Domoticz

Spatt3r wrote:Hi there all! I have problem with my z-wave network hangs and stops to respond after some time. Then i have to restart domoticz and then it works again for some time. Usually i have to restart about 1 time a day. Someone have any idea what could be the fault?

I'm running domoticz on a razberry pi 2b and a aeon labs z-stick S2 to control the z-wave with.

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Hello Spatt3r,
I had the same problemen in the beginning. Z-wave needs about 3-4 wired devices to make a stable netwerk. How many Z-wave devices do you have?
I also used an usb cable so that the controller is free from obstacles.

Hello,

In order to maximize zwave reliability (and this also stands true for other 868 and 433 MHz networks like EnOcean and RfxTRX etc.), you should try to align all antennas this way:

The RF field emitted by the 1/4-wave abtenna of your zwave stick (and your zwave devices) has the shape of a flattened donut centered on the antenna's axis, and is polarized along the antenna axis. This means that there is almost no signal emitted along the antenna axis; maximal signal is in the plane perpendicular to the antenna (radiation pattern). But even there, you only get maximal signal if the receiving antenna is parallel to the emitter antenna (polarization).

So there are two conditions for two zwave devices to talk to each other in an optimal way: be parallel, say vertical for example, and be in each other's donut radiation pattern (so say in the same horizontal plane, for example).

Zsticks contain a PCB track running along the full length of the stick, make sure you position the stick in such a way that all the antennas of your other zwave devices are parallel to the stick.

My suggestion is that the zstick is vertical, and you force each zwave device's antenna vertical, on the same floor level as the zstick. Then you have maximized RF transmission quality.

This also applies to all 1/4 wave antenna-based RF protocols, like EnOcean, RFXTRX etc.

Regards,
--
Stéphane

it wont matter, I have mine on a long usb cable going behind my TV on the main floor, its plugged into a powered hub velcro'd to the wall.. so the stick can be up or down but its always vertically aligned..

You can also have a poor power supply messing up your RF, try another power source for your Pi, perhaps put a choke on it.

Do you have auto-heal enabled on your controller and a timeout set on the hardware? I use about an hour but mine never resets.

Think about putting it on an extension cable, mine's on a 35ft one and I have 4 levels + outside with Z-wave devices.

Whats your network map look like? mine runs 100% stable and looks like this.. devices are aligned in all sorts of orientations too, #8 is at the street and horizontal.

Hello,

Up or down doesnt matter, what matters is parallel to device antennas. As for device positions, imagine the radiation pattern being a donut centered on the antenna, with almost no signal at all both above and below the antenna.

A viable alternative is to multiply the devices, with random antenna positions, like the example above. The mesh nature of a zwave network will make it a big anisotropic field, much more tolerant to any antenna position. But you need many devices to achieve that.

Regards,
--
Stéphane

not having any lines is not good, Ive got lines to each of my devices except 21 & 14, they should but they have not been triggered in quite a while and likely been asleep when the heal occurred last.

sounds like you need more devices and/or a better location for your controller.. I started out by putting hardwired devices closer to my controller and worked my way out throughout the house until I had devices on each level with a direct link to the controller, then came back and filled it in and never ran into any sort of range issues.

ok make sure you have autoheal enabled, sounds like you do not.

click on your controller in the hardware window, request stored values from device, select another zw device on your network wait a few moments and then click back on your controller..

then look for autoheal and make sure its enabled, if not turn it on.. then run a manual heal found under node management.. this in effect makes all the devices rediscover there neighbors and routes, it can take a lil bit to see anything on the map tho.

Ive got devices 2m to 30m away from my controller with a route direct between them

it looks like you got a fine mesh network there, excluding your controller.. eek.

something is definitely not right here, have you tried another power source for your Z-Stick or the device your Z-Stick is plugged into?

Try moving your device around your house and leave it there for a while, see if it builds a better connection.. maby your controller is in some RF dead spot or being messed up by localized interference.. is there any equipment near your RPi/ZStick? Stereo Amps, High Voltage Appliance, any sort of transmitter, electric motor, or magnets? You dont have it locked up in a faraday cage do you

Please start by deleting the domoticz/Config/zwcfg_0xyyyyyyyy.xml ZWave configuration cache file, restart domoticz and force a network heal.

Then post the picture again.

Regards,
--
Stéphane

How do you guys generate that image?

how many amps is your power supply putting out? 1A, 2A, or more? If you dont have at least 2A@5v then your USB might be underpowered.

The topology changes really wont show until you repair the network and wait some time, dont expect to just move it and that page to instantly update.

I usually let it sit for a few hours after a heal before checking out the group status map, just to make sure all sleeping devices have woken up and rerouted them selves...

The first test will be to see if stability improves, dont worry about that group map so much for troubleshooting, its not that useful.. once you notice stability has gotten better then its likely the map will look better as a result.. but its not a real-time display so it can give false feedback if you dont account for the latency.

I keep my poll timer about 2x the number of devices I have, at least.. so right now I am about 60s, and I dont enable polling unless I have to.

There could be something wrong with the Z-Stick, you could try putting it into a desktop and load up your desktop version of Domoticz and see if it behaves any better.. if it works fine then there is something wrong with your Pi, likely USB related... if it still has issues I would start feeling confident your Z-Stick has a fault.. At this point if you dont have a warranty on the device I would crack it open and make sure antenna is still attached, that would be an easy fix.

yeah thats exactly what I mean.. just do a default install with only the z-stick configured.. dont worry about your database, its just for troubleshooting.. your z-wave devices will be re-created.

they are stored on the z-stick so your new install will have a bunch of unused devices added to the hardware pane, but the internal zw config will be identical.

yep, presuming you dont make any changes to the controller through the UI.. if you do those changes will also migrate back.

the controller is really the Z-Stick, Domoticz is just the logic interface because the Z-Stick is stupid and dont have any advanced logic of its own.. the protocol work is handled transparently by the controller, and thats the extent of its capabilities alone.

as a result you can move it about between machines and retain your network as if nothing happened, your just swapping out the logic engine on the usb side.. now if your controller proves faulty and needs replaced, then you'll have to go trough a special procedure to copy your network to the replacement controller without starting over.

Spatt3r wrote:

splitfile wrote:How do you guys generate that image?

You tap print screen button and then paste in mspaint and cut out the piece of the picture that you want and voila

haha yes obviously. But the image you "print screen" where does it come from?

Maybe I'm totally missing something here?

Setup -> Hardware -> OpenZWave USB SETUP -> Node Management -> Groups & Network

nayr wrote:Setup -> Hardware -> OpenZWave USB SETUP -> Node Management -> Groups & Network

Brilliant! Thanks mate

Did you try to delete the cache file, like I suggested in my last post ? This is totally harmless and will force domoticz to query the actual topology from the network.

Regards,
--
Stéphane