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    Z-net starting to hang once per day

    I have a first generation Z-Net that has treated me well for many years. Once in a blue moon (maybe once or twice a year) the device would hang - become no longer pingable. However recently it’s been happening more often, and in the last week it’s started to be a daily thing. Giving it a power cycle brings it back.

    I had planned to buy a remote power control device to auto power cycle it if it goes offline, but now I’m starting to wonder if the device is simply flaking out and maybe I need to consider replacing it. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions to investigate and/or breath more life into it or should I just bite the bullet and replace it?

    #2
    I still have a gen1 Z-Net from when it was first released. Yearly, I re-image to a new SD card. You might try that first to make sure it's not the SD card failing.
    After that, try changing the power supply. Mine is running on a POE splitter.
    HS4Pro on a Raspberry Pi4
    54 Z-Wave Nodes / 21 Zigbee Devices / 108 Events / 767 Devices
    Plugins: Z-Wave / Zigbee Plus / EasyTrigger / AK Weather / OMNI

    HSTouch Clients: 1 Android

    Comment


      #3
      The two things Rob mentioned are most common. The early power supplies were less reliable than the later ones and the OEM 4gb cards are best replaced by a high quality Sandisk, Samsung or other more durable card. I went to SanDisk Ultra 16GB cards and POE power for all of my Z-Nets in 2017 and have not had a single hiccup.
      HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

      Comment


        #4
        Randy, good to know. I didn't know Z-net supported POE or are you using the POE adapter? If so, which one are you using. I wouldn't mind losing a wall wart ...
        HS3PRO 3.0.0.500 as a Fire Daemon service, Windows 2016 Server Std Intel Core i5 PC HTPC Slim SFF 4GB, 120GB SSD drive, WLG800, RFXCom, TI103,NetCam, UltraNetcam3, BLBackup, CurrentCost 3P Rain8Net, MCsSprinker, HSTouch, Ademco Security plugin/AD2USB, JowiHue, various Oregon Scientific temp/humidity sensors, Z-Net, Zsmoke, Aeron Labs micro switches, Amazon Echo Dots, WS+, WD+ ... on and on.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by langenet View Post
          Randy, good to know. I didn't know Z-net supported POE or are you using the POE adapter? If so, which one are you using. I wouldn't mind losing a wall wart ...
          I've been using this POE adapter from amazon for a couple years with no issues.
          -Wade

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by langenet View Post
            Randy, good to know. I didn't know Z-net supported POE or are you using the POE adapter? If so, which one are you using. I wouldn't mind losing a wall wart ...
            I’ve used these in the past. They are compact and make a reasonably trim package.

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            The TP-Link ones have been fine as well.

            Click image for larger version

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            I am currently using the Raspberry Pi POE hat with Pi 3B+ boards. I wrote about the project here. I have 5 up and running for almost 3 years.
            HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

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              #7
              One more thing I will add is that with my Ubiquiti system I can remotely reboot my Z-Nets by power cycling the switch port. I’ve never needed it due to a hung Z-Net but I do have an event that 1) power cycles all Z-Nets and 2) shuts down HS and reboots the server. On a couple of occasions over the last several years my Z-Wave network has experienced high latency and this routine has cleared it.

              Click image for larger version

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              HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

              Comment


                #8
                Thanks Wade for that. I ordered one up. I really need to reduce the number of wall warts I have with my setup... . I've never had an issue with my Z-net and therefore never had to reboot/restart it... well, at least not yet.
                HS3PRO 3.0.0.500 as a Fire Daemon service, Windows 2016 Server Std Intel Core i5 PC HTPC Slim SFF 4GB, 120GB SSD drive, WLG800, RFXCom, TI103,NetCam, UltraNetcam3, BLBackup, CurrentCost 3P Rain8Net, MCsSprinker, HSTouch, Ademco Security plugin/AD2USB, JowiHue, various Oregon Scientific temp/humidity sensors, Z-Net, Zsmoke, Aeron Labs micro switches, Amazon Echo Dots, WS+, WD+ ... on and on.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Ok, so to be clear - you’re not saying the device supports POE, you’re saying you’re using a POE splitter to pull power from POE and split it to the power port on the device. That’s a good idea, I might try that, though I’m (relatively) sure it’s not power that is my current problem. I did indeed have to replace my power adapter once, and currently when the device hangs, it appears that the power to the device is still there. Unless it’s JUST flaky enough that it causes the device to hang. I’ll have to test.

