A haunted wall box?

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11-11-2015, 12:21 PM
wkearney99

A haunted wall box?

I've tried using three RRD-6D different switches, and even moved them, the other devices in the box and the main repeaters around. But one particular location just does not want to reliably accept programming during a transfer from Inclusive.

This pops up in the transfer log:

Quote:

Error: Unable to transfer to Guest Bedroom > Guest Bedroom Door > Guest Bedroom Recessed Lights. The device is not communicating.
Either the device is not powered on, out of range of any repeaters, or has been deactivated.

This has been an infrequent problem for a while, and has happened across various versions of the software. It doesn't happen all the time. The switch does work and a shared scene (an All Off) that I had it programmed into does still control it.

It's new construction and the lighting attached to it is incandescent. It's wired to four 75w bulbs in Lightolier recessed cans. There's a 2ANF fan control and a H6BRL keypad in the same wall box. There's also a 3PD table dimmer elsewhere in the room. It's not at the fringe of installation distance from the repeaters. But putting the repeaters closer did not help the situation. Nor did doing a factory reset (triple-tap-dance) on the switch, or even replacing it with a new one.

I have reused one of the switches I removed (thinking it was bad) and that has gone on to work quite reliably elsewhere in the same house.

Has anyone run into a situation where the 6D acts this way with recessed incandescents? Were these LEDs, CFLs or the light I'd be suspicious, but these are just old-school glowing-wire-incandescents.
11-11-2015, 03:32 PM
SDR-Mike

Haven't had the problem as bad as you have. Haven't seen this happen recently. Last resort- try deleting from the software and factory defaulting the dimmer in question. Then add, activate, and transfer. Only problem, you'll have to re-do all the programming associated with the dimmer throughout the house. The shared all on/off should be okay.
11-11-2015, 03:38 PM
wkearney99

Quote:

Originally Posted by SanDiegoRep

Haven't had the problem as bad as you have. Haven't seen this happen recently. Last resort- try deleting from the software and factory defaulting the dimmer in question. Then add, activate, and transfer. Only problem, you'll have to re-do all the programming associated with the dimmer throughout the house. The shared all on/off should be okay.

Yeah, I guess I could do that. I've sort of already done that, though, when I replace the switch the first time. The one in there now was added by removing the old one from the project and re-creating this new one. Reactivated and transferred again.

Since it's a guest room control it's not like it was integrated with any significant amount of scenes. Just the whole house 'all off' and the bottom-most button on the adjacent hybrid keypad. I tend to program all of those in the house for "area all off". The ones by the exit doors use the whole house 'all off' shared scene.

I'm going to try removing the bulbs and see if anything changes.
11-11-2015, 03:46 PM
wkearney99

Realizing, of course, that with a 6D it won't work with no load on it. So I can't try it with nothing, but I've got just one bulb inserted and it's still not transferring (but the two other devices in the same box, are). Now, I could try each of the four cans but I'm highly skeptical. Still, back up the ladder I'll go...
11-11-2015, 08:52 PM
digit1

I 2nd what SanDiego said. If the device doesn't seem to be the problem (and 2 devices later, it probably isn't the dimmer) then there's something not right in the database. Completely delete the dimmer, zone, and maybe even the control station after cutting and pasting the other devices out of it. Then add a new device to a new control station, and see if your intermittent transfer problems go away. I've seen that fix a couple of weird issues in the distant past.
11-12-2015, 07:35 AM
wkearney99

Quote:

Originally Posted by digit1

I 2nd what SanDiego said. If the device doesn't seem to be the problem (and 2 devices later, it probably isn't the dimmer) then there's something not right in the database. Completely delete the dimmer, zone, and maybe even the control station after cutting and pasting the other devices out of it. Then add a new device to a new control station, and see if your intermittent transfer problems go away. I've seen that fix a couple of weird issues in the distant past.

That the one thing I haven't tried, fully deleting the entire room and all devices in it.

Question, if the devices are being used by a scene/event do I need to (or should I) hunt them down and remove them from the scenes or events first? Or "should" the software automagically drop them? I ask because if there's a database issue I'd want to avoid taking half-steps and still have something corrupted lying around.

Oh, I went a step further and replaced all the bulbs, temporarily, with some really old-school plain incandescents. No change, not that I expected any, but unless it's the cans themselves (or the wire feeding them) there's not much more I could do.
11-12-2015, 05:23 PM
SDR-Mike

Quote:

Originally Posted by wkearney99

Question, if the devices are being used by a scene/event do I need to (or should I) hunt them down and remove them from the scenes or events first? Or "should" the software automagically drop them? I ask because if there's a database issue I'd want to avoid taking half-steps and still have something corrupted lying around.

