the same logic. For some reason I have had the refresh not give me the replace/remove buttons after factory resetting a device, and then once I power off the device it works. Even happened with a battery device this week. No idea why, cannot explain it. Like you said maybe taking the time to go power the device off is just a long enough of a delay for the mesh to sort itself and respond correctly.
2 Likes
I fully agree with the Logic. Yet there are anecdotal indications that it's required. I'd love to stop parroting this advice, so if the latest SiLabs code fixes this, the Z-World will be much better. 
3 Likes
No luck so far. The breakers I threw took out more than half of the dimmers in my network, and from the rest of the discussion it looks like maybe that's not really necessary anyway. After repeated browser refresh, device refresh, and device delete attempts, the device is still there.
I just realized there is a z-wave firmware update available. Going to try that and see what happens.
1 Like
Yes that will greatly increase your chances of it working.
After the update do a full shut down and pull power for 10 seconds to restart the radio as well. Not needed for the update but it will help the removal to have the radio restarted.
I updated the firmware, shut down, and pulled the power. After restarting, the device was still there and I had to click the refresh button to get the 'remove' button to appear, but other than that, no change. It is listed as 'pending' and clicking remove doesn't seem to do anything.
I had to deal with a ghost earlier this week... After a hub shutdown, I finally got the Remove button to show, but like you, it sure didn't do anything immediately. But I took the Pending status as a good sign, so I just let it go for a few hours.
IIRC, I finally tried a "Refresh" several hours later and -- poof -- it was gone. I may have done another quick hub shutdown too before that last Refresh - I wish I could remember for certain.
Anyway, give it some time - ZW mesh plays by its own rules and you often just need to give it time to do its thing. It's definitely not a realm of instant gratification, that's for sure!
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
