New Z-Wave driver

[hari]

what devices do you use? Did all stop working?  I'd need a device list and the output of the z-wave log at startup. From the logs it looks like the devices are not reachable (the ZW SEND gets delivered to the stack, but we never receive the acknowledge that the frame has been sent.

br, Hari

[pga57]

I use:
3 x Merten Blind control (580699) + Radio shutter push-button (504519)
2 x HomePro ZRP230 (plug-in appliance)
2 x HomePro ZDP230 (plug-in lamp module)

They all stop working.
It is like the zwave stick does not work anymore.

I had the same problem and re-installed all (driver etc..) after a delete but prefer now search the cause of the problem.

Philippe

[hari]

what do you use as remote controller? How did you learn the units into the system?

From a driver perspective, there is nothing more one can do than to issue the ZW_SEND command. If it fails, the driver retries 2 times. I'd assume your mesh is not working properly or your stick has a defect.

best regards,
Hari

[pga57]

My remote controleur is a Tricklestar 200ZW-EU-W and the stick is a Tricklestar 300ZW-EU-W.
I use the SIS mode I've find in the Zwave wiki.
It worked for about 1 month (with 1 shutter only) without problem.

I think like you that the stick has a defect.
I've order another one (Seluxit now) to verify

Best regards,
Philippe

[hari]

strange, i'm seeing the exact same thing here since yesterday night. The tricklestar dongle worked for months now without issues. Rumor says the 5.x firmware is way bad as zensys did massive changes to support encyption. They even forked a 4.x firmware for that reason.

I'll switch back to the Seluxit this evening..

br, Hari

[hari]

just as a note, the issues are not yet fully investigated:

* The recent 5.x firmwares can be problematic (MCV, tricklestar dongle). We've seen two occurences of the Tricklestar stick to suddenly suspend operation. For a rock solid install use either the seluxit (EU) or the intermatic (US) dongle. The problems are big enough that zensys even forked the 4.x version for the latest chips..

* The Tricklestar remote has issues in SIS mode. The add node procedure stops working after a few inclusions (no clear pattern yet). 0710 has no direct workaround, 0810 allows to do a "remove node" and "add node" to re-include it as inclusion controller (exclude, factory reset, include again). 0710 users can do the same with a "z-wave tool".

* The merten battery powered remote switches can get permanently "disabled" by doing the following:

- add to the network (only tested with sis)
- do a reset unit (e.g. from the ZTH200)

There might be other scenarios to "kill them". Not even the low level merten tool to unlock "active protection" can access them any more

I'll provide updates when I have more information.

best regards,
Hari

[hari]

I would think that especially with these units, it's essential then to first remove from the network before doing _anything_ else... Of course, we all do that anyway 

*evil grin*

yes, absolutely, that is a very important point. Dunno about the age of the parts..

best regards,
Hari

[pga57]

Strange...this morning my shutters were reopened without changing my config and I can control my lights again.
It appears that the system work after a while.
The Zwave log seems ok.

Philippe

[Viking]

Hi,

My remote is probably also broken

I am just now working on including some devices in my zwave network using SIS mode. I did some testing up til now with two ACT light switches (one dimmer an one switch). And added and removed the same devices a couple of times. Yesterday I removed both of them an started adding the first one again (the swithch) and that did work and does still work. The USB dongle is OK.

Now I wanted to add the second one (and some more devices) but including was not 100% successfull as I could not switch the dimmer. So i removed the dimmer again - the first time did not work, so I tried a second time and that worked.

After that the 200ZW-EU-W remote does not show any lights when pressing the buttons

What can I do now ? I am using 0710.

Should I try resetting the remote ?

Greetings
Viking

[Viking]

Hi again,

what I forgot. The remote does also not charge when attached to an USB port.

Greetings
Viking

[Viking]

Hi Hari,

* The recent 5.x firmwares can be problematic (MCV, tricklestar dongle). We've seen two occurences of the Tricklestar stick to suddenly suspend operation. For a rock solid install use either the seluxit (EU) or the intermatic (US) dongle. The problems are big enough that zensys even forked the 4.x version for the latest chips..

How do I check what firmware I have ? And where can we find a 4.x for the Tricklestar 300ZW-EU-W ? (google and tricklestar homepage did not give me any hints)

* The Tricklestar remote has issues in SIS mode. The add node procedure stops working after a few inclusions (no clear pattern yet). 0710 has no direct workaround, 0810 allows to do a "remove node" and "add node" to re-include it as inclusion controller (exclude, factory reset, include again). 0710 users can do the same with a "z-wave tool".

Will that also help if the remote does not do anything anymore. Meaning no lights when pressing the button ?

