Fixing Z-Wave for once and for all!

[roblom]

@roblom, yes this happens A LOT with Neo Coolcam plugs... specially the new types.
What happens is that we get correct counter values like 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004 and suddenly (for some minutes/30) we get 20, 20, 20, 20, and then 1008, 1009, 1010, ....
I still have to investigate if it is always the same counter value, If it is, we could ignore those values
But this is hardware related ... specifically for these cheap nodes

Here you see again that these Chinese products are cheap because still the manufacturers are missing some knowledge for making good products.
I'm now on build 12838 and see a lot of the messages below.

Code: Select all

Error: OpenZWave: Invalid counter value received!: (-21474534.000000) Node: 22 (0x16), CommandClass: METER, Instance: 1, Index: 0, Id: 0x164C8012

I assume this is intended and an first attempt to see if you can ignore the wrong values?
I'm not a programmer so sadly i'm not able to help you with that but if I can help please let me know!

[Plantje]

Ok, this night things went south again.

Recently I have made two changes:

• Installed version 2020.2.0.12825 as I understood that people were having less issues with Z-Wave while running some of the betas
• Set all power options on the Windows server to maximum performance. This is because I was having this issue as well.

For a while things seemed to be running fairly ok. Some of the multi sensors still didn't communicate movement every once in a while, but the rest seemed pretty much stable and better than before.
This morning things seemed off and upon checking I noticed the following:

Issue 20210115.jpg (267.34 KiB) Viewed 1698 times

Most of the sensors had an incorrect description and were unavailable.
A lot of the time stamps are around 1.50 am. I have checked the logging and around that time I also have some issues in the application logging. I have attached these errors as well.

Today I have tried reverting back to a backup from 1.00 AM, but it didn't work. So, I am afraid, I will have to add all nodes again

[roblom]

Before remove and adding them again, try the "refresh node info". Most of the time this works for min system.
- Hardware
- Zwave settings
- Node management
- Control panel
- click on "select operation"
- choose "refresh node info"
- select a node from the list which it's not working correct.
- click on "Go" (behind the "refresh node info")

Do this for all nodes that are not working and wait half an hour or so. For me this brings back the nodes again most of the time (not always). And I'm aware that there is also a refresh node button in Domoticz self but for some reason this does not the same because in my experience is that clicking on this button has no effect at all.

[kiddigital]

@plantje, as stated above use ‘refresh node info’ instead of re-adding nodes again and again.

Z-wave nodes are communicating not in real-time but using certain intervals depending on the device capabilities. Some nodes ‘sleep’ for an hour or even longer before they wake-up again and send signals or listen for incoming messages before going into sleep again.

The ‘refresh node’ is a message to a node to ask for a full report of config and data, so when receiving this message the node should send all its data and config. Normally it just sends some parts. And as some nodes can actually have multiple ‘sensors’/function that might even communicate in different intervals (for example, send temperature every 5 mins or only when a changes of 1 degree or more has been measures or send the battery status once a day,etc.). This is why you see that sometimes one ‘sensor’ is updated while others of the same node are not.

Keep the above in mind when debugging issues. Things might work/behave differently than you might expect. That does not mean they do not work correctly.

[Plantje]

Thanks for your reply. At first sight it seems to have back fired somewhat...
Selected a node that was working, but not showing battery level and chose "Refresh node info" . Now the other info is gone from that node (in the control panel) as well...
Edit: ah! After waking the device things returned to normal in the control panel. Aaaand: the battery info is displayed in the Z-Wave devices overview as well! So, this looks promising!

And it seems that the "Refresh node info" option is a controller option rather than a node option.... is that correct?

[kiddigital]

Thanks for your reply. At first sight it seems to have back fired somewhat...
Selected a node that was working, but not showing battery level and chose "Refresh node info" . Now the other info is gone from that node (in the control panel) as well...
And it seems that the "Refresh node info" option is a controller option rather than a node option.... is that correct?

You are welcome...

And yes, refresh node is an action where the controller asks a certain node to send it data and config so the controller has up-to-date info.

