Interface Error after updating to 3.0.0.534 HS3 ZEE S2 (Linux)

[TeamBoMart]

I updated to 3.0.0.534 today and since then none of the Insteon devices respond. In fact, at first, nothing responded. I unplugged, waited and re-plugged the ZEE S2. I could now log in and some devices worked. But the Insteon continued to not work.
When I go to Plug-Ins manage, I see the following error:
"please check the interface an d enter the interface port..."
I did check the interface and the COM port was blank.
In another post, I saw that you recommended always setting the COM port to 4.
I set the COM port to 4, restarted the ZEE S2 and now the COM port was set to 4 but same error message.
I unplugged the ZEE S2 and re-plugged and COM pôrt set to 4 but same error message.
I unplugged the Powerlinc DualBand 2413U, waited 30 seconds, COM port still showed 4 and same error.
I once again unplugged and re-plugged the ZEE S2 and COM port 4 showing but same error message.
At some point while troubleshooting, I upgraded the plug in to 3.0.7.1.
Let me know if you need anything else or if you have steps I can follow to try and resolve the issue. About half the lighting devices in the house are down.
Thanks,
Bob

[mnsandler]

you need to enter the full port name: ie COM4, /dev/ttyS0, etc. Please hover your mouse of the ? after Interface Port to see the ports that the plugin recognizes on your system

[TeamBoMart]

Thanks for the quick turn around. When I mouse over the ?, I saw two choices: /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttyUSB0. I tried the /dev/ttyUSB0 first since the 2413U is connected via USB to a port on the ZEE S2 and restarted the system from the menu. That did the trick, the error message is gone. Thanks!
However, it seems like all of the Insteon devices have been removed from the environment. None show on the device list. Also, the X10 devices do show and they seem to work. So, I think we can deduce that the plug in is working. Did all of my messing around end up deleting the Insteon devices?
I tried unplugging the 2413U for 10 seconds and then plugging it in and trying again and still nothing. Then restarted the system again and still nothing.
I won't be online again until tomorrow morning, so no rush.
Thanks,
Bob

[TeamBoMart]

One more thing, for what it's worth, all of the Insteon switches work manually.

[mnsandler]

the hs upgrade corrupted the config/insteon.ini file. and thus the hs device insteon devices were deleted. there should be a backup of the insteon.ini in the config folder, but you will need to restore an previous homeseer.hsd file as well. I can't provide any guidance on how to do this on a Zee S2.

[TeamBoMart]

Thanks Mark - Last time I checked this was not very simple due to the ZEE S2 OS. I"ll check some other boards.

[TeamBoMart]

After a few exchanges with different folks, including Homeseer support who have been great, I have logged into the ZEE S2 and found the files under config. I renamed the existing Insteon.ini to insteon.ini.2020-02-07 and then renamed the insteon.ini.bak to insteon.ini. I am now ready to restore homeseer.hsd. However, there are many of these files to pick from. Do you have a suggestion of which file I should restore? I believe my software update was carried out on Jan-26 9:42:52 PM according to the logs latest start date and time.
Thanks,
Bob

[mnsandler]

you should restore a homeseer database with a date closest to the date of the insteon.ini.bak

you are basically trying to restore your configuration to a point in time

Watch the hs startup log to see if the plugin recreates or deletes any hs device; if it makes no changes, then you probably found a good match between the two backup files

[TeamBoMart]

After restoring a 2018 homeseerdata and the Insteon.bak, a quick check shows I have all of my devices and events are working well. I will check the log to double check all, but I expect i'm good now.
Thanks again for your quick turnaround on all your help.
Bob

[mnsandler]

Bob,
glad you were able to get back online. Can you post a few notes about what you had to do to the Zee S2 to get access or look for files. Apparently this is not well known.

[TeamBoMart]

Of course,

To give credit where credit is due, the application was recommended by Homeseer support and I did get some additional guidance from them. I used email for the additional support and it was prompt.

