Insteon Plug in stops working after power interruptions (HS3 Rpi3b+)

[mnsandler]

Brian,

you will need to use the following two actions: Insteon Disable Interface or Insteon Enable Interface.

1. have you created the virtual device Joe mentioned above? the name & parameters don't matter. you just need this to hold a temporary value of your choosing. when the event runs the first time. and then to clear the value when power is restored

2. have you built an event to disable the plugin when your power monitor devices goes on, ie power loss? the trigger is up to you

3. do you have an event to enable the plugin when power is restored based on your device when it goes off? again the trigger is up to you

if so, please post a screen shot of the configuration, and i can comment from there

ok. so the generator isnt the issue in this case. i can't tell you why the plm is having troubles during the flickering.

[ve3bwp]

Brian,

you will need to use the following two actions: Insteon Disable Interface or Insteon Enable Interface.

1. have you created the virtual device Joe mentioned above? the name & parameters don't matter. you just need this to hold a temporary value of your choosing. when the event runs the first time. and then to clear the value when power is restored

2. have you built an event to disable the plugin when your power monitor devices goes on, ie power loss? the trigger is up to you

3. do you have an event to enable the plugin when power is restored based on your device when it goes off? again the trigger is up to you

if so, please post a screen shot of the configuration, and i can comment from there

ok. so the generator isnt the issue in this case. i can't tell you why the plm is having troubles during the flickering.

Hi Mark, thanks for this. ok how about this?.. The trigger is a power restore from my DSC Security alarm...
I also set a nightly Plug-in disable/reenable at 3:00am just to be sure.

What do you think?

Brian

[mnsandler]

Brian,
before go any further with the events, do you have a hs log snippet of any errors you get during these power issues? I thought we were talking about a complete power failure not just power flashing

[joegr]

Sorry what are the parameters your "Insteon Status" virtual device pairs test? Or how do they disable/reenable the Insteon plug in? In the example Joegr provides I do not have those AND IF options. Am I missing something here? Can you send me a screen capture of it?

You are over-thinking this. "Insteon Status" is just a virtual device that I created. You can create one and name it anything you want to. It does not control anything at all other than these two events. If you don't want to deal with status pairs, then just leave it as the default on and off states. Use on for enabled, and off for disabled.
The only thing that having this device does, is to keep the power-back-on-so-enable-Insteon event from triggering over and over. It's a way for the events to keep track of if they have fired or not. It really has no connection to Insteon.

[ve3bwp]

Brian,
before go any further with the events, do you have a hs log snippet of any errors you get during these power issues? I thought we were talking about a complete power failure not just power flashing

Hi Mark, I found the plugin "pending restart" at 1:18pm on the 12th (see screen shot attached) I took a support log snapshot on the Jan 13th (log file attached). Also attached is the system log filtered for Insteon but it only goes back as far as the last Rpi reboot.

I looked in the Insteon support files (attached split for upload size limit) and my untrained eye is not seeing anything obvious. From what I can see there seems to be a gap from Dec 5th 2019 to Jan 12th resuming just after the reboot.

[mnsandler]

can you give me a timestamp within the attached log around when you had the trouble?

[ve3bwp]

can you give me a timestamp within the attached log around when you had the trouble?

I discovered the last problem on the 12th around 1:18PM as you will see on the plugin manager screen shot. I am not sure exactly when the plugin shutdown and I can't see anything about it in the logfile. It should have been within a few hours of me noticing it. I was surprised to see a lot of gaps in it the logs. The entire logfile is exceeds this sites upload limit. The logging does not seem to be detailed enough to show the hours leading up to when I realized Insteon stopped working. Aside from finding a way to get you the entire log file so you can see all the other failures I've given you all I have. Is there something else somewhere I could be sending you?

[mnsandler]

the insteon logging isn't comprehensive. its primary focused on capturing logs before and after an Error. it would blow up hard drives it if logged continuously. I leave that to the hs log.

so in this case, if there wasn't an actual error, the log may not contain anything.

if you have access to the hs log hsd file, you could extract the log entries leading up to the restart

[mnsandler]

regardless of the log, lets get back to the events. most people use the insteon enable/disable interfaces actions in two separate events.

one event to disable the interface when power goes out, and a second event to enable the interface when power is restored.

In theory the plugin should not need to be restarted during a power flash. i do not know what is happening to the plm in your case. I have no insight via code into that.

I'm not sure what to do in your case during the power flashes/brown outs.

there are other triggers that you might test; these typically are used when the connection to the port crash. it has nothing to do with power flashes. but maybe your power flashes are causing the logical connection to crash.

Insteon/Interface Stops Responding
Insteon/Crashes

please setup two different events (one based on each trigger) that will email you if they fire

[ve3bwp]

the insteon logging isn't comprehensive. its primary focused on capturing logs before and after an Error. it would blow up hard drives it if logged continuously. I leave that to the hs log.

so in this case, if there wasn't an actual error, the log may not contain anything.

if you have access to the hs log hsd file, you could extract the log entries leading up to the restart

I am assuming you were referring to the HomeSeerLog.hsd file? Yes/No?

