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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 20 2008 at 18:39 | IP Logged
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I keep getting a stream of continuous Status Requests from a X10 device that I have no knowledge of and that is sometimes bringing everything to its knees!
Does anyone have any idea what the following "J (Status Request)" activity might be all about?
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: August 21 2008 at 11:43 | IP Logged
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I think it could be noise - like maybe a PC power-supply gone flakey. Are you getting continuous blinking on your insteon, or X-10 bridge, LEDs? If so - have you plugged anything new in lately? if not, start by turning off your breakers one at a time to find the one that makes it go away, and then start unplugging non-a/c-adapter electronics on that circuit until you find the one that makes it go away
/j
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BeachBum
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| Posted: August 21 2008 at 13:41 | IP Logged
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I think Jeff is right on but just for a long shot you might try resetting the PLC just in case.
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 22 2008 at 10:11 | IP Logged
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All good suggestions. Thanks.
Unfortunately nothing helped sooooo I dusted off my trusty Oscilliscope and began monitoring the pass-thru outlet on the PLM (can't get any closer to seeing the same thing that the PLM is, than that!).
My power line is amazingly clean. Much better than I expected, by far. I can readily see the ~100KHz X10/Insteon powerline communications, and every time I get a false X10 message it is clearly visable as modulation on the power line. Surprisingly though, the signal levels seemed quite high (almost 4 volts peak-peak which matches the TX specification). This seemed higher than I would have expected for a RX signal, making me wonder if the signals are in fact originating from the PLM itself.
Then I noticed that I had the following Event Log capture
The Macro GETSTAT should have been quering the Thermostat with the three Insteon Out commands sent, but the first two are logged as "Unmapped Command". Also, between the last bad command and a valid "TStat Control" command is a bogus "J10" X10 signal.
Bottom line. It looks to me like I may have a bad PLM (which is just a week old so I have no history with it, except that things have never worked right as far as I was concerned right from the get go).
Anyone have any thoughts? 
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nadler
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| Posted: August 22 2008 at 10:44 | IP Logged
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Here is my event log when my Stats are accessed. What is the Analog input? You seem to be using a different macro then the one I am using. Could that be it?
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BeachBum
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| Posted: August 22 2008 at 10:56 | IP Logged
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I have experienced weird problems with unsolicited incoming X10 signals with the PLM. I have found them using the Raw Log. Typically when this happens the PLM gets lost and sometimes loops and sends out strange X10 commands and PH doesn’t see it. Those X10 commands controlled by PH don’t seem to have a problem.
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 22 2008 at 12:34 | IP Logged
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Nadler -
I am using Dave's Virtual Analog Device macros which do not populate the Global Variables.
When things go well my STAT inquiry transmissions all look similar to the 09:50:26 Insteon Out transmission in my image above.
It was just the several occurances of strangness before it that I noticed while debugging the noise stream. That strangness is not common but seemed to me to be a possible symptom of PLM malfunction that explained the bogus streams of "J Status" and "M13 On/Off" commands, etc I have been seeing.
Sometimes this bogus traffic is so bad that my lights won't reliably work as they can't sneak a "valid" communication string into the too busy com-stream!
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 08:15 | IP Logged
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After several days of experimentation and watching the power line with an oscilloscope it seems pretty clear to me that the rogue command streams I am seeing are not random but are being generated by one of my Insteon devices.
Using PH I have cleared all X10 addresses out of all Insteon devices. I have no X10 devices connected anywhere now. In other words I now have a pure Insteon network. I do not have not checked any of X10 status/ramp/level boxes in PH to stop it looking for them.
Every time a rogue command sequence appears I can clearly see it on the scope with a little over a 3v peak-to-peak signal at ~130KHZ appearing at the zero crossings. My electrical lines are amazingly clean, but then we live in the country and the closest neighbor is about 1/2 mile away, so the only noise should be what we create in our own home (and there sure shouldn’t be much because I have a small fortune in noise filters on every PC, TV, and other significant electronics device!)
The rogue command sequences appear to always be triggered right after a GETSTAT query. It does not happen every time but comes and goes in long periods. For instance, last night things worked OK until 02:25:01AM [below yellow arrow]. As can be seen, before that time the STAT was queried every 5 minutes without incident.
Then the problems begin [above arrow]and continue all night long with 23-27 "X10 J{Status}" rogue requests appearing after EVERY GETSTAT sequence until my DAWN macro executed just after 7AM.
At 07:14:44AM when my DAWN macro executed [yellow arrow] the subsequent GETSTAT macros have run (now for over an hour as I write this) without any rogue sequences. The DAWN macro just turns off various night lights around the hose and resets KPL keypads back to a cleared state to make sure the button lights are back in sync with the lights they control. I do note that my downstairs KPL has the highest NAK count of any of my network devices. Could it be a "sicky"?
A past experiment was to disconnect my Insteon STAT module and it did not stop the rogue sequences. Given the positive rogue signalling seen on the oscilloscope it just seems that I have to have a Insteon device gone wild somewhere.