1. Download WinSCP (https://winscp.net/eng/download.php) which is a free tool. They do ask for a donation and I am so happy with the results I will donate.
   1. The tool allows you to transfer between directories on different hosts, rename files, search for files, delete files, in fact, most of the same things you can do in Windows Explorer.
2. Before the first launch, the tool asks you to select an environment. There are two choices and I selected the one that looks like Windows File Explorer, with a side by side display, and that worked very well for me.
3. Once launched, i was prompted to enter the login information for the ZEE S2
   1. Enter the file protocol: SFTP is there by default and I left it.
   2. Enter the TCIP address of the device: I logged into my home router to find the address of the ZEE S2 and used that.
   3. Enter the port number: it had port number 22 by default and I left that as is.
   4. Enter the username: The username provided by Homeseer support was "homeseer" all lowercase.
   5. Enter the password: this gave me a little difficulty:
      1. The password required is the ZEE S2 password. Do not confuse this with the HS3 license password, which I did.
      2. The default password for the ZEE S2 is hsthsths3 but we are prompted to change the system password during first-time setup of tye ZEE S2.
      3. I checked my personal logs and found a few potential passwords. I went through about 5 or 6 and finally found the one that worked. If there is a password lock out, it is larger than five or six attempts.
      4. If the password is completely forgotten, the only way to get back in is to do a system reset which, of course, will reset the complete system and at that point I expect that you would be starting from scratch.
   6. Click on LOGIN. The app goes through the authentication process and will either report failure or will show a directory on the ZEE S2.
4. I had my Windows folders on the left and the ZEE S2 on the right.
5. I navigated to the root directory.
6. Then to usr > local > Homeseer > Config
7. I found the Insteon.ini as well as the Insteon.ini.bak files.
   1. There were other Insteon type files in that directory such as HSInsteon.ini, HSInsteon.ini.bak, Insteon error report.log, Insteon.ini.tmp, etc.
8. I renamed he Insteon.ini file to Insteon.ini.2020-02-07.
9. I renamed the Insteon.ini.bak to Insteon.ini.
10. I searched for the Homeseerdata.hsd file and found about 20.
11. I found the homeseerdata.hsd that had the closest creation date to the Insteon back up file I was going to restore.
12. I saw that it was Homeseerdata_4.hsd
13. I went to the HS3 Web interface to Tools > Setup, under the General tab, using the Configuration File drop-down menu I selected the number that corresponded to the file I wanted to restore: 4.
14. I restarted the system.

Using the WinSCP tool, I was able to navigate to all of the folders on the ZEE S2. I looked around but changed nothing else. I can see how the tool could be used to transfer image, video and sound files to the ZEE S2. It can also be used to transfer files from the ZEE S2 to the Windows environment for additional back up potential.

I hope this helps.
Bob

[mnsandler]

Perfect. thanks for posting

[allenc3]

Of course,
...
I hope this helps.
Bob

This is one of the best write-ups I have seen to date on this forum! Absolutely excellent, thank you so much Bob. This is exactly what I needed to know to upgrade my Zee S2 HomeSeer to a newer version as suggested by HS Tech Support to fix a HS lock-up problem where my controller never runs more than 18 days before hanging. I have no experience with Raspberry Pi gear so I was not at all familiar with how to do everything you describe above, all of which I need to know.

[allenc3]

Of course,

...
I hope this helps.
Bob

I wanted to mention when I tried to restore my system it appeared to work but there was no restoration of my system. I contacted HS Support with a few emails and finally a phone call we figured out I had 455 Insteon log files in my HS Backup zip file totaling around 90 MB. That made the file too large to read in and restore but HS doesn't complain when that happens so I did not know the restore failed. I deleted those log files and re-zipped the backup file and did another restore and everything restored perfectly!! Mark I know this is a split topic thread but I wanted you to see this. How do I limit the number and or size of the Insteon log files?

HS Support said HS4 will produce a warning if the Restore function has a problem.

[mnsandler]

I wanted to mention when I tried to restore my system it appeared to work but there was no restoration of my system. I contacted HS Support with a few emails and finally a phone call we figured out I had 455 Insteon log files in my HS Backup zip file totaling around 90 MB. That made the file too large to read in and restore but HS doesn't complain when that happens so I did not know the restore failed. I deleted those log files and re-zipped the backup file and did another restore and everything restored perfectly!! Mark I know this is a split topic thread but I wanted you to see this. How do I limit the number and or size of the Insteon log files?

HS Support said HS4 will produce a warning if the Restore function has a problem.

i can't monitor how much space the log files use. each file is capped at 2GB. This is just part of system maintenance.

log files are only written when an error/exception occurs. there must be something in your system that is causing this and thus generating the log files.

can you review a few of the recent files and see if there is a common error?