Under normal circumstances, yes, after a while the devices should be removed from the USB db if removed from the hub.
However; this is an unusual case in that the device somehow got removed from the USB stick database but not the HE db.
As @jrfarrar still had the ability to control the device (i/e turn on/off) then the device could not have been completely removed from the USB stick (otherwise it would not know where to transmit the on/off command to) perhaps only missing keys from the database tables, or a partially corrupt USB db.
I haven't examined his logs so cannot tell exactly.
Again, I can't stress enough how important it is to correctly exclude z-wave devices (where possible) when removing them from your hub.
As I understand it, and borne out by my recent Zwave problems and eventual solution. Dead nodes do get deleted after multiple Zwave repairs (3 or 4 it seems). I guess it needs to be sure the node is really dead before it deletes it. I certainly had 2 dead nodes cleared in this way.
I just kept running Zwave repair from within HE until they were removed from the Zwave list. I didn't fancy risking using other software on it and making anything worse than it was.
And that's why I asked. I had about a dozen devices that were NOT on my zwave list in HE but WERE in the database on my zwave stick. I would never have known that without doing what I did. And what I did..absolutely has helped if not fixed all my zwave weirdness (it's only been a day..so time will really tell) I was just hoping maybe there was an easier way to compare those two lists.
If zensys can query the stick to see the DB, can't HE? And at a minimum...at least to support compare it to the HE zwave list and find things that don't match?
Ah, ok, that's a different issue to the one I had then. I knew I had 2 dead nodes on my Zwave list and could see them there. If it's possible to have nodes on the USB stick that don't show on HE, then that's something that needs to be looked at by the team IMO. I have posted elsewhere that I would like HE to give more diagnostic information to the user and this backs that up.
The more I read and find out about Zwave the less I understand!
Yes, it can and does. My very first experience with HE (feb 2018) was to add the HE ZWave stick to my ST, StaplesConnect, OpenRemote, Wink network. (yes, 4 controllers all working as one ZWave network.) The HE Stick got a copy of the USB db and when I put that stick back into HE, all the devices showed in the Hubitat DB.
That was then, this is now, and Hubitat Firmware has gone through a lot of improvements. I'm thinking the "automated cleanup" is the modern version of what I saw/used back in Feb.
As to how long it takes... those who have done the OZWCP or Zensys "experiment" know that clicking Node Failed? a hundred times, doesn't help. It's a cached thing and you have to encourage the ZStick to check the device occasionally, (once in 30 seconds vs 30 times a second.) Once the device makes it to the Failed Devices list on the ZStick, then the Remove Failed command does something. Autoating that doesn't speed the process, just automates it.
My Zwave froze completely again just before the holidays following a firmware upgrade. Support got me back up running but I noticed that a node we removed a month ago, when I last had zwave problems, had come back both in my device list and my zwave settings list. I think this proves that no amount of Zwave repairs on HE actually gets rid of dead nodes. So I decided to bite the bullet, I printed of a list of my valid nodes in HE, shut it down, removed the Zwave stick and fired up zensys on my PC.
Sure enough I had 6 nodes on the stick that weren't actually in use and needed removing. I had read a few different ways of doing this but this is what worked for me:
Highlight the node in question in the main node list window
Hit the NOP button (circle with exclamation mark) Check log in bottom right of screen to see actions.
Hit "is failed" button (square with a ? above it) Check log says "node is failed". If it say node working normally repeat 2)
Hit "delete node" button (square with x above it) Check log says "failed node deleted"
If successful the node disappears from the node list.
Using this method I didn't have to hit any buttons multiple times and those nodes do seem to have actually properly disappeared.
I have powered up HE with the stick back in. All the valid nodes are still showing and it's just successfully done a network repair. I'll see how it runs now, but I'm now pretty confident I've finally zapped the zombies!
I do think it's a real shame that HE doesn't provide a tool for doing this without the need for 3rd party software and removing the stick from the hub.
Without a tool such as this to correct any issues, if you ever have a zwave device fail or it has to be force removed for any other reason, you are almost certainly going to be left with a zombie which is going to cause you problems at some point in the future.
