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kenbr
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 11:54 | IP Logged
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last night i set up my insteon devices and some simple timers to turn outside lights on at sunset and off at sunrise. everything was working fine. i could control all of my devices and status updated as expected. i noticed the blue lights on various devices were showing a lot of activity even when i went to bed some hours later.
the sunset timers all worked fine. this morning the first 2 of 3 timers set to turn off the lights worked, but the last one failed even though the log showed that the event had been given to the plc. the syntax of that formula was correct.
then i noticed that i could not access any of the insteon devices. a restart of PH hung at a window with the error message "ISRESPONDING command failed" with the number "5" (i assume a countdown) stuck. i rebooted XP and tried again with the same failure.
next, i unplugged the plc and plugged it back in and then tried again. this time it worked. i can again control my devices.
several questions, please...
1. what can i check to determine why the plc locked up? this would be a problem if i'm out of town and depending upon PH to control my lighting.
2. yesterday there was a lot of activity with the insteon devices shown in the insteon explorer pending and completed window. it was non-stop. today, there is nothing. is this because yesterday PH was looking for links, etc.? or, do i have something wrong?
3. i have one x-10 device that i'm controlling and i set a timer for that device to turn it on last night. this worked, but the status in the "device status" window did not change from off to on. is this normal, or did i fail to set it up correctly?
thanks for the help!
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TonyNo
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 13:38 | IP Logged
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It sounds like the PowerLinc (PL) hung up and you discovered the fix (cycling power).
When you say timers, do you mean PH Timed Events?
1. The latest version of PH should see SDM lock-up's and try to restart it. I don't know if PH can do anything about a locked up PL.
2. There should always be some activity, unless you have polling turned off or the SDM/PL is hung.
3. PL's do not work so well with X10. It's also possible that the update transmission was missed. Do you have this X10 device defined in PH?
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BeachBum
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 13:57 | IP Logged
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I too have been bit by the same lockup and the only way to get back to normal is to "cycle power". I thought that reinitialize would help but after I did that it locked up for no apparent reason. Also at that moment there was no scheduled activity going on other than the reinitialize.
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Pete - X10 Oldie
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kenbr
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 17:19 | IP Logged
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thanks, beachbum..
tonyno... yes, i meant timed events from PH -- got to get the nomenclature down. the X10 device is defined in PH. the formula i used is:
ph_x10btn(1,2,0) for on
ph_x10btn(1,3,0) for off
the X10 device ID in PH is the number 1. should I quote it in the formula, e.g., ph_x10btn("1",2,0) ?
i found the reason for no activity. i had to "clear failed" for all of the insteon devices in the device tab and then refresh. once i did that, the activity started back up. i assume the devices failed because the PLC hung.
as a note, i've used another PLC programmed with its own timers (no controlling software) for months with no lock-ups. so, it's disconcerting that the PLC can lock when controlled with PH, and that i experienced this in less than 12 hours of use. i'm using the latest version of PH, and did a clean install with it. as directed in the docs, i downloaded the core application to the PLC, cleared it and once my insteon devices were defined, i added the PH insteon device IDs to the PLC.
so, how often might a user experience PLC hangs? is this a common issue?
thanks!
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BeachBum
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 17:46 | IP Logged
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I had the same problem you have with formulas. In X10 Devices I have HC/UC O2 with the ID of OFFICE so when I enter it into the formula it looks like this. ph_x10btn("office",2,0).
As far as the hangs I get them once in a while and I have SCAN set to OFF. When the PLC locks up it goes dead in the water. NO X10 traffic is recognized.
HTH
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TonyNo
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 17:54 | IP Logged
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The PLC hanging seems to be a function of the SDM and not PH. The new PLM should fix this if they don't fix the SDM.
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kenbr
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 20:07 | IP Logged
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thanks for the x10 formula example and info on PLM/SDM. i've modified my x10 timed event formula to include quotes and i'll see what happens with that.
since i do have some other insteon software on this machine, and after continuing to browse through these forums, i shutdown PH and the SDM, confirmed with task manager, and then manually started the SDM from the PH directories. maybe i was running an older SDM version, though i did not check the version before stopping it. oops.
i also note that PH will consume 100% of my CPU in a regular periodic fashion. this is an older athlon XP 1700+ system with 512 meg of ram. not a speed deamon, but i figure it should be adequate for this. is this normal?
i'm also curious about what others are doing with the PH/SDM/insteon combination when they go on vacation, etc. i use insteon to automate lighting, etc., when i'm away and the house is empty. i need to depend on this. am i better just running timers in the PLC for now until either the SDM is fixed or the PLM is an option?
The more i get in to PH, the more i like it. and i do appreciate all of the answers to my novice questions.
thanks..
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BeachBum
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 20:20 | IP Logged
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I run SDM 235 because I found it to be more stable. Yes I also go away and depend on reliability. That remains to be seen. Tony has got it right; hopefully the PLM will be more reliable. You might want to apply the patch if you don't have it on. This should relieve the CPU usage. Maybe others can chime in on your configuration
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ginigma
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| Posted: July 18 2007 at 21:14 | IP Logged
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I've had my PLC plugged in with no problems for at least 3 months now. It's been nice and stable (knock on wood!). PH has been pretty stable also. I'm using SDM 308.
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Insteon (40 devices) ^ PowerHome (435 links) ^ Logitech Harmony 880
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kenbr
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| Posted: July 19 2007 at 08:56 | IP Logged
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beachbum, what patch are you talking about?
also, quoting the X10 device name in my timed events formula did solve the issue with the X10 device not updating in the device status after the timed event fired.
thanks everyone!
ken
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BeachBum
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| Posted: July 19 2007 at 09:02 | IP Logged
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Ken,
Here's the patch, fix , whatever
From Dave's post:
Anyways, it appears that the alpha testers are all having good results with the latest PowerBuilder runtime files. Anybody having problems should shutdown PowerHome and unzip these files into their SYSTEM32 directory. http://www.power-home.com/download/pb903_8836.zip
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Pete - X10 Oldie
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kenbr
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| Posted: July 19 2007 at 20:17 | IP Logged
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i applied the patch, but there's no difference in my cpu usage. not a big deal...
ken
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Topic: insteon controller crash
