So I finally got my father in on the HA hobby and we picked up a lot of things from Radio Shack. He ordered a Vera2 and got it last week. I walked him through the steps remotely to get vera up and running. We went to add his first device and that is when we ran into problems. When trying to add a lamp module, Vera would find the module and configure it. Vera then would be able to control the lamp. But this is were it goes down hill. Not long after, it seems that Vera2 will not be able to communicate with the zwave chip and then report a zwave failure. Doing a reboot would correct the issue and then eventually it would fail to control anything and again report a zwave failure. I opened up a ticket with MCV. But I am wondering if I should give them a call.
When I first received my Vera2 8 months ago, I was hit with the no zwave dongle bug. MCV had to reflash the dongle to get her up and running. Has anyone else experienced the zwave failure? This has not made a good first impression for my father in his home.
Anyone have any thoughts? I called MCV up yesterday (thursday) and they told me that the techs. were busy. I am going to try and call them today to get some help. Trying to see if this can be fixed with out sending the unit back.
I’ve not heard of this happening with only having one device installed. Have you tried removing the device and adding it back?
What version are you running? Some of the later builds have work arounds (pending Sigma’s fix) to prevent this error.
The Vera2 is running the current Beta 1.1.1156. When the device is rebooted, the zwave chip will function, but only after a little bit of time, the zwave chip will stop working and the dashboard will state “zwave failure”. Pairing the fist lamp module had some issues. It would find the lamp module and add it, but when finalizing the adding of the device, I had a few failures and had to re-pair the module. I am not sure if this is some glitch in the software or if the zwave chip is just being cranky.
I would flash the box rather than wait for tech support, If you still have the same issues it can only be hardware related and would need to be swapped out.
I just went through this with my Vera, and I found one entry on the forum that said to go to the dashboard and click “save” even though nothing to save. I had already factory-defaulted, totally re-imaged, and restored many times over several days, even opened a support case, and still had the ZWave failure.
The “save” fixed it and it has worked ever since. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the info. Unfortunately the “save” issue is not the issue. I did a complete firmware reflash using the Vera2 flash utility, the downgrade bricked the unit and had to resort to that. I have it running on the 1.1.996 firmware for now. Will see how she holds up and then will proceed to upgrade.
Just had my first Z-Wave Failure last night using 1155 on V1, a power cycle fixed the problem temporarily. I wonder if I just overloaded the chip by hitting too many buttons in an attempt to MAKE IT WORK, lol.
The exact words are “Zwave failure”. My fathers unit is now working great the last 18 hours. I did a complete firmware restore using the firmware tools. This loaded back the 1.1.996 release and then did an update to the 1.1.1047 release. So far things are working great. We are slowly getting devices installed, e.g. schlage locks (still trying to figure out how to work these locks. I own kwikset locks). Got one of his trane stats working and a few light modules. Still adding more. I am not sure if this was related to firmware upgrade issues? When we first got the unit, I did an upgrade to 1.1.1156 (beta firmware). Me thinks that the upgrade caused some issues.
Interesting…
I wonder if the messages No Z-Wave dongle and Z-Wave failed to start were scrapped in favor of a global message “Z-Wave Failure” or is this a new issue?
The reason I say that is because the recent beta’s had workaround’s built in to restart the chip if it failed…
Wow. Sounds like you’re having some really bad luck with your father’s install. Not a good first impression at all!
I’ve never had any of the Z-wave related failures in my Vera 1. Knock on wood. I’m sorry and surprised that you’re having problems with a brand new Vera 2. Maybe it has a manufacturing defect??
Then again, I stopped adding devices when the crashing Vera (out of memory) bugs started popping up. I didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ on my Vera. I literally have a stack of switches sitting in my office, ready to be included and installed. Once I am confident that Vera’s firmware is good to go, I’ll start adding to my network again.
Well everything is coming along. Had issue with the Trane stat. and one of the Schlage locks (lever lock). The Trane stat we had to rewire the wires on the heater (builder did not wire it correctly) and the Schlage lever lock, the inside key pad was not functioning. I was able to get the Schlage pad to work again. Not sure what I was able to do. But so far things are going well. Now we are going to install the GE three way. Hopefully we can get that working and not have the issues others are having.
Garrett
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