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smarty
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| Posted: October 25 2015 at 14:34 | IP Logged
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Background:
PH2.1.5.d, Win 7 x32 Home Prem
Elk M1 Gold Controller (Ethernet).
IP Address: 192.168.0.104
Port: 2101
M1 Version: 5.2.10
M1XEP Version: 1.3.28
I have 112 Elk analog I/O's
and about 30 Elk Digital I/O's
Insteon PLM Controller
Device Type: 0311
Port: COM18
Firmware: 92
ID: 13.1F.5D
I have 78 total Insteon devices
Issue: My system is quite reliable, controllers (8) and plugins (8 also) normally work VERY well. Usually only two of us in the house.
HOWEVER - when we host large parties, I see performance issues with my lights where the Insteon PLM tries to reconnect periodically (it does reconnect successfully, but it never has this issues unless I have many of the lights on and dimmed). Also, turning on a new light is spotty...I end up with double/triple button presses because the response is not like normal.
The other issue I see has to do with the Elk. With all the people coming and going, my Elk zone updates are super frequent. However, when I tell the elk to perform a task, it seems that the Elk queue gets clogged, and I sometimes end up with a double or triple button press, because the first press was unresponsive (never does this when it is just the wife and I).
Ideas I had thought about:
1) For parties, I turn off system logging (thinking that that could slow my queue). If there was a way to turn off elk zone updates that might also help?
2) My Insteon PLM is VERY OLD. I did buy an Insteon USB RF PLM (V3.0 3514), as recommended by Dave. Maybe this newer PLM could help? Question, what is the proper way to swap out a PLM?
3) Could one of these systems be slowing down the other? My thinking is that the Elk is seeing many zone changes, and that could be messing up the Insteon (since my lighting changes are minimal once the party is up and going).
4) How might I try to duplicate this "stress test" without holding another big party?
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Elk - Insteon - BlueIris - DMC1 - PowerHome - XLobby - HA_Bridge w/Dots - Brultech
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smarty
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| Posted: October 27 2015 at 20:31 | IP Logged
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Any comments on this one... I am thinking I will try this first...
2) My Insteon PLM is VERY OLD. I did buy an Insteon USB RF PLM (V3.0 3514), as recommended by Dave. Maybe this newer PLM could help? Question, what is the proper way to swap out a PLM?
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Elk - Insteon - BlueIris - DMC1 - PowerHome - XLobby - HA_Bridge w/Dots - Brultech
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dhoward
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| Posted: October 27 2015 at 22:36 | IP Logged
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Steve,
Not quite sure what would be going on. Would need some
more info to wager a guess.
When you say the Insteon system is not very responsive
(turning on a new light is spotty), is that control
action coming from PowerHome or from another Insteon
switch? Having a large number of lights on in the
house, Im not sure why that would have an effect on
the PLM connecting and reconnecting.
Concerning the Elk queue filling up...is this the
queue from within PowerHome or the Elk itself? You say
it takes multiple button presses for a response to
happen. What are the "buttons" in this scenario and
what is being controlled.
I don't think shutting off system logging will have
much of an effect. I think just the opposite is needed
as I would really need to see the full system logs in
order to get an idea of what is going on in the system
to try and pinpoint where the issue actually is. I
would think this would be the first step in trying to
determine the issue (you may already have some logs
stored that you can send me so I can see the Insteon,
Elk, triggers, etc that are occurring).
Not sure of a good way to replicate other than having
your wife run wildly through the house triggering all
of your Elk zones  . Probably will need to wait for
an actual use case scenario. I would be very
interested in seeing detailed logging when the
problems are present.
PowerHome has been designed with the core processing
engine to be single-tasking with every event being
added to the queue to insure actions happen and are
processed in the precise order that they occurred. It
is entirely possible for one reason or another for
something to be slowing or stalling the queue. If the
Insteon PLM is having to reconnect, this will
definitely stall the queue holding up any Insteon or
Elk commands waiting to be processed until the
reconnect occurs. Im just not sure if the reconnect is
what is causing the problem or the reconnect is result
of a different problem and they're compounding.