Greetings
Viking

[hari]

Will that also help if the remote does not do anything anymore. Meaning no lights when pressing the button ?

in config mode? that sounds way broken. When my remote locks up it behaves as intended, just does not include stuff (blinks red instead of green).

[hari]

just as a note, the issues are not yet fully investigated:
* The recent 5.x firmwares can be problematic (MCV, tricklestar dongle).

Hi,
Just received a tricklestar dongle. I used to have lots of issues with my MCV dongle, mainly zwave functionality suddenly disappearing. I had someone suggest the tricklestar, but some strange things happen with it. If you have a minute, look at this:

oh, you are the first one reporting problems with the MCV dongle. It has the same library version as the Tricklestar (5.02 iirc). I'll look at the network HAIL command, maybe it helps in that regard. The author of the MCV z-wave stack told me that he had similiar problems recently, I'll try to find out how they worked around (I assume "HAIL" but I have to look more closely after my hollidays).

br, Hari

[totallymaxed]

Just received a tricklestar dongle. I used to have lots of issues with my MCV dongle, mainly zwave functionality suddenly disappearing.

oh, you are the first one reporting problems with the MCV dongle. It has the same library version as the Tricklestar (5.02 iirc). I'll look at the network HAIL command, maybe it helps in that regard. The author of the MCV z-wave stack told me that he had similiar problems recently, I'll try to find out how they worked around (I assume "HAIL" but I have to look more closely after my hollidays).

Well,  I do agree it is probably related to the stack/library combo, as I now have totally similar behaviour from the Tricklestar, like this:

Code: [Select]

41      04/29/09 19:22:35.429           ACK RECEIVED <0xb791cb90>
41      04/29/09 19:22:35.429           0x1 0x4 0x1 0x13 0x0 0xe9 (######) <0xb791cb90>
36      04/29/09 19:22:35.429           ERROR: ZW_SEND could not be delivered to Z-Wave stack <0xb791cb90>
36      04/29/09 19:22:38.545           No callback received: await_callback: 212 timer: 31 <0xb791cb90>
40      04/29/09 19:22:38.645           Sending job 0x81db210 (cb 212) - 0x1 0x9 0x0 0x13 0xff 0x2 0x20 0x2 0x5 0xd4 0xeb (###### ####) <0xb791cb90>
41      04/29/09 19:22:38.649           ACK RECEIVED <0xb791cb90>
41      04/29/09 19:22:38.649           0x1 0x4 0x1 0x13 0x0 0xe9 (######) <0xb791cb90>
36      04/29/09 19:22:38.649           ERROR: ZW_SEND could not be delivered to Z-Wave stack <0xb791cb90>
36      04/29/09 19:22:41.773           No callback received: await_callback: 212 timer: 31 <0xb791cb90>
40      04/29/09 19:22:41.873           Sending job 0x81db210 (cb 212) - 0x1 0x9 0x0 0x13 0xff 0x2 0x20 0x2 0x5 0xd4 0xeb (###### ####) <0xb791cb90>
41      04/29/09 19:22:41.877           ACK RECEIVED <0xb791cb90>
41      04/29/09 19:22:41.877           0x1 0x4 0x1 0x13 0x0 0xe9 (######) <0xb791cb90>
36      04/29/09 19:22:41.877           ERROR: ZW_SEND could not be delivered to Z-Wave stack <0xb791cb90>
36      04/29/09 19:22:45.005           No callback received: await_callback: 212 timer: 31 <0xb791cb90>
36      04/29/09 19:22:45.005           ERROR: Dropping command, no callback received after three resends <0xb791cb90>

Since it only happens after a while, and the zwave stack returns "Error: ZW_SEND failed, retrying <0xb793fb90>" many times before these delivery errors, could it be that the zwave driver be "flooded" with stacked commands?

I will check out the MCV forum, too. Have a nice holiday!


EDIT:  Aaron B let me know that MCV Vera checks if the USB dongle fails to connect to all nodes, and if such is the case, it sends a ZW_Softreset to the dongle. That gets things working again.
I tried to do this (perhaps I made a mistake), but I got a "not implemented" result. Not sure, really, if a ZW_softreset should be the final solution but it is a viable workaround until something better comes up. We can think about the trigger, because if you have 20+ nodes and a polling interval of 30s it would take 10 minutes to discover that the USB stick is messed up...

We've never seen this... so I wonder why that would be?

Andrew

[hari]

the new driver supports the deactivation of polling, but the DCE command is only in 0810 (SetPollingState iirc).

But it's easy to patch that in. But to solve the problem, I'm thinking about an error counter, giving more weight to errors if multiple devices are "failing", with a soft reset if the overall error counter gets too high. I'll play a bit with that this weekend.

best regards,
Hari