If YES, as requested, here is the log file. It's not all in regular ASCII so I can't read it enough to know what you are asking for. Please confirm is this the file you wanted me to examine YES/NO.

Thanks.
..on to the next action item...

[ve3bwp]

regardless of the log, lets get back to the events. most people use the insteon enable/disable interfaces actions in two separate events.

one event to disable the interface when power goes out, and a second event to enable the interface when power is restored.

In theory the plugin should not need to be restarted during a power flash. i do not know what is happening to the plm in your case. I have no insight via code into that.

I'm not sure what to do in your case during the power flashes/brown outs.

there are other triggers that you might test; these typically are used when the connection to the port crash. it has nothing to do with power flashes. but maybe your power flashes are causing the logical connection to crash.

Insteon/Interface Stops Responding
Insteon/Crashes

please setup two different events (one based on each trigger) that will email you if they fire

Like this on the events (see attached Screen shots)?

The only thing that is not on UPS is the PLM. Oh and the Sonos speakers (but this was happening way before I installed the Sonos plug-in).

What do you think?

[mnsandler]

these events looks reasonable (give them a try), but here is what i don't understand with your setup. You have a generator that kicks on after 20 secs.

most people that use the disable/enable don't have generators. they just have to wait until utility power is restored before enabling the plugin

1. is your DCS connected to the generator and when it kicks on and you want to restart the plugin? thus eliminating that 20 secs of insteon errors/failures.

if the dcs is not connected to the generator, then your insteon setup will stay down until utility power is restored. but insteon/the plm should be able to run under generator power

i use a serial plm connected to a physical serial port on a server running win server. power flashes and brown-outs don't cause my insteon system to go down. i don't disable/enable the plugin under any conditions.

i think there is something else in your setup causing you grief.

2. I'm not a linux guy, but are there usb ftdi drivers you can update on the box? check ftdichip.com

[mnsandler]

I am assuming you were referring to the HomeSeerLog.hsd file? Yes/No?

If YES, as requested, here is the log file. It's not all in regular ASCII so I can't read it enough to know what you are asking for. Please confirm is this the file you wanted me to examine YES/NO.

Thanks.
..on to the next action item...

YES. the HomeSeerLog.hsd is a sqlite db file. it must be opened using the sqlite app. the you provided only has few hundred line items from 1-16-2020. can you get the log entries from 1-12-2020 around the time you mentioned

[ve3bwp]

these events looks reasonable (give them a try), but here is what i don't understand with your setup. You have a generator that kicks on after 20 secs.

most people that use the disable/enable don't have generators. they just have to wait until utility power is restored before enabling the plugin

1. is your DCS connected to the generator and when it kicks on and you want to restart the plugin? thus eliminating that 20 secs of insteon errors/failures.

if the dcs is not connected to the generator, then your insteon setup will stay down until utility power is restored. but insteon/the plm should be able to run under generator power

i use a serial plm connected to a physical serial port on a server running win server. power flashes and brown-outs don't cause my insteon system to go down. i don't disable/enable the plugin under any conditions.

i think there is something else in your setup causing you grief.

2. I'm not a linux guy, but are there usb ftdi drivers you can update on the box? check ftdichip.com

The DSC is the brand of security alarm and there is a plug-in for it that has been solid reliable. I use an available alarm zone to sense the AC fail by connecting it across a relay that is powered by a 12V wall wart connected to the AC line. So the longest the power stays out for is 20 secs. So 21 secs should be the longest the plug-in should be disabled for.

The raspberry pi does not have any serial ports so I use the USB PLM. I use a StarTec USB/serial cable to connect to the DSC alarm panel. I bought a new dual band PLM last year to rule it out. So far the only plugin I've had problems with has been the Insteon one and only around power failures events. I can go many weeks without the UPSes logging a single AC impurity and Insteon has stayed working.

We live rural and power is not as reliable as typical so it is rare we go too long without power events. Right now we are still loaded with ice from Saturdays ice storm and it has yet to get above freezing so the we have been having 1 second interruptions all week. Its mostly for the utility worker switching and isolating as they repair damaged segments of the feeders. I have an electrical engineering background electrical utility experience and use commercial grade sine wave UPSes and gensets. We can have multi day power outages and Insteon comms reliability is actually better on the genset then on utility power.

Do you think if the problem still occurs I should order a Serial PLM and use a USB/Serial adaptor cable for it? Or what do you think about using an Insteon Hub as a PLM instead?

[ve3bwp]

YES. the HomeSeerLog.hsd is a sqlite db file. it must be opened using the sqlite app. the you provided only has few hundred line items from 1-16-2020. can you get the log entries from 1-12-2020 around the time you mentioned

I sent you the entire file.