So how "dangerous" is HE?

[davidrab]

I have a general question about the how much an end user might be

able to "effect" a C4 system using HE.

My friends had a C4 system installed and it's been operational for about

a month. It has an HC-1000 (1.8.2.66691), C4 audio matrix switch, C4

8 zone amp, HC-200's, and more stuff. For that last week (or so) there

has been a general instability in the system. A good example was with the

remotes yesterday. From minute to minute they would be lightning quick

or VERY slow. Another instance would that one room no longer has any

audio from the amplifier. Also, the HC-200's seem to forget to change the

input on the TV's or when they do, the C4 screen will not show (and even

if it does, selecting something might not activate it).

Although I can't believe it, can programming keypad buttons with HE cause

these types of instability? They've programmed some lights and scenes, a

keypad for volume control, I believe one motion detector, a garage door open

from a keypad button, and that's about it. There was an issue early on with

a media scene (they added a media scene and no audio in the house would

work but that seemed to have been a known issue) but that was taken care

of by deleting it.

We've rebooted various components, various times and sometimes it helps

and sometimes not. It seems that when the HC-1000 is rebooted, most of

that other C4 devices like to be rebooted also or they act crazy. They've

even loaded in an older program using HE in an effort to try and roll back

some changes. That seems to be a task in itself as things seem to act a little

different when that happens.

So long story short (thanks if your still reading BTW), can simple programming

using HE really effect the stability of a C4 system?

[takitezsdc]

For that size system and the equipment you have, the system should be very fast and stable.

What kind of router / switch do you have? Try rebooting the switch / router.

BUT i will tel you, I have a system that is much bigger and ever since zigbee PRO my / 1.8 my system has been slugish and doing strange things. I have spoken to my dealer and we cant seem to fix it 100%!!!

You have a HC1000 I have a HC 300 as my director........... My dealer says to get a HC1000 and wait for 2.0 to come out..............

We will see...../sigh

What gets me is the so called " update " to 1.8 zigbee pro was more like a " downgrade" !!!!

[davidrab]

The system has one Cisco/Linksys SR2016 with (if memory serves me correctly-gotta

get that network diagram done) most/all the C4 components, an SR2024 with room

ethernet connections, files servers, etc and they come together in a Cisco/Linksys

router (can't remember the model number right now).

We've rebooted the switches and routers to no real avail.

A general sluggishness might even be better than super fast for days (or sometimes

minute to minute) and then very slow. The randomness of things going wrong (one time

it works, one time it does something wrong, another time it does something different)

is disheartening too.

It would have been interesting to see this system run on 1.7.xxx, unfortunately, it

is was it is.

[takitezsdc]

I really think that Zibee PRO has major bugs in it and its something that C4 needs to fix...........hopefully it will be fixed in 2.0.

I feel for you and I have the same problems. Complain to your dealer and let him know that others are having the same problems= C4 will have to address it!

[tekdoc]

I doubt the programming with HE is doing it. You might want to see if your dealer can bring out a different HC-1000 to try.

[davidrab]

I doubt the programming with HE is doing it. You might want to see if your dealer can bring out a different HC-1000 to try.

I agree with the small amount of HE programming not being it, but we are being told that it is most likely the culprit. From reading this forum

for a while, I didn't get the impression that, in general, HE programming would cause these issues. That's what made us confused and I thought

I'd bring up the general question. I'm almost thinking of starting a new post in the trouble shooting section because I'm still pretty convinced

(although I could be wrong) that these issues are not related to HE. It's becoming a bit of an annoying situation though.

[RyanE]

Are your versions of Director and HE the same?

RyanE

[davidrab]

Are your versions of Director and HE the same?

RyanE

I'm 99% sure, but I'll double check that.

[takitezsdc]

Ryan are you willing to comment on Zigbee Pro?

I mean..........humm the old Zigbee worked better than the " pro " /smile

Give me back my old zigbee~!!

Are yall working on a fix for this? 2.0?

[dogdvr]

He will probably not comment more than he has, but remember one of the features of pro was encryption, that makes each hop have to decode the signal and then reencode the signal to send it on.

It is my understanding that this was added because of the new standards of the zigbee alliance, (allowing more intergration with 3rd party products).

Could the code be a little better optimized under 2.0?

I do not know, but I would imagine that if they can improve performance they will try to do so.

Brent

[Rsmolo]

I have absolutely no problems with zigbee pro. You have to make some upgrades and I'm not talking about hc1000. You need to eliminate multiple jumps. With old set up having dimmer or remote communicate with 4 jumps was not noticeable, that changed with pro. Placing ZAP's arround the house and cutting jumps to 0 or 1 makes a big difference.

edit to : zigbee pro in 1.8 will be zigbee pro in 2.0, I do not see big change comming.

[davidrab]

When it's working, the system is really fast. After a little playing yesterday the system was

running with very little delay in the time it took to press a remote button or a keypad button

to the time the function happened (max < 2sec). I don't know what the system would have

been like with 1.7 but I don't see any issue with 1.8 when the system is running right.

Of course this morning they email me and say that if they press a keypad button it will take

xx seconds before the light would turn on. The other thing they mentioned was that certain

functions wouldn't work this morning (like playing the radio on the C4 tuner in the bathroom).

[RyanE]

There *have* been some speed improvements in 2.0 that affect ZigBee Pro performance, specifically the speed of the List Navigator interface on the remotes.

I personally think it's quite a bit better in 2.0, but on the other hand, I've been running betas for about 5 years now, so I haven't had a 1.7 or previous system to test against for over a year.

RyanE

[davidrab]

Well, it seems that the programming may not have been the problem.

It sounds like a Denon 3310 for the theater, using IP control, was jamming

up the IP network. A full power cycle on the Denon seemed to have fixed

the issue so far.

Another issue (no audio in one zone) was also solved. This does seem to have

been somewhat related to HE though. Somehow the "volume" got turned all the

way down in the zone. The only thing I can figure is that loading in a backup

caused this to go to 0, even though it wasn't at 0 in the backup. Not sure

how but I can't see anyway else.

There also seemed to have been an issue with a TV driver. When an older backup

got loaded an incorrect TV driver got loaded (unknown at the time it was wrong but

now known). When a newer backup, with the correct TV driver, was loaded, the

older driver stayed even though the rest of the backup loaded. This seems weird

but from all indications it's what happened.

We appreciate all the assistance!