SDcard died - Need to locate a z-net image

[paul]

Hey folks, my z-net died tonight, from what I've been able to determine a steady red pwr light implies sd card has died. I do have a spare SD card I can use, but need the image to dump onto it. My superficial digging suggests I'll need to put in a support ticket, which I'm happy to do, except that it means that I'll get a response at the earliest Monday. Hoping to find one before that. Anyone know if there is one to download somewhere, or able to supply me with one? Otherwise I guess I'm without lighting control until monday at the earliest...

[paul]

To be fair, it looks like I can mount the sd card on my laptop. So perhaps it hasn't died and there's a different issue?

[Rupp]

Monday is a holiday so the earliest will be Tuesday. You can order a new Z-Net card here:
https://shop.homeseer.com/products/z...b4ddf14e&_ss=r

[paul]

Hmmm. It’s unfortunate that I need to spend 30 bucks on it rather than just be able to download the image. That’s fine, however, if that’s what’s actually wrong. I’d hate to spend $30 on a new SD card to find the hardware has died. Any way of testing the integrity of the card or the hardware?

[zwolfpack]

Good first step is to hook up an HDMI monitor, boot the unit, and report what shows on the monitor. Also what, if anything, the Z-Wave LED on the front is doing, as well as the Raspberry Pi LED's inside.

[paul]

Already done. The only light that lights up is the Pwr light, with a steady red. Nothing comes up on screen with a display attached. Don’t know what else there is to try…..

[zwolfpack]

If you want to dig in ...
Download Raspberry Pi OS Lite from here.
Using Etcher, burn that onto a fresh SD card and try booting it. If this works, it's verification that the original SD card is indeed the failed component.

Beyond that, you could install and configure one application (ser2net) that would get your Z-Wave network back on the air.

[paul]

If you want to dig in ...
Download Raspberry Pi OS Lite from here.
Using Etcher, burn that onto a fresh SD card and try booting it. If this works, it's verification that the original SD card is indeed the failed component.

Beyond that, you could install and configure one application (ser2net) that would get your Z-Wave network back on the air.

That’s a good idea, I may give that a shot to verify if it’s the sd card or the hardware that has gone bad.

just a sanity check - if I boot Up with RPi Lite, I won’t risk the configuration on the hardware? I seem to recall thinking I read that the config data is stored on the hardware on something solid-state-ish. I could be misremembering though….

[paul]

zwolfpack , So I went and downloaded it and installed the image on a 16GB card I picked up. On boot I'm getting a green light blinking four times, and no video. On superficial digging it looks like 4 green blinks means invalid boot image. Now, I'm also doing a bit of reading that suggested the boot image can be impacted by what version of pi hardware you're running. My z-net is first generation, and looking at the motherboard it appears to be a Model B+ (1.2). Any idea if the image I'm downloading might be impacted by that? I'll continue to dig....

[zwolfpack]

The image I linked should run on any Pi hardware. Make sure you install the image correctly. Here is the Raspberry Pi page with their imager: https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/

[paul]

Great minds think alike, I just tried that a moment ago, same result. Doing more digging on the four blinking lights. To be fair, the blinking green is further than I currently get with the z-net sd card, so it could still be that the z-net sd card is corrupt, just hoping to determine that's the problem before I spend $30 on an SD card and then have to go spend again on a new z-net. For now, I'll dig further on that four blinking green.

Two questions if I may:

1. Could I be causing grief installing the Pi image onto a 16GB card instead of a 4GB card? My gut says no, but I probably shouldn't assume.

2. Am I correct that the config is stored in some built-in solid state storage? ie. if I drop in a new SD card from homeseer I'll be good to go? Or will I have to restore from Homeseer's z-wave backup? Corollary to that question - if I end up buying a new z-net controller, presumably if I restore the latest backup from the z-wave dir (looks like it's dated from March of this year, presumably the last time I changed a z-wave device), I should then be able to continue as was from the old controller without further intervention?

regards,

Paul

[zwolfpack]

1. Image can be installed on any sized card.

2. Correct. All Z-Wave specific info is stored in flash on the small GPIO daughter card, not on the SD card nor the Raspberry Pi card.

2a. As of Z-Wave plugin release 3.0.7.0, Z-Wave backups made with prior releases will do you no good, the backup/restore format has changed and the old format isn't accepted for restore. (HST wins the concrete bicycle award for this one).

2b. You might consider getting a new Raspberry Pi card and transfer the Z-Wave GPIO card to that.

[paul]

1. Image can be installed on any sized card.

2. Correct. All Z-Wave specific info is stored in flash on the small GPIO daughter card, not on the SD card nor the Raspberry Pi card.

2a. As of Z-Wave plugin release 3.0.7.0, Z-Wave backups made with prior releases will do you no good, the backup/restore format has changed and the old format isn't accepted for restore. (HST wins the concrete bicycle award for this one).

2b. You might consider getting a new Raspberry Pi card and transfer the Z-Wave GPIO card to that.

Thank you, that's good info. Interestingly, I just checked and my z-wave plugin is still at 3.0.2.0. Sooooo, if I did end up having to buy a new z-net device, the implication is that I should be able to just restore the z-wave backup and good to go?

regards,

Paul

[zwolfpack]

That's good. Then you should be in good shape.

[paul]

Cool. I just found a thread that suggested some older pi hardware could use different boot image specs post March 25, 2013 and to try an earlier image. When I tried a 2012 image I do get different behaviour - this time it's a solid red and solid green, and still nothing on hdmi. Doing some digging there, some people have mentioned corrupt EEPROM as being an issue some folks have seen.

Given that I've tried multiple different images of different ages, and the behaviour I'm seeing, while it could be a bad SD card, seems to be having trouble with a new SD card and multiple different images, and there is precedence for hardware issues here, maybe at this point I'll just bite the bullet and buy a new z-net, given that my backup in theory should be good. Then I'll be on newer hardware as well and hopefully won't have have other issues crop up in the near future. Given that this is a gen 1, first run device, it has treated me well over the years.... .

Thanks for the info and help, all!

regards,

Paul