Something appears clearly tied to the execution of GETSTAT macro and gets confused or cleared up by commands sent by other macros.
Edited by GadgetGuy - August 25 2008 at 08:18
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BeachBum
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 08:27 | IP Logged
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I had a rogue X10 flow coming out of an ICON Appliance Module. It usually occurred when I had it hardware (not PH) linked as a responder to a ControlLinc.The only way I was able to reset it was to hardware reset the device. I finally sent it back to SH. This was ultimately randomly locking up the PLM.
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nadler
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 09:03 | IP Logged
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I guess you have to disconnect each Insteon device one at a time to isolate the problem.
Have you tried unplugging your Access lincs and then running the Tstat macro? I know they don't retransmit X-10 but maybe when they are receiving an RF signal and retransmitting, they are causing another Insteon device to do something wacky. Also I read on another board that night lites can cause crazy communication problems as well. My next guess would be the KPL. I've had to replace a couple of those over the years. They seem the least reliable.
By the way, when you figure out the problem, Smarthome will send you an official "Insteon Detective TShirt" 
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 09:17 | IP Logged
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Man! I love a challenge BUT to get a T-shirt too is almost more excitement that I can fathom!
Cool!
I'm on it and will report back when I discover anything! 
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 09:28 | IP Logged
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nadler wrote:
| ...Also I read on another board that night lites can cause crazy communication problems as well.... |
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A GREAT BIG 10-4 on that one! The worst are the LED night lites which pretty effectively clip the X10/Insteon signals back down to nothing. Use of these LED night lights virtually guarantees problems! Even the electronics in the neon units or anything that has dark/light auto on/off control will often squash signalling.
I have made all my night lites an Insteon LampLinc module with a plug-to-bulb converter and a regular bulb run at a dimmed level.
That lets me set any brightness level I want (even change it from pre-bed to post-bed time) and is fully compatible with all the Insteon devices. 
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 12:25 | IP Logged
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Major experiments complete!
I started flipping off every Breaker in the house and still keep getting "J{Status}" bogus command messages.
Finally in desperation I plugged the PLM only into a UPS supply which was unplugged from the wall and running on battery. This totally isolated the PLM from all devices in the house as it was connected to nothing.
I still got a mixture of "J{Status}" as well as "M On" and "K All Lights On" commands. Clearly these could come from NOWHERE but the PLM, thus I am now left with the only conclusion that the PLM is "funky" and needs to be replaced.
Has anyone seen this behavior before? Does anyone concur with my findings?
(The top two green "Incoming X-10" responses appeared with the PLM only connected to a UPS running on battery and thus isolated from all home Insteon or X10 devices.)
PS- where do I apply for the T-shirt?
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nadler
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 13:01 | IP Logged
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You've probably tried this already, but have you reset the PLM and then from with PH Insteon Explorer Setup tab Cleared the PLM database and then Add Min to put back the PH database into the PLM. Perhaps there is some bogus X-10 info in the PLM?
A long shot, but I want the Tshirt too.
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 13:16 | IP Logged
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Yes nadler. I have tried that 3 times over the last few days without success.
I'm about to call SmartHome and request a replacement unit as I can't see that it can be anything else unless anyone suspects there could be an issue between the PH and PLM interface.
I did not have this issue with the PLC. It only appeared several weeks ago when I upgraded to a PLM. By the process of elimination it just now seems like it has to be the PLM.
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 13:47 | IP Logged
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nadler wrote:
| By the way, when you figure out the problem, Smarthome will send you an official "Insteon Detective TShirt" |
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Well if you're pulling my leg, I fell for it! When I called in to get an RMA# for my PLM, I made the SmartHome tech rep go ask his supervisor how I got a T-shirt.
No one knew anything about them! Heck. I thought it would be a neat thing to have too.
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nadler
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| Posted: August 25 2008 at 14:02 | IP Logged
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I owe you a Tshirt 
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 30 2008 at 14:45 | IP Logged
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Hey, I definately earned that t-shirt, I want ta tell ya. 
Put my new PLM into operation and rogue traffic decreased to less than 10% of what it was before, but I still had some. In a flash of inspiration I tore the X10 Bridge Coupler/Repeater out of my breaker panel
and now I haven't had a signle rogue command in over 24 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yah! 
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: August 30 2008 at 18:35 | IP Logged
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if you need a good bridge, I've been happy with the levitron HCA02-10E. if you shop you can find it for like $60
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GadgetGuy
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| Posted: August 31 2008 at 07:43 | IP Logged
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Thanks Jeff, but at last I have converted over to a completely Insteon house except for a single yard light that is on an Insteon ApplianceLinc module, which also has an X10 "A1" address for a keyfob control. The X10 RF Receiver for that light is plugged into the same circuit as the light, so I don't need any cross phase coupling any more.
So after many years of reliabily issues I seem to be running rock solid now with nothing but Insteon devices (helped I'm sure by the five AccessPoint Insteon couplers I've also installed.
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Topic: Status Request Gone Wild
