Hi,
I done. Fed up waiting for the techs to fix my problem. They said they were working on it about 6 months ago, then just disappeared. Checking my veralite it still keeps restarting like it did before. Doesn’t seem like anything’s changed.
So - in order to get an end to this, I was wondering if there’s a way I can reset this box without losing my z-wave network. Everything else can go. I don’t care. I removed just about anything interesting on it as part of the debugging that never led to anything. The only thing I’ve got to lose is the nodes in my network.
If your intent is to use another Z-Wave controller instead of Vera it is fairly straight forward.
Add your new controller to Vera as a secondary controller.
On your new controller, perform a controller shift, making it the master controller on your Z-Wave network.
After your new controller is established as the master, reset your Vera to factory defaults, and reset Vera’s Z-Wave chip.
These steps will add all of your Z-Wave devices to the new controller and you can carry on without having to exclude/include everything from scratch. Of course any scenes and automation logic will have to be manually recreated on the new controller.
Edit: If you simply wish to wipe out Vera and restart with Vera, without wiping the Z-Wave network:
Perform a Z-Wave Network Backup.
Perform a Vera backup saving a local copy.
From the backup page, click Restore Vera to factory defaults.
This will wipe out Vera but not affect the Z-Wave chip/network.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:2, topic:188552”]If your intent is to use another Z-Wave controller instead of Vera it is fairly straight forward.
Add your new controller to Vera as a secondary controller.
On your new controller, perform a controller shift, making it the master controller on your Z-Wave network.
After your new controller is established as the master, reset your Vera to factory defaults, and reset Vera’s Z-Wave chip.
These steps will add all of your Z-Wave devices to the new controller and you can carry on without having to exclude/include everything from scratch. Of course any scenes and automation logic will have to be manually recreated on the new controller.[/quote]
Thanks, but I was hoping to be able just start anew with my veralite and see if it works after a full reset. I do have a z-wave dongle for a pc, so if there’s some other software I can use on linux/windows while I reset I’d love to hear about it.
I might as well install homeseer as I will move over to that in case I cannot get the vera box to work.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:2, topic:188552”]Edit: If you simply wish to wipe out Vera and restart with Vera, without wiping the Z-Wave network:
Perform a Z-Wave Network Backup.
Perform a Vera backup saving a local copy.
From the backup page, click Restore Vera to factory defaults.
This will wipe out Vera but not affect the Z-Wave chip/network.[/quote]
Just for my information, will it erase plugins and all virtual devices (Variable Container for example)? I guess it will
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:2, topic:188552”]Edit: If you simply wish to wipe out Vera and restart with Vera, without wiping the Z-Wave network:
Perform a Z-Wave Network Backup.
Perform a Vera backup saving a local copy.
From the backup page, click Restore Vera to factory defaults.
This will wipe out Vera but not affect the Z-Wave chip/network.[/quote]
Good thing there was another reply quoting this or I would’ve never seen it. This is what I’m looking for - thanks!
[quote=“Shaigan, post:4, topic:188552”]Just for my information, will it erase plugins and all virtual devices (Variable Container for example)? I guess it will :/[/quote]I knew that the factory reset wiped out all configurations, but your question got me wondering if it actually deleted the plugin files.
I did some checking. Factory reset completely wipes the /overlay filesystem including all plugin files and any other configurable option. It literally restores the configuration to new in box state, except for the Z-Wave chip.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:2, topic:188552”]Edit: If you simply wish to wipe out Vera and restart with Vera, without wiping the Z-Wave network:
Perform a Z-Wave Network Backup.
Perform a Vera backup saving a local copy.
From the backup page, click Restore Vera to factory defaults.
This will wipe out Vera but not affect the Z-Wave chip/network.[/quote]
Do you know if this will take a long time? I did a backup of my z-wave network, then when it was done I backed up the whole system checking the box for uploading the backup. I then went to reset, but when I was done everything, including the z-wave network, was gone. I did not use the “reset z-wave chip” or any of those functions. Just the button to bring system to factory default.
I’m surprise that your Z-Wave network was affected. I’ll have to re-examine that.
But, you’ve got a backup! Restore from backup and include the Z-Wave network and you should be right back where you started. That should only take a few minutes.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:8, topic:188552”]What will take a long time?
I’m surprise that your Z-Wave network was affected. I’ll have to re-examine that.
But, you’ve got a backup! Restore from backup and include the Z-Wave network and you should be right back where you started. That should only take a few minutes.[/quote]
“How long it should take” = “If it deletes all my devices and has to restore them from a cloud backup or something, how long will that take”. I was hoping it was just an issue of repopulating the list, but realized soon it wasn’t. Been resetting and restoring several times now to try different ways, but cannot seem to reset without losing the z-wave device or restore only the devices. But I think they intended it to be the way you say. I found it on their facebook page as well…
It doesn’t do this. After the reset and reboot, it doesn’t change further without user intervention. If the devices are deleted, they will not return.
I don’t know why they are being deleted. Unfortunately I am unable to test/investigate this right now.
