I’ve been experiencing lockup problems with almost all of my 16 Evolve LRM-AS dimmers. Unless there is a design problem I have a hard time believing that all of the switches are defective. Personally I’m leaning toward Veralite as sending something to the switches that’s causing them to lock up.
I’ve also noticed that when Veralite does a network healing I’ll get random number of switches that can not longer be controlled and have to be removed and then re-added. This is not good at all.
In addition, and maybe this is normal but not good, when Veralite includes a switch it never fills in the manufacture ID or model number as it does with say a GE device. If the devices have that information it would seem strange that Veralite does not include it.
Below is a copy of the message I sent to Micasaverde Support so see if they have any ideas. I plan to send a similar message to Evolve as soon as I find their tech support address.
In the mean time has anyone else seen these lockups with Evolve LRM-AS’s or any other Evolve device?
John
To Micasaverde,
Something seems to be very wrong and I believe it may be my veralite that’s causing the problem.
I have 16 Evolve LRM-AS, 1 GE ZW3003 and 3 Evolve LTM-5 currently in my system. When I first put in a few of the Evolve’s everything seemed to be working well but as I added more I’m seeing the switches lockup and require dropping power, using the air gap switch, daily to remove a lockup condition. At this point I’m not sure where the problem is but I’m suspecting the Veralite is sending some sequence to the LRM-AS’s which locks them up. I have seen the switches lock up when a group assignment is made to other than group 1 so there are ways the controller can lockup the devices.
Is there a reason that Veralite does not pick up on the manufacture code for the Evolve devices because then never show up unless I edit them in manually.
Since you claim to support more Z-Wave devices than any other I’m asking you if you’ve seen this condition and have any idea what might be causing it?
I’m going to try shutting down vera for a day to see if the lockup continues. If it does then it’s likely the LRM-AS but if it doesn’t then it will really point to the veralite but I would like a response before this test.
I have the same dimmer as well (4 actually). I have never experienced any issues at all.
Can you tell me what plugins you have installed on your unit?
Also, when teh switches lock up, do you get any error messages on Vera?
Could you post the some lines from the Log files here once you see this issue happening?
I have 16 Evolve LRM-AS, 1 GE ZW3003 and 4 Evolve LTM-5 currently online with another 6 or 8 LRM-AS’s left to install with one DOA that needs to be replaced. The GE never locks up and I don’t think I’ve seen a LTM-5 lock up either since I’d have to flip a breaker to clear them. Only the LRM-AS lockup and I’ve seen everyone of them lock although not all at once. On any given night I can go to bed and find half of them locked up in the morning so needless to say I’m not a hamper camper at this time.
I’ve put my engineer hat on, fully checked switches to make sure nothing is install incorrectly and everything looks great. At this point it the probability that either there is a serious design flaw in the switches or VeraLite is sending sequences to the switches which lock them up. I will say, again putting my engineers hat on, that Evolve does have a problem if something VeraLite sends can lock up a switch that easily.
I’ve shutdown VeraLite for the night and will go around and make sure none of the dimmers have locked up. If they fail then it’s Evolve’s problem and I’ll call them on Monday and see what Tech Support has to say. If I get the the run around… well let’s just say it won’t be pretty. If they stay up then Micasaverde will be getting my call and being an engineer you can believe I won’t take being given the run around.
Now hopefully everyone at Evolve and Micasaverde will be professionals and work with me to solve the problem. I’m absolutely willing to work with them to solve this if they are willing to work with me.
Oh, the have programmed in a few scenes with two of them timed to happen at sunrise and the other on at sunrise. The sunset one just turns on a light and the sunrise one turns all of the lights off. If they can cause a lockup there is a real serious problem.
OMT, as I said before if you command VeraLite to heal the network watch out because you’ll loose one or two switches that you have to remove and re-add to get them back.
Well it’s been 16 hours, and over night when the dimmers always lockup to boot, and so far not one lockup since I shutdown my VeraLite. I’ll leave it off for another few hours but unless something changes then I know that the Vera is somehow causing the LRM-AS’s to lockup. So I’d say it’s time for Micasaverde to belly up to the bar and help solve this problem.
Is there anything I can do before I contact them that might help figure out what is going on? Is there a way to record every transmission from Vera to the switches?
In your Vera, open up a support ticket explaining the problem. Also enable verbose logging in the settings section to help them determine what is going on.
I can’t as it seems that these is a problem creating a support ticket inside of Vera, I get all the way to the last continue but it’s mixed up with my text and you can’t click on it to continue. Tried it on three browser including Safari, Firefox and IE version 9. I’ll have to use the web site.
John,
yeah, this is a firmware problem (talking about the support ticket).
It happens when the text is too long.
Just sent them a very very brief explanation and sent a link to this forum for the detailed description - at least thats what I did.
Btw, keep us updated here… I wonder whats going on!
Day two after entering support ticket and nothing from MV. I’m seeing my dimmers lockup within a couple of hours when Vera is running. This is becoming a royal PITA.
