Upgrading to 3.2 Disaster

Vera Controllers, Services & Devices Vera Controllers & Cameras
1

So I bought several new switches and installed them. I thought this would be a good time to upgrade to the 3.20 firmware. However, after following the steps exactly as listed on the website, I have several nodes that will not include. I am assuming this is because when I reset the z-wave network with Vera, the nodes were not excluded.

What am I supposed to do? I don’t want to downgrade, and I can’t find any instructions for having my Vera 2 do a remove node.

Any help?

2

Not sure if I’m understanding your question, if you simply want to exclude so you can then include you use the same add/remove device tool in the UI, if you are trying that and getting an error then it may be a problem several people (including me) have had with 3.20 (search boards for more), for me the only fix was returning to 2.78

3

So here is another example of bad documentation. The problem was exactly what I thought it was…when I followed the instructions exactly (the ones link right next to the upgrade button!) none of my existing devices were excluded. This meant that none of the existing devices on my network would re-add after the upgrade.

I had to not only figure out about the exclude from homeseer’s forums, but it took me 30 minutes to figure out how to make Vera exclude devices correctly. This is why I can’t, in good conscience, recommend MCV Vera to anyone. And I have alot of people ask. The problem would be that I would be fielding too many phone call since MCV can’t be bothered.

So for those who want to upgrade without getting so frustrated that you punt your Vera out the back door, here are the steps that I would recommend:

-First, exclude every z-wave device on your network. You do this by going to Advanced Z-Wave and performing a “Full Power Exclude”. Its at the bottom.
-Once all you devices are excluded, perform the steps on the website. Keep in mind that not all of your devices are going to be in range, so you might have to get a really long ethernet cable to get it into Z-Wave range.
-If you miss a device, don’t worry, you can exclude still it and then re-add it after the reset. When you exclude it after the reset, it will say node excluded, but then print out “0 Nodes Removed”. As long as it briefly says the node was excluded, then you are good to go.

After 7 hours of work, I have my setup working with all new nodes.

4

@dfad1469, glad you got your system running again. I think you can exclude devices with any z-wave controller, it doesn’t have to be the one that included them before. It has been a while since I had to do this, but I am pretty sure I used a cheap GE Z-wave remote (45601?) do exclude devices before re-including them on the vera.

Of course, you probably still need a long ethernet cable to include door locks…

5

@radarengineer, thanks.

I don’t have any other z-wave controllers. I also didn’t want to go out and buy one. But, the point is that I didn’t even have any of this information or would even have known if I should have gone out and bought one.