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Devices Going Offline


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9 minutes ago, Baubas Cat said:

No. The main AP inside is 11. There is one outside that's only turned on when needed that's on 3 and one for some wireless cameras that's on 7. 

bad channel planning, use 1 6 and 11.  Don't use 3 and 7.

I think you are doing more harm to your technology (and your sanity) shutting off WIfi every night.  Zigbee and WiFi are both 2.4Ghz technology.  Channels are an inexact science.  Signal flows like water (in a sense) to the shortest path.  When you turn your AP's on, the 2.4ghz spectrum is changing and your mesh needs to rebuild.  

If you are hell bent on turning off Wifi Every night, automatically turn it back on like 1 hr before you want to use C4?  

But really, get over it.  Radio waves are everywhere weather you turn your WiFi on or off.

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The problem is that the power supplies for the wireless aps are connected to Wireless Outlet Switches. So when I wake up in the morning I can't turn the Wi-Fi on at all because when the network is shut down the Wireless Switches fall out. And that's why it makes no sense that its the Wi-Fi forcing the mesh to rebuild because when I wake up, there is no Wi-Fi. And for that reason I would think, at night when the Wi-Fi is off and not interfering with the mesh because its in the same spectrum, the mesh should be even stronger and nothing should be falling out. But it does. Why?

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3 minutes ago, Baubas Cat said:

The problem is that the power supplies for the wireless aps are connected to Wireless Outlet Switches. So when I wake up in the morning I can't turn the Wi-Fi on at all because when the network is shut down the Wireless Switches fall out. And that's why it makes no sense that its the Wi-Fi forcing the mesh to rebuild because when I wake up, there is no Wi-Fi. And for that reason I would think, at night when the Wi-Fi is off and not interfering with the mesh because its in the same spectrum, the mesh should be even stronger and nothing should be falling out. But it does. Why?

over my head at this point....

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I'd agree that the multiple channels are going to give headache, and likely no advantage - but that's it's own discussion.

If you're having this much issue there are three likely things occuring.

-1 you are having interference issues. Even if you can eliminate your own Wifi, there are other things that can cause interference - other's wifi or many other things. The only way to really start looking at this at this point is to either have a professional scanning device, or go and eliminate things one by one. Shut your phones off, your home phone if you have it, and so on.

-2 you are having range issues. While potentially related to interference, this can be it's own issue. Even if it HAD been fine - changes in the house can cause range loss that you may not think off (new toilet placed, pool, aquarium are some examples I've seen). Doesn't seem your most likely issue at this point but consider it non the less

-3 your controller itself. Bad antenna, bad radio chip....could be a number of things. Easiest firs t steps would be to move the controller doing ZigBee to a different place or use the external antenna/extender and change which controller handles the ZigBee

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1 & 2: It could be interference but seems unlikely. I'm on 10 acres and surrounded by 444 acers of state land. My nearest neighbor is over a half mile away. All my ZigBee signals are high (3 & 4s) and my hops are low (1 & 2s). Nothing around the house has changed except Director going from 2.8.2 to 2.9.0. 3: Could be the Controller but why is it flawless during the day when the network is up? My thought is, maybe when the Wireless Bridge is disconnected and the Zap in the barn is lost, the hole mesh is breaking down. If this is what's happening, can I make the Controller in the barn a Server and Zap and still have it communicate with the house Controller so I have two separate meshes?  

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What do you mean by

Quote

when the Wireless Bridge is disconnected and the Zap in the barn is lost

A wireless bridge has nothing to do with ZigBee at all. Note that a ZAP is a ZigBee Access Point - by default a controller.

So are you saying you have a controller in there, and a WMB and both are falling offline? THAT may point to an issue with the networking at the barn.

While I've never seen one thing falling offline cause a whole mesh to go bad, the theory isn't without merit. And yes, a controller can be set to act as a separate ZigBee network setup if desired.

 

I'd at this point though try and change your setting to leave the network up for a few nights - see if it's stable then.

I'm starting to wonder if some of the issue is HOW you're shutting down the WiFi. Probably not directly but perhaps it's the trigger - in other words them powering off with an outlet switch is causing something else on the network (a controller perhaps, stuff in the barn) to go down.

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7 minutes ago, SMHarman said:

I think the lan connection between the house and the barn is a wireless bridge.

That is offline overnight so the hc800/zap in the barn is not connected to the hc800/director in the house.

i agree and the routing tree could be routing things to the barn...

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"I think the lan connection between the house and the barn is a wireless bridge. That is offline overnight so the hc800/zap in the barn is not connected to the hc800/director in the house." That is exactly right SMHarman. I contacted Control4 and they have never ran across my situation (surprise). They said they have never test for a situation like this and that its quit possible that the loss of connection to the barn at night could be the cause of my problems. The barn has been running as a Zap for 3 year without an issue but maybe something in 2.9.0 changed. The barn is now a server so now I will see if this fixes it.

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There's new firmware for a number of devices in 2.9 - I think there may be some changes in routing as well, but I'd have to dig deep to even try nd find out.

 

That said - putting the barn on it's own server may indeed help in this scenario - just make sure that any device in or near to that barn are actually on that new server/zapcoordinator.

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Well I don't want to jinx myself but that seemed to fix it. When I woke up this morning the house turned on faster than ever. As soon as the Wi-Fi was up I checked the mesh and everything was in. It takes slightly longer for the wireless bridge to connect to the barn but as soon as it did I could see everything in there was also in. All my issues started right after updating to 2.9.0 so I have to believe something changed in the way routing is handled. Hopefully this time everything stays working. Thank you all, for your help.   

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