Thinking about it a bit. I might try restoring the Z-Wave chip with this process. Be warned, this is completely untested.
Keeping the original full backup with Z-Wave network backup in a safe place, I’d extract a copy of the file /etc/cmh/dongle.dump from the backup archive.
Perform the factory reset.
Perform a backup of the newly reset/defaulted Vera. We’ll call it NewBackup from now on.
Replace the dongle.dump in NewBackup with the dongle.dump from the good/original backup.
It doesn’t do this. After the reset and reboot, it doesn’t change further without user intervention. If the devices are deleted, they will not return.
I don’t know why they are being deleted. Unfortunately I am unable to test/investigate this right now.
Thinking about it a bit. I might try restoring the Z-Wave chip with this process. Be warned, this is completely untested.
Keeping the original full backup with Z-Wave network backup in a safe place, I’d extract a copy of the file /etc/cmh/dongle.dump from the backup archive.
Perform the factory reset.
Perform a backup of the newly reset/defaulted Vera. We’ll call it NewBackup from now on.
Replace the dongle.dump in NewBackup with the dongle.dump from the good/original backup.
Restore Vera and Z-Wave network from NewBackup.[/quote]
That sounds like an interesting experiment
You wouldn’t happen to know where the scenes are stored, would you? They should be safe to import as long as the devices are there - but the devices might be problematic if you’ve created instances of plugins.
Maybe the last part should be:
install plugins
backup
change dongle.dump and wherever the scenes are stored?
I’m not exactly sure where the scenes are stored. I know that there is a record of them in user_data.json.lzo but, I’m pretty sure that there is more to it than that.
But, none of that matters. If you wipe Vera and she rebuilds her view of the devices form the dongle, the device numbers will almost certainly never match up, so scenes will be all messed up.
If you’re going to install plugins, restore scenes… You may as well just do a full restore. I don’t see what you’d gain, other than hassle and problems from unknown missing items.
In general, I agree with you. I got a little stuck thinking about my own problem and all I’ve had to do lately just to get rid of all the old junk from upgrading and stuff. I might try your idea today - I think I have the time
When you reset Vera to Factory state and DO NOT RESET the Z-Wave chip …
you have a Vera with NO devices and NO plugins!
However, when Vera restarts it inquires (A broadcast to any one listening) the Z-Wave network to see what’s out there.
Since you did not reset the Z-Wave network it can still talk to the devices in your house.
The Z-Wave devices will respond … saying “I Am Here!”.
The battery powered devices will wake up and send a message that Vera will see later.
When Vera see’s a new Z-Wave device it has not seen before on the Z-Wave network it create a Device on the Vera Dashboard.
The device numbers will be allocated to Z-Wave devices in the order that Vera saw the messages. This will most likely be a different order than when you first created the devices. So importing the Scenes only from before will not work … (Wrong input triggers and the commands would be sent to the wrong devices since the device IDs changed).
I'm not exactly sure where the scenes are stored. I know that there is a record of them in user_data.json.lzo but, I'm pretty sure that there is more to it than that.
Nope ... all of the User configuration data for Vera is found n the user_data file ... Vera saves it's current state every 6 minutes (if anything has changed)
You can edit this file from your backup ... it's messy for People ... but computers luv it! You can find JSON pretty printers on the Web that will format it a little better for you.
In there, if you look hard enough, you will find all of your OLD scene data ... You can at least figure out what you did before and try to recreate it all.
[quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:14, topic:188552”]When you reset Vera to Factory state and DO NOT RESET the Z-Wave chip …
you have a Vera with NO devices and NO plugins!
However, when Vera restarts it inquires (A broadcast to any one listening) the Z-Wave network to see what’s out there.[/quote]
Ok, so what you’re saying is that it takes some time and any device not powered (unplugged or with no battery) will be left unaccounted for and rooms will be lost? Then z-waver’s solution about injecting the dump into a backup file and then restore it will probably be the best (and quickest) bet?
The Battery devices will be found … they just take longer.
The down side of Restoring the backup is that if the user_data files is corrupted and was causing the original problems than if you restore you will be restoring the problems!
You do know that the LITE’s are seriously short on RAM right? It doesn’t take many plugins for the reboots to start happening. Cameras only add to it. Have you done a RAM check? I replaced two Lite’s with Edges just due to RAM and reboots.
You do know that the LITE’s are seriously short on RAM right? It doesn’t take many plugins for the reboots to start happening. Cameras only add to it. Have you done a RAM check? I replaced two Lite’s with Edges just due to RAM and reboots.[/quote]
Thanks - that was news to me, but I would assume the techs have checked it. I will definitely take a look if it starts happening again
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:10, topic:188552”]Thinking about it a bit. I might try restoring the Z-Wave chip with this process. Be warned, this is completely untested. [/quote]
Ok, I tried this method, and the only two things I didn’t get was my rooms (expected) and the names of the devices (a bummer). Is there a mapping between the devices in the dongle.dump and device names anywhere known?