Of course today is a holiday in the U.S., which probably won’t help.
In the meantime, for diagnostic purposes, have you tried disabling polling (either per device on the [tt]Settings[/tt] tab by setting it to 0, or altogether on the [tt]Setup[/tt] > [tt]Z-Wave Settings[/tt] > [tt]Options[/tt] tab)?
I shutdown polling and I think I had a failure but it’s possible I didn’t get some dimmers reset. I’ve reset them all and run them through several on-off cycles just to be sure. Now we wait…
Update, still working but I’ve noticed if I have not issued commands from Vera for a while and then run my All Lights On scene it take time for all of the lights to respond. The same thing with the following All Lights Off Scene but after that I can run those scenes and everything happens very quickly, i.e., less than a second. If I let Vera sit for a few minutes we repeat the cycle. Anyone have an idea why the delay after a short, 5 to 10 minutes, idle period?
I wanted to wait a few days to make sure the problem was solved and it seems to have been.
This is a know problem at least by Evolve Guest Controlls. Although they did not explain just how it happens somehow when the “Explore” command, see below, is issued by Vera, this happens when polling is enabled, it causes the dimmers to lock up. It’s only the dimmers, and maybe the switches, that seem to have the problem. I’ve not seen it happen to the scene controllers . I hope that Micasaverde will talk to Evolve and get a more detailed explanation on why this happens and report back here.
The fix is “Easy”, well telling you is easy but it will take a while to do depending on the size of your network. Here are the steps:
Exclude ALL Z-Wave devices from your network. You can’t leave ANY Z-Wave devices included.
Go to "Setup/Z-Wave Settings/Options and write down your “House ID” It’s the 7 digit HEX number.
Go to "Setup/Z-Wave Settings/Advanced/Reset Z-Wave network
Reboot Vera (a reboot may not be needed but I would do it to be sure everything gets cleaned up.)
Go to "Setup/Z-Wave Settings/Options and compare the “House ID” with the one recorded in step 2. If they are different proceed to step 6 else go back to step 3 and try again.
Go to all of your devices and Include them.
Name all of your devices, create associations, update any other switch settings and connect them to your scenes and triggers.
Simple right? It took me about an hour for my network of 20+ devices.
Since doing this I’ve not had any lockups, knock on wood, even with polling running. I’m now in the process of shorting the polling time to get a better response.
So if your having this problem give it a shot and see if it fixes it.
While writing this I remember I’ve not done a “Heal” command so I ran one. I figure I need to know now if that might cause problems. A heal process when fine and still no lockups.
Looks like we’re good to go.
John
Explore Command:
In later versions of Z-Wave, new network discovery mechanisms were introduced. So called ‘explorer frames’ can by used to heal broken routes caused by devices that have been moved or removed. Explorer frames are broadcast with a pruning algorithm and are therefore supposed to reach the target device, even without further topology knowledge by the transmitter. Explorer frames are used as a last option by the sending device when all other routing attempts have failed.
Wow…
Thanks for the feedback Timon!!!
And this provided solution by Evolve is ridiculous.
Anyways, I have had this happen twice, however it seems to be related to my Evolve Relay which locks up and takes some other Evolve dimmers with it. I am still blaming the higher temperatures in the garage but we will see.
Please keep us updated in case you get more infos.
One more thing.
Since your network is working now, is the Manufacturer’s name actually showing up now under the node info?
Also, maybe one can bypass the explorer frames by setting up a fixed manual route to each evolve node? This way Vera might not sent out any explorer frames once the original route is broken?
Well, I am just guessing here though
Wow…
Thanks for the feedback Timon!!!
And this provided solution by Evolve is ridiculous.[/quote]
Not really, although I would like a more detailed explanation on what causes the explorer frames to cause this problem until you do the procedure I’m guessing there is some data that is out of sync between the device and the controller and currently this is the only way to bring it back in sync.
Anyways, I have had this happen twice, however it seems to be related to my Evolve Relay which locks up and takes some other Evolve dimmers with it. I am still blaming the higher temperatures in the garage but we will see.
Please keep us updated in case you get more infos.
If that is the only devices that lock up they I guess temperature might be an issue but if this happens when the devices are in the off mode I doubt it. If you can stand being in the garage then the switches should especially when the lights are off the devices should. You might try just excluding those devices then including them again just as a test. Don’t know if that will help but it’s a quick test.
Since your network is working now, is the Manufacturer's name actually showing up now under the node info?
Just checked that and no there still is not Manufacture data showing up. I’d like to know if that information is encoded and Vera does not have Evolve in it’s tables or if Evolve didn’t put it in the switches.
Also, maybe one can bypass the explorer frames by setting up a fixed manual route to each evolve node? This way Vera might not sent out any explorer frames once the original route is broken?
Well, I am just guessing here though :)
Even if you could do that I’d still rebuilt the network. You have no idea what other issues this could cause so better to be safe that sorry as they say.