Swapping the PLM may be a simple first thing to try
(other than trying to get me some logs ). There
are a couple of ways to swap the PLM depending upon
your desired end result. If its a straight swap and
you basically won't be using the old PLM anymore, you
can use the "Replace Address" column in the Devices
tab. Locate the current PLM line, and manually type in
the address of the new PLM. You should set the Poll
Interval to 0 before doing this so the new links arent
written using the old PLM (a problem for the I2CS
devices). Add the new PLM as a controller in PowerHome
Explorer and remove the old PLM as controller. Reinit
or restart and let PowerHome connect to the new PLM.
It should also start writing/replacing all the old PLM
links with the new PLM.
If you want to add the new PLM and have it available
in addition to the old PLM (or have the old PLM be on
hand as a backup to the new PLM), you basically want
to duplicate ALL of the old PLM links to the new PLM.
In this case, I would manually add the new PLM as a
device in the "Devices" tab. Save the changes. Next,
go to the Links tab in Insteon Explorer and press the
"Refresh" text. After the refresh, make the current
(old) PLM the currently selected device. I would then
highlight (select) all the controller links and all
the responder links and click the "Copy" text. Make
the new PLM the current selected device and then press
the "Paste" text. When prompted if you want to add the
old PLM as links as well go ahead and choose no. Save
the changes. Let all of the newly copied links be
created while still connected to the old controller
(again, for the I2CS devices). Once all the links are
created, you can then set the new PLM as the
controller.
Dave.
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smarty
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| Posted: November 07 2015 at 16:28 | IP Logged
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Help please...
I am trying to change out my plug-in dual band Insteon PLM (because I think it is starting to go bad).
I am trying to switch to, and set up a new Insteon Controller (Insteon USB Stick). After initially plugging in the USB stick to the computer, I saw the driver load, and the new COM port show up. I set the COM port speed back up to 19,200 bps. When I go to set up the controller within PH, I set the "controller type" to "Insteon PLM", ..then, after the restart I get a System message that says "The PLM controller requires a minimum firmware of 63. Your firmware version is 3A. Unable to start PLM controller PH_PLM_USB".
What should the controller type be if I am using an Insteon USB Rf stick like described here?
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Elk - Insteon - BlueIris - DMC1 - PowerHome - XLobby - HA_Bridge w/Dots - Brultech
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dhoward
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| Posted: November 07 2015 at 22:22 | IP Logged
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Steve,
You've got everything setup correct. Just manually edit
your pwrhome.ini file and in the [PLM] section and set
the "pre63" value from 0 to 1. Save and restart
PowerHome and the error will be gone.
Dave.
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smarty
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| Posted: November 08 2015 at 14:35 | IP Logged
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That indeed was the trick to resolving the error message listed above. Thanks!
There was one more tricky item that I also had to overcome. Initially, in my Insteon Types table there was no entry for the "2448A7 - USB Adapter" Rf stick. So, when switching out my prior plugin PLM for the USB stick, I did an "address replace" as mentioned above. That worked, by my Insteon modem remained the "device type" of the old PLM (not the 2448A7 - USB Adapter as it should have been).
In order to get the new device type into the table via "auto detect", I had to plug in my 2nd Rf stick (I bought two - just in cases I have to replace it in the future), and used auto detect to find that second stick, and then to add to the Insteon device table.
After rebuilding a number of my switches to clear link fragmentation, it appears all is back to normal.
FYI...As my old plugin dual band PLM failed, the symptoms were slower and slower response to a PLM initiated Insteon commands. It was taking up to 3-6 seconds for the PLM to turn a light on or off. With the new PLM (no other changes), I am back to near instantaneous.
Very Happy!!
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Elk - Insteon - BlueIris - DMC1 - PowerHome - XLobby - HA_Bridge w/Dots - Brultech
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dhoward
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| Posted: November 08 2015 at 21:04 | IP Logged
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Steve,
Glad to hear the system is now responding as it should.
Ive had plenty of PLM's go bad but cant remember if I
had one behave like yours (its seems like I did have one
where everything was taking much longer than it should).
So far, Ive been working pretty good with the RF stick.
Dave.
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Topic: Stress Test - Elk and Insteon
