All my devices and events are gone!

[mulu]

You shouldn't need to restore the Z-Wave controller data. That restores the contents of the Z-Wave controller device, which isn't affected by the corruption of HS4's ridiculous excuse for a database.

You should probably start by running 'Scan Devices' from the Actions menu on the Z-Wave Controller page. You may first need to add back the controller if it's been lost.

https://help.homeseer.com/help/Z-Wav...#.scan_devices

I had the same issue that you experienced. All events and all z-wave devices gone. Only virtual devices created by plugins were still there. Using the .json_bak (or whatever they are called) didn't help. I ended up doing a "Scan Devices" or a similar called function (there are two). It did bring back my z-wave devices but all room and floor information was lost. I have a lot of the same devices like light switches so it's impossible to find out which one is which without a long trial and error. Customer service didn't respond for some 10 days, maybe more and when they did the help was useless. I ended up going back to a really old backup that is missing a lot of devices and events I added. So half of my stuff is not working anymore. Very frustrating. I am waiting until they come out with the new z-wave module (and then wait a bit longer) because I lost all trust in HS. Once that new plugin is out I will start from scratch. Fortunately, I have pretty much everything documented but it will still be a lot of work. Probably less work then trying to fix things which is why I start anew.

[ScottRennie]

Also check out Horizon RollbackPro - I take a snapshot before any change as well as scheduled snaps. Worth every penny!

[George]

I use Acronis True Image backup. It can do Full backups followed by x amount of incremental or differential backups, based of the current Full to keep the backup time down. I back it all up to my Synology NAS and rotate through three sets of Full/Differential sets. This way I can go back over a month. I also have a 'snapshot' which is a manual system recovery backup that does a clone to a connected USB3 drive. In a pinch, I can just boot off of the emergency snapshot drive, bring up Acronis and then use it to access the NAS to recover the C drive or specific directories.

I like Acronis because it preserves all the attributes and if you just want a specific file, it's backup file structure is just like directories. You can just open any backup with File Explorer and drag and drop a file from the backup to your main drive. It also allows you to create a generic recovery CD/DVD that boots into either Linux or Windows/PE with just the Acronis components and all the drivers and network attributes you need to boot and go.

[nyc2pit]

JHowe -

Good luck. I think you're just as screwed as I was.

I spent the last week restoring my system. I **DID** have most of the devices still available via the z-wave, so I was able to "rediscover" the devices and at least I didn't have to go back into the walls, exclude/include everything, etc. But that said I'd estimate about 10 of my devices required exclusion and re-inclusion.

Then spent the last week setting up very painful scene controllers, sensors, and automation events that I had already spent a lot of time figuring out.

I turned on backups as soon as I had the system up and running. Not gonna have this happen again. I have a twice daily backup now.

Also - I think someone recommended actually backing up these files OUTSIDE of the Homeseer backup? Can anyone expand on the best way to have a fool-proof backup such that when this happens again I don't want to jump off the nearest bridge?

[jhowe]

By happenstance I just ran into almost the same problem on my system. I think my computer is having a problem and required a restart. When I started Homeseer, all my plugins were disabled and some of the configuration was missing (no com ports for a couple of the plugins). I re-enabled things and ended up restarting the computer and Homeseer again. Things sort of worked, but some of my z-wave devices weren't responding correctly. This morning I was going to spend some time trying to fix things. I had to restart the computer and Homeseer again. Now I'm getting a 'devices.json' error and the system is only showing 37 devices when I have many more. None of the z-wave devices are showing and all of my events are gone. I'll admit I've been bad about making regular backups, my most recent was probably a month or so ago when I did a backup before moving from HS3 to HS4.

The specific error I'm seeing is this:

1/7/2021 10:11:25 AM HomeSeer~!~Error~!~Error while reading devices.json : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
1/7/2021 10:11:25 AM HomeSeer~!~Warning~!~Unable to load devices config file, trying backup
1/7/2021 10:11:25 AM HomeSeer~!~Error~!~Error while reading devices.json : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
1/7/2021 10:11:25 AM HomeSeer~!~Warning~!~Unable to load event groups config file, trying backup
1/7/2021 10:11:25 AM HomeSeer~!~Info~!~Loaded 0 Events.

