zaphod Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Occasionally I will get a situation where some of my landscape lights will not turn on at sunset as they are supposed to. When I investigate with ComposerHE it appears that there may be a zigbee network connection issue. The reason that I say this is that when I click on Monitoring-Properties for the switches/dimmers some of the information will not populate - i.e. nothing shows up for Channel, Gateway, Version, etc. and the LED colours will not show up.Sometimes after a few minutes the info will populate and I can then reissue the Lights On command to turn on the lights. Other times it will not fix itself. These problematic switches/dimmers are in my cabana. I have four of them in my cabana and I also have a CardAccess Wireless Contact Relay that my dealer said is supposed to help to improve the zigbee signal. I never get a situtation where all of the switches don't turn on, it is usually just one or two that won't work. Often times they will be intermittent for several days in a row and then all of a sudden they will work fine for weeks. It isn't always the same switches/dimmers that give me problems.I also occasionally have similar problems in my house. For example tonight one of my six buttons is acting up - it is controlling the lights OK but the LEDs are not changing colour when using the buttons and the Network info is not populating in ComposerHE.Does anyone else have these problems? Any ideas on how to fix? Will doing a power cycle of my HC-300 controller help?I have attached an image that shows the problem for the 6 button in ComposerHE where some of the info is not populated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 I would think if it's not the same devices, that maybe you have some intermittent 2.4GHz signal killer, like a neighbor's baby monitor or 2.4GHz phone, or maybe a leaky microwave or something along those lines.Do you have access to a Wi-Spy or other 2.4GHz analyzer?I doubt that power cycling your controller is going to make any difference. You could turn on zserver and director logging, and then check the logs to see what happens during those times, but that won't tell you if it's interference, just if zserver was unable to send to that device at that time.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CFUG Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 zaphod- yes I see this all the time. It usually rotates for a few days. One device after another or sometimes an SR-250 will fall-off. I have two CA repeaters and supposedly signal coverage is good. Most I can go is about 1.5 weeks without a hitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 I continue to have similar issues, particularly with the 2 and 6 button keypads. We have used a Wi-Spy for 2.4GHz interference and moved what I control as far away in the available spectrum as we can. We have also relocated the HTC zigbee server (which only runs the zigbee server) to another location recently. As a result, issues have diminished some but I still have keypads that go through a lag period before they start to respond. I typically have a couple of keypads in a 24 period that have an issue of lagging 5-15 seconds. We're running the latest versions on everything, have good zigbee coverage (with repeaters as well), have segmented the network, etc. We've looked at the performance of the director running on a HC300 and the HTC zigbee server and both have very low CPU usage (even when there is a problem). We're sort of at a loss as to what can be done to resolve things and the wife is majorily frustrated. If it wasn't for these lighting related issues, we love everything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 That *is* odd. I've not seen anything like that, but unfortunately, saying that doesn't help you out.Sorry.Are you sure your Director is not restarting for some reason? If something else is causing Director to restart, you might sense it as lagging in zigbee.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CFUG Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 I think he means the time for Zigbee comms is long between the 6B/2B to the load-control device? Max, you on 1.7.2 yet? Polling sort of messed me up until upgrading. Now its no problem. Are you saying all of your KPs are doing this or just some? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 For me, wish it was that easy. The 2B that are the issue are used in 3 way scenarios where the load device and the 2B are about the same distant to the zigbee server. The 6B are a bit further away but then again, I had the same issue when the zigbee server was almost directly next to the 6B. Both 2B/6B KPs are the issue and throughout the house.I am on whatever is the latest, think it is 1.72.160. I had problems before they changed the polling and now that it has been changed back. I previously posted about this which was it seems like the 2B/6B go into almost a sleep state. It is almost like it takes a few seconds to wake them up after they have been off for awhile. It seems like if I turn something on, it lags but then I can then turn it off, back on, etc. and it works almost instantaneous. I'm not sure how the zigbee mesh networking works but it almost seems like it is auto-discovering the shortest path. Then after some period, it seems like it wants to recheck the path again. I doubt that is what it is but it seems like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 I have 3 2.4GHz WiFi routers (2 used as WAPs) and some cordless phones, but I think the phones are all 5.8GHz or DECT6.0 (which I believe uses 1.9GHz). Therefore it is possible that there is intereference coming from the routers. I doubt the microwave is causing issues as it is not on when I am having the problems.The 6B that started giving me trouble last night is in the house and is very close to several other 6Bs, an outlet switch and 2B switches that all work fine.Is Director the program on my controller that controls all of this? If this was resetting then wouldn't I be having issues with all sorts of devices, not just a few?By the way, the cabana is located about 30 ft from the house and no more than 50 ft from the nearest C4 device in the house. I never have problems with more than two devices in the cabana at once so I wouldn't think that would be a signal issue.It is comforting to know that I am not alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogdvr Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Zaphod,You may want your dealer to change the location of few of those switches, that may help Identifying wether it is a hardware problem or a mesh networking problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Zaphod,You may want your dealer to change the location of few of those switches, that may help Identifying wether it is a hardware problem or a mesh networking problemI'll ask him but there are three switches lined up in a row and one other switch a few feet away. Of the three switches in a row I never have problems with all three at once. And two feet away from the other switch, which has worked without fail for 9 months, is the CardAcccess device which is fine. And this switch is only about 8 ft away from the other three aforementioned switches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 One other thing... Do you have multiple controllers in your system?Is it possible that you have two controllers running zserver on the same channel? If so, that would also cause symptoms like you're seeing, where one of the zservers 'captures' a device, it works for a while, then the other zserver 'captures' it.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 No - only one control on my system right now but I will likely be adding a 200 soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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