I have a Vera Edge with a RFXtrx433E. The setup has been working fine for years and I haven’t made any changes. A couple of weeks ago I started getting a “RFXtrx controller device[491] : Failed to open IO Port”-error. The RFXtrx433E don’t seem to receive or transmit to my 433MHz devices after this.
This is what I have tried (without success):
[ul][li]Changed USB cable. Several times.[/li]
[li]Removed my powered USB hub and connect the RFXtrx433 directly to the Vera.[/li]
[li]Plugged the RFXtrx433E into my computer and used RFXmngr to check if the transceiver possible was broken. It is not.[/li]
[li]Restored a previous backup. Screamed in frustration.[/li]
[li]Removed the RFXtrx433E device from Vera and create it again as a new device.[/li]
[li]Contacted Vera support and mailed back and forth.[/li][/ul]
I really don’t know what to do to make this work again. I haven’t made any changes in my setup. Everything as been working without issues before and I really don’t know why this error suddenly started?
Since you are using a powered USB hub I assume you have other devices connected to your Vera Edge. Do those devices continue to function properly with your Vera? What kind of devices are they?
Also you could test the entire assembly, which includes the USB hub and the stick, to see if it still works in the computer.
HUB might not have enough power, to power the adapter.
Under serial settings on Vera, make sure the RFXtrx device is selected also.
Got to Apps / Develop Apps / Serial Port Configuration
Select a Baud rate of 38400 and a the device named RFXtrx controller device from the drop down menus
The RFXtrx433E works properly when inserted in the computer, with and without the powered USB hub. I have also tried to get it to work again in Vera by plug it in directly, without the USB hub. I still get the same error.
It’s always frustrating when you receive a reply from someone who hasn’t taken the time to read carefully your original post.
At this point I’d be tempted to try some changes to the settings in the Develop Apps → Serial Port Configuration
Make the settings obviously wrong and save them. Then go back and correct them. I realize this is a bit goofy but at this point what choice do you have? It already doesn’t work and Vera support only seems to be providing ‘canned’ answers.
I think someone who is fully knowledgeable of the USB/serial port hardware and drivers could probably troubleshoot this problem. That’s not me. Good luck contacting anyone at Vera who is - if they even exist.
@tinman, some critical and constructive feedback is always appreciated,
Changing serial setting to something that is not recommended by the manufacturer of that device (rfxtrx) does not make any sense and will certainly not work as it requires a certain bit rate and bandwidth to function. One reason why this error will occur, is, if incorrect serial settings are used.
This device is handled by a third party plugin, which is likely to be the culprit, if everything else checks out, but before reaching this conclusion, Vera side, we need to make sure the serial adapter is being recognized by Vera, which it is. But that’s as much as we can do, as the developer of the plugin will be better suited to understand the inner workings and how the plugin handles the serial communication between Vera and the rfxtrx.
To my knowledge there might some newer versions of this plugin but I wasn’t able to find it.
The final purpose is to have one happy customer, if it’s possible and stands in our hands to do so. Otherwise we just try to be as supportive as we can.
John M:
My suggestion to try other settings is merely trying to be sure the settings in place are actually those being displayed. Since nothing else appears to be wrong it’s an easy thing to do.
I don’t believe that the device manufacturer (RFXCOM) is providing or supporting the plugin - at least not the RFXtrx plugin. There is or was an RFXCOM plugin but I’m not sure what the status of that plugin is. So perhaps a valid question is which of these plugins is being used.
The latest semi-official version of the RFXtrx plugin is here: trunk – RFXtrx Gateway
You can download the ZIP file using the link at the bottom of the page. I believe this plugin code was maintained by lolodomo in this forum. Unfortunately he is no longer doing that.
I’m pretty familiar with the RFXtrx plugin code. It doesn’t post an error with the text that n0ir is reporting. Do you know where this error text exists and under what circumstances it will be posted?
n0ir:
If you are using the RFXtrx plugin there are a couple of variables you can view in the Variables tab of the Advanced item of the RfXtrx device in the Devices section of the Vera UI. What do you see in the CommFailure and IOPortPath variables?
The only other thing I might suggest to you is to try to look at the Vera logs. An easy way to do this (if you have Microsoft Excel) is to use the Elvira tool. There’s a little work to do to get it set up but once that’s done is a very useful tool. You can find the details here: http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,30265.msg215772.html#msg215772
If you really didn’t make any changes when this problem first occurred you might think it’s some kind of hardware failure. But that’s hard to imagine if your USB memory is still working. I’d try to recall the very last thing you may have added to your Vera before the problem showed up.
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