I am using firmware 616… I have about 25 Vizia RF Switches, 3 Intermatic Outlets, and 2 RCS Thermostats. I also have 3 HSM sensors but I do not have those currently joined to my zwave network because the system has just been too unreliable with them present. I have excluded, reset, and included my network several times trying to get more reliability.
I have to reboot vera 2-3 times a day because the zwave devices stop responding to my requests. 2 of my intermatic outlets control automatic feeders for pets. Bottom line is, I have no idea how many times a day my pets aren’t getting fed because vera decided to lock up AGAIN…
Is anyone else having devices stop responding to vera commands? After a hard reboot everything miraculously starts working again. I have recently setup a cronjob for vera to reboot every night automatically… maybe this will make things more reliable?
Sorry for the rant… but this is really really getting old. And it wouldn’t be such a big deal… but its not fun when I come home from work and my pets have missed 6-8 feedings throughout the day and my outside lights are still on from the night before because of a bug in vera.
I am going on vacation soon… and I am really scared that vera will lockup while I am away and my pets won’t get fed all week. I’ll be checking in remotely everyday, I am hoping a remote reboot will work at the very least. I don’t know what I will do if that doesn’t work.
Does anyone have any tips for fixing problems when you are not local to the device? I NEED this thing to work while I am away…
Well, just as I expected… Vera locked up and I am 1500 miles away. My pets aren’t getting any food. Ugh…
I tried rebooting Vera from the kamikaze interface but my timers and manual commands are still not firing. Looks like I will be either ending my trip early or trying to find someone local to my house who can stop by and “unplug and plug” vera back in. How embarassing…
Im glad there is a fix for this in the works… I am happy MCV is stepping up and fixing the problem and I understand this really isnt MCVs fault. However, it is still very frustrating. I hope to get our new dongles in the mail soon.
I have simplified my network to switches and thermostats since it was locking up. I have a single event to turn outside lights on at sunset. 50% of the time Vera locks up overnight and the lights fail to shut off 7hr later as specified in the command. I need to “reboot” by unplugging the device to get it to function again.
Reminds me of the BIG RED SWITCH on the original IBM PC for you old timers like me.
I had someone go by and hard reset Vera. No luck. This thing is still not responding. I am extremely frustrated with this box, I guess I’ll have to pay someone to go by the house and feed the cats manually for the rest of my vacation. Left message for tech support, hopefully they will call me back soon.
I feel your pain. MCV mentioned in another thread that the USB dongle had know hardware issues and they were working on shipping out replacements for everyone shortly. Could be the cause, I hope.
I’m in the same boat. I have 3 vacation rental condos I use these on and am always having trouble setting the door codes for people. It’s an hour round trip every time they fail to respond which is very often and I even have them reseting automaticly every night. They always seem to fail sometime right before I need to set a new door code. I also have issues setting the thermostats when someone checks out and leaves the A/C at 68 with the windows open and the lights on. Okay another drive and another hour down the tubes. I sure hope these dongles come sooner than later because the “It just works” advertising is far away from the truth at this point and for the few months I’ve owned them.
Oh Yay, fast forward another month… im on a business trip again and I left the house not even 5 hours ago. My vera is already locked up… my outside lights aren’t on and my cats aren’t getting fed again. I hate to be a negative nancy… but this is beyond frustrating. I have been waiting 6 months for this box to work.
I even power cycled vera right before I left so it just might stay working for a day or two. No such luck. To make things even better… MCV never even responded to my phone call that I mentioned a few weeks ago on this thread.
The sad thing is, I really want this to work. And I see some positive aspects of MCV. I know they are working hard and have some extremely smart people.
I understand they are a small company and can only do so much and respond to so many customers, I am part of a small company myself that has their own technical problems. However, this product is automating some pretty important things at my house (lights, temp, and most importantly a couple of pet feeders). This controller has to be rock solid… and it just isn’t (despite the “it just works” guarantee).
Maybe someday it will be the product I think it has the potential for… hopefully soon. Until then, I’ll be cycling the power a few times a day and buying some old fashioned electronic outlet timers for those feeders.
They are made by Ergosys and are called “Autopetfeeders”, yes they do work on a standard electrical timer.
However, the feeder is only an AC motor that turns an auger screw very slowly. The AC motor gets plugged into a standard electrical outlet timer which will activate the motor for however many seconds you want food to dispense every so often. All I did was plug the power cord into a Zwave controlled outlet instead of a timer. This way I can activate the outlet whenever I want the food to dispense. Currently I have the two feeders to run for 15 seconds every 2 hours from 8am to 8pm. This way the cats get fed a small amount of food 7 times a day. Unfortunately, since my vera spends a lot of the day locked up the feeders don’t activate when they are supposed to and the cats end up hungry. It worked well for awhile, but lately the vera box has been locking up more, and I have had a serious problem with commands getting delayed in 700+ firmware. I hope this gets fixed with the new dongle, but it seems the problem has gotten worse since upgrading to Luup firmware… ? I dont know…
B0SST0N, Does Vera have an internet connection? I’ve heard of lockups, though I haven’t reproduced them, when using Luup and not having an internet connection. Other than that, there should never be any lockups. We have a watchdog app running on Vera which tests that the engine is alive every 60 seconds, and will automatically reboot Vera if it ever crashes. So if your Vera is completely crashed, that means the whole Linux operating system died. It might be hardware related.
I was the person testing the “uptime” on my Vera because it was rebooting once or twice a day using version 616. Last week I update to the latest LUUP version and so far I have not seen a reboot in two days, my time clock has been accurate. I left it running and will check on it this weekend to see if the rebooting problem has been solved. You may want to think about updating.
I am running 862… still have the box locking up, already reset it once today. But, I ordered my replacement dongle last night, so hopefully all will be good after that arrives and gets swapped out.
MCV, when I say lockup I mean that the dongle locks up and it has a steady blue light. Just to clarify, my vera box has never stopped responding, just the zwave.