When I looked at the devices.json file it looked like it should be fine. The events.json file was all binary 0's. I looked at the events.json.bkp and it was readable, so I made a copy of that and also copied it into events.json and restarted Homeseer. My events seem to be back, but not my devices.

Any suggestions on the simplest approach to getting my system back up again? Note that I have nothing in the html/backups folder.

I must say that as a long time user of Homeseer, I've been very disappointed in HS4, the interface is actually harder to use in many cases and it doesn't seem like there was any attempt to really improve the underlying product.

Thanks

[jmaddox]

the default location for backups is ../homeseer hs4/html/backups

[nyc2pit]

Thanks zwolf.

So I'm gonna install a clean copy of HS4, reinstall the Z-wave plugin, reinstall the Z-wave stick, and then just run rescan again, and that should get my devices back up and running at least, and I can restart building from there ..... correct?

After a backup, that is .... and another .... and another .....

[zwolfpack]

Yes, the Z-Wave info lives in the z-stick itself and won't be affected by what you do on your PC. You can make a backup but it isn't absolutely necessary.

[nyc2pit]

So I was able to restore what I believe to be the majority of the devices via rescan. My locks failed reinclusion as did the thermostats, I am going to need to bring the computer closer to those devices I believe.

But at least I'm not digging back into walls .... that is the first piece of good news so far. You better believe I'm gonna turn on backups first thing.

So I'm going to make a backup copy of the HS4 directory elsewhere, then uninstall and reinstall HS4. Will I then need to copy the z-wave database back to the correct directory in order to re-scan? Does that info not reside on the z-stick itself?

Should i do a backup this interface first?

[nyc2pit]

Thank you both.

Just one controller - Smartstick+. When looking at it, I can see all the nodes as they should be. Just no devices.

I'll try to scan devices first. If that works, I think I'm going to uninstall HS4 (will save the data elsewhere in case I need it again) and try from a fresh install.

This whole thing has become a nightmare.

[zwolfpack]

You shouldn't need to restore the Z-Wave controller data. That restores the contents of the Z-Wave controller device, which isn't affected by the corruption of HS4's ridiculous excuse for a database.

You should probably start by running 'Scan Devices' from the Actions menu on the Z-Wave Controller page. You may first need to add back the controller if it's been lost.

https://help.homeseer.com/help/Z-Wav...#.scan_devices

[rloeb]

How many Z-Wave controllers do you have? One of the problems in HS4 is that the controller backups all have the same name ;-( They do have different time stamps. First, look in HS4/Data/Z-Wave and find the last backup prior to the lockup. If you have two or more controllers, you may have to guess which backup belongs to which controller. Once you know the file names for the likely backup(s), open up HS4, navigate to Plugins/Z-Wave/Z-Wave, choose Controller Management. You should, hopefully, see your controller(s) listed. Click on the down symbol, which will open the interface dialog, in the drop down box choose "restore a network to this interface," then, in the box below, select the name of the file, then click start. Once that completes, click on the down symbol below the text display area, and you should see a list of the nodes. If you have more than one controller, this is where you figure out whether you got the right file! Good luck!

[nyc2pit]

Your Z-wave device data should be stored in the controller backups, which are in HS4/Data/Z-Wave. Every time you make a controller change, e.g., add a device, the controller gets backed up. You should be able to restore the controller data, which should recreate your devices, although none of the edits you made to the device characteristics will be there. That should at least keep you from having to go through the entire device delete/add process.

Thanks rloeb.

Is there a link to how exactly to do this? I think I know, but I really don't want to screw it up.

At this point I'm so upset/pissed about this I just want to get things started back on the right path.

I can deal with updating the device info, as long as I'm not digging into my walls that's somewhat of a relief at least.

[rloeb]

Your Z-wave device data should be stored in the controller backups, which are in HS4/Data/Z-Wave. Every time you make a controller change, e.g., add a device, the controller gets backed up. You should be able to restore the controller data, which should recreate your devices, although none of the edits you made to the device characteristics will be there. That should at least keep you from having to go through the entire device delete/add process.

[nyc2pit]

Is it possible to restore the Z-wave devices from my Z-stick+ back to homeseer?

At this point, I just want to blow up what I have and start clean. But I really would prefer to avoid having to re-pair all the devices. I assume I can import the Z-wave from the stick back to a new, clean installation of HS4?

Could someone help me with instructions on how to do that at least?