If you delete the device, the programming is automatically deleted. Ask me how I know... If there's a mistake you can make programming RA2, chances are I've already done it multiple times.
11-12-2015, 06:04 PM
wkearney99

Quote:

Originally Posted by wkearney99

That the one thing I haven't tried, fully deleting the entire room and all devices in it.

Ok, that seems to have done it. I deleted each device individually, then deleted the locations (wall and nightstand) and, lastly, deleted the room. Saved and quit Inclusive.

Went to the devices and did the triple-tap dance to reset them back to factory. Brought inclusive back up and re-created the devices, using the same labels for everything. Changed to Programming and set up the hybrid with it's toggle scenes. Switched to the Activation tab and began activating them. Inclusive was veeerrry slow to switch from the usual blue to showing the Activate text. In the past it's been no more than a few seconds after hearing the 'beep' from the repeater to the text being shown. This time it was at least 10 seconds, for each device. I had activated a few Pico remotes and 3PD unit just a few days ago and did not have the same slow behavior. Odd. But, eventually, the Activate text appeared and I got each device into the database.

Success! The devices now all accepted their transfers properly. That is, no errors for them appeared in the log and the keypad got it's programming.

So hats off for the suggestion to entirely delete the items from the database. That has solved this problem.

It'd be nice if the .RA2 zip files (and the .LUT inside) weren't binary blobs. A text, JSON, XML or other more human-readable file would help debug stuff like this.
11-12-2015, 06:41 PM
wkearney99

Although when I went back and told Inclusive to Transfer again, it seems to have hung up at 77%.

Code:

5:37:46 PM: Starting Transfer...5:37:50 PM: Setting the system date and time (11/12/2015 5:37:50 PM). 5:37:53 PM: Cleaning memory on the main repeater... 5:38:13 PM: Sending Files to System(s) 5:38:45 PM: Transferring databases to devices... 5:39:07 PM: Finalizing transfer. Please wait a few minutes...

It's now 6:14 and it's stuck. Cancel worked, saved to a new project. Quitting and restarting Inclusive now...

Curiously it brought up the 'Find Main Repeater' dialog. Which reported:

Code:

Please select the serial number of the repeater in the corresponding room. Found 2 main repeaters on the network. Pinging IP address 192.168.12.7 to make sure the main repeater is reachable... Attempt #1 Pinging IP address 192.168.12.8 to make sure the main repeater is reachable... Attempt #1 Sending IP multicast to repeater with serial number 0086F204 to verify network connectivity... IP multicast failed for repeater with serial number 0086F204. Please check the network connections to this repeater and firewall settings and try again. Found 2 main repeaters on the network. Pinging IP address 192.168.12.7 to make sure the main repeater is reachable... Attempt #1 Pinging IP address 192.168.12.8 to make sure the main repeater is reachable... Attempt #1 Sending IP multicast to repeater with serial number 0086F204 to verify network connectivity...

Odd, both of these repeaters are literally plugged into the same switch as this laptop running Inclusive. All hard-wired Ethernet, all on static addresses.

I do happen to have Sonos gear on this network, but off on a different switch (actually two hops away). But none of it has been active at all, not for several days. I power-cycled the switch and that allowed Inclusive to see them again. oooo-kay, nothing like network voodoo to complicate the mix. Once that was restarted Inclusive resumed:

Code:

6:16:23 PM: Starting Transfer... 6:22:48 PM: Setting the system date and time (11/12/2015 6:22:48 PM). 6:22:51 PM: Cleaning memory on the main repeater... 6:23:12 PM: Sending Files to System(s) 6:23:45 PM: Transferring databases to devices... 6:24:07 PM: Finalizing transfer. Please wait a few minutes... 6:26:40 PM: Transfer completed. 94 out of 94 activated devices were updated successfully.

On completion I told it to transfer again and got a new error dialog

Code:

Syncing was incomplete. Please check your network connection and try again. Caution: Continuing further will overwrite your homeowner programming tweaks.

Mmmm, what now? Fine, clicked Continue. Progress bar marches through the stages and the transfer continued.

Code:

6:27:50 PM: Starting Transfer...6:30:52 PM: Setting the system date and time (11/12/2015 6:30:52 PM). 6:30:55 PM: Cleaning memory on the main repeater... 6:31:16 PM: Sending Files to System(s) 6:31:48 PM: Transferring databases to devices... 6:32:09 PM: Finalizing transfer. Please wait a few minutes... 6:34:37 PM: Transfer completed. 94 out of 94 activated devices were updated successfully.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have as robust a tool as this to handle the design and programming. But 9.2 does not seem to be without issues...

But hey, at least my haunted wall box has been exorcised.