So as a Domoticz user, we ask the controller to perform that action to ask the node

[Plantje]

Ok ok ok.... Very happy with this! See my last edit to the other reply as well.
Isn't this basically the same as the "heal node option"?

Looks like the key lies within: performing the steps for a specific node and then wake up the node manually (using the process indicated for that specific hardware as all vendors have different ways of including and waking up)

I will try another one!

[kiddigital]

Indeed waking up a node manually is an option if you don’t want to wait for the node to wake up by itself.

Which is fine for nodes that are within reach but for some build-in ones that could be hard

[Plantje]

Wow! This really helps a lot! Thanks guys!

I will get back to the trouble shooting part later....

[Plantje]

Hmmmm.... there is one other thing I need to figure out: if I revive one node, select the next one and perform the same action, Domoticz becomes non responding. Let's see how this can be fixed.

[Plantje]

Thanks again guys, this really seems to be THE solution I was looking for!

If you hit the "Heal node" option in Domoticz, this is what should be triggered!

Most likely, there is more that I need to figure out when it comes to Z-Wave, but this looks very good!

[waltervl]

Thanks again guys, this really seems to be THE solution I was looking for!

If you hit the "Heal node" option in Domoticz, this is what should be triggered!

Most likely, there is more that I need to figure out when it comes to Z-Wave, but this looks very good!

Are saying that the Zwave Heal Node option is the solution for your problem?
Or that the Heal Node option should do the same as the Z-Wave Control Panel - Refresh Node info ?

I want to document this in the ZWave Wiki so that is why I am asking.....

[Plantje]

The latter....
So far, it really seems to work!

[waltervl]

Documented....https://www.domoticz.com/wiki/Zwave#Heal_Network

[thelbekk]

Hmmmm.... there is one other thing I need to figure out: if I revive one node, select the next one and perform the same action, Domoticz becomes non responding. Let's see how this can be fixed.

Yeah, I've seen this, too. I was thinking of looking for the cause, but never got around to it, and since then I've just made it a habit to never do a "Refresh node info" on multiple nodes. Start it on one, wake up that node if it's battery powered, verify the result, then do the next one.

[Plantje]

Hmmmm.... there is one other thing I need to figure out: if I revive one node, select the next one and perform the same action, Domoticz becomes non responding. Let's see how this can be fixed.

Yeah, I've seen this, too. I was thinking of looking for the cause, but never got around to it, and since then I've just made it a habit to never do a "Refresh node info" on multiple nodes. Start it on one, wake up that node if it's battery powered, verify the result, then do the next one.

Ok, so, key is: trigger the process, wake up the device and only after that do the next one? That will prevent the locking from happening? So, it seems Z-Wave and possibly the whole Domoticz process is locked until this has been applied.

[harrykausl]

As I wrote before, in 4.1017.. with zwave 1.4 it works (I went back some months ago). When I reboot, the zwave-devices are there after some seconds. There seems to be the difference to 1.6 and seems to cause the problems in 1.6.

[Plantje]

As I wrote before, in 4.1017.. with zwave 1.4 it works (I went back some months ago). When I reboot, the zwave-devices are there after some seconds. There seems to be the difference to 1.6 and seems to cause the problems in 1.6.

I know this topic is 4 pages long in the mean time, but I am pretty sure I've had the mentioned issues with Z-Wave for years and years since beginning with Domoticz

[ArnoutZ]

As I wrote before, in 4.1017.. with zwave 1.4 it works (I went back some months ago). When I reboot, the zwave-devices are there after some seconds. There seems to be the difference to 1.6 and seems to cause the problems in 1.6.

I have a similar experience. 4.1017 hardly gives any issues. After rebooting the devices are all back and identified within a minute...

[rgroothuis]

Not sure if this helps in the discussion. I'm running Domoticz 2020.2 with OpenZWave USB Version: 1.6-1033-g3661f170 and mainly Fibaro Zwave devices (only 2 Qubino) and I'm having no issues at all. It is all running stable and I can control everything how I want to. I do have the nightly heal network enabled, maybe that is the difference.

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