                  swapping the SD card is a good idea - anyone have a link to the safest/best procedure to do the imaging?

                  regards,

                  Paul

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Correct - the Pi does not support a POE direct connection. You must use either a POE splitter or a POE hat.
                    For imaging, you can use Win32DiskImager or BalenaEtcher.
                    HS4Pro on a Raspberry Pi4
                    54 Z-Wave Nodes / 21 Zigbee Devices / 108 Events / 767 Devices
                    Plugins: Z-Wave / Zigbee Plus / EasyTrigger / AK Weather / OMNI

                    HSTouch Clients: 1 Android

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Ok, I decided to go with this POE device, just because it didn't need the adapter wire:

                      https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

                      It arrived today and is working nicely. I was going to re-image the sd card today as well except I received the wrong card - I made the mistake of not double checking first, and ordered an SD card when I needed a Micro sd card. :P Micro SD card will arrive wed......

                      Paul

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                        #12
                        Added bonus, because I'm now on POE, I'm using my Zenoss monitoring server to monitor the ping up/down state of my z-net interface, and if it goes offline for 5 minutes it'll remotely ssh to my switch and reset the port, power cycling the z-net....

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by rmasonjr View Post
                          Correct - the Pi does not support a POE direct connection. You must use either a POE splitter or a POE hat.
                          For imaging, you can use Win32DiskImager or BalenaEtcher.
                          I did end up using BalenaEtcher to copy the card to a new 16Gb card. However on boot I now get a boot failure with:

                          Code:
                          Cannot open root device "mccblk0p2" or unknown-block(179,2): error -6
                          Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
                          b300.  15558144 mmcblk0  driver:mmcblk
                          Mainly it looks like it is seeing the card as a different device name perhaps? I'm doing some digging now, but any idea how to go about setting the correct boot option? (I've never worked with Raspberry Pis before, though I am fairly comfortable in general linuxy stuff). ie. Is there any way I can set it on bootup and then ssh in and correct it properly, or do I need to pull the sd card out and mount it to my mac to find the boot config?

                          Comment


                            #14
                            After doing some digging, I pulled the SD card and mounted it on my mac. Found that in one of the config files (cmdline.txt I think) it had a reference to /dev/mccblk0p2 . I tried changing that to mccblk0, and this time it got further, but then failed with:

                            Code:
                            No filesystem could mount root, tried: ext4
                            So, for now I'm back up and running with my old SD card. I am on POE now at least, we'll see if the power supply solved my original problem or not. I wouldn't mind solving the filesystem mounting issue on the new SD card though, if anyone has any ideas.


                            SIDE NOTE: After swapping cards, I ran into a hardware issue - the SD Card stopped staying in the slot - I'd push it in, but it wouldn't lock and woudl just pop back out. I ended up fixing that using this method here:

                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXM6Q6nLWAo

                            Just for those of you who might be interested or read this later and need it. It's apparently a common problem.

                            Paul

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by paul View Post

                              I did end up using BalenaEtcher to copy the card to a new 16Gb card. However on boot I now get a boot failure with:

                              Code:
                              Cannot open root device "mccblk0p2" or unknown-block(179,2): error -6
                              Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
                              b300. 15558144 mmcblk0 driver:mmcblk
                              Mainly it looks like it is seeing the card as a different device name perhaps? I'm doing some digging now, but any idea how to go about setting the correct boot option? (I've never worked with Raspberry Pis before, though I am fairly comfortable in general linuxy stuff). ie. Is there any way I can set it on bootup and then ssh in and correct it properly, or do I need to pull the sd card out and mount it to my mac to find the boot config?
                              I'm not sure about that error. In BalenaEtcher and try turning off Trim ext{234} partitions and see if that helps.
                              HS4Pro on a Raspberry Pi4
                              54 Z-Wave Nodes / 21 Zigbee Devices / 108 Events / 767 Devices
                              Plugins: Z-Wave / Zigbee Plus / EasyTrigger / AK Weather / OMNI

                              HSTouch Clients: 1 Android

                              Comment

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