Unresponsive PLM and polling interval reset

[ctome3]

I've successfully been using HS3 for several years now, and I am on version 3.0.7.2 of the plugin. I've been running a 2413U that is about 3 or so years old, which is my second of these after the first one died after about 5 years. Last night I saw that my insteon setup was giving some strange results; the garage door had somehow opened itself, and all of the insteon devices were showing an indeterminate state. I looked and the interface showed the WARNING: Please check the Interface and enter the Interface Port information on the Config page and restart HS.message. Normally I can just restart the plugin and it connects just fine, or if that doesn't fix the problem, I can restart HomeSeer entirely and it's problem-free for months. I've done that about 5 times this morning, as well as rebooting the machine several times as well. Is there anything I can try short of buying my third PLM? Sometimes it'll connect for a minute or two, but I always wind up with an unresponsive PLM very shortly.

Also: I'm not sure this is related, but several months ago I noticed that all of my polling intervals had been defaulted to zero for all of my Insteon devices. Normally I keep them at 15 minutes to keep everything in sync just in case a message is missed for some reason. I have no idea how long it had been that way, but I reset them all back to 15 minutes. As part of debugging the indeterminate states last night I checked the polling intervals and they were all still at 15 minutes, but this morning (when I saw the indeterminate states were still there) the polling intervals had all been reset to zero again. Where does this get saved, and does the PLM affect this at all?

[mnsandler]

Tom,
have you tried a manual reset on the PLM? Stop the plugin, reset plm, then start the plugin, and if it connects, run the Update Interface Database from the config page (this will reprogram the PLM) then see how things go

as for the pollinig interval, this is related to the plm. the plugin resets the polling frequency to zero of it has multiple consecutive failed attempts to poll a device. otherwise it will never get to poll the other devices if it keeps failing on the first one.

you might "Disable automatic polling" on the config page while you resolve the plm issue.

[ctome3]

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried resetting the PLM and reprogramming, and it is still having the same issue, unfortunately. It took three attempts to finish the programming process, as the PLM went unresponsive midway through the process the first two times.

[ctome3]

I tried another reprogram, and then tried a "Reset and Reprogram" as well. Looking at the log file, the interface continues to lose connection to HomeSeer, which then attempts to reset the connection. Sometimes the command will go through, other times it won't and I'll be back to an indeterminate state. It looks like it's attempting to restart it every 30 seconds or so.

[mnsandler]

If the plm wont reset and reprogram, then it it might be dead. You might unplug it and let it sit for awhile and try another manual reset

[ctome3]

I did wait about an hour and tried again. Getting the same behavior. I am getting the following in the log:

Sep-30 7:31:05 PM

Insteon

** An error occurred in this plug-in. The details have been written to the log file - C:\Program Files (x86)\HomeSeer HS3\Config\Insteon Error Report.Log

Sep-30 7:31:05 PM

Insteon

***:Error in Transmit: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. -- Details System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Insteon.Support.PLMInterfaceClass.SendHex(String CmdIn, String Data, Int32 ExtraBytesExpectedBack, Int32& FailCode, Boolean ACKBeforePayload, Boolean NAKIsOk, Int32 iForcedSettleTime) at Insteon.Support.PLMInterfaceClass.Transmit(String Cmd)

I'm happy to post the log as well if you think that would help, or if this is just another symptom of a dead PLM, then I'll just order a new one.

[mrceolla]

I've had my PLMs fail enough times that I now keep a spare on-hand. I think I've had 2 failures. Maybe 3. I've been assured by Smarthome that the issue causing these failures has been fixed. That said, maybe you've got one of the PLMs that had the issue. I would definitely contact Smarthome to see if your device is before their fix and if they'll give you a discount. If not, order a replacement from somewhere anyway. Even if you get the current one working, a spare is nice peace of mind.

I use the serial version of the PLM and I've had my serial port die after a lightning storm causing erratic PLM behavior. Yes, oddly just that one port. Possibly because I had a very long LAN cable extending the PLM cable's reach. Anyway, I assume you'd know if your USB ports were flaking out so that seems an unlikely problem. Having a brand new spare on-hand helped me to determine it was the port that was bad and not the PLM.

Good luck!

[mnsandler]

If the PLM wont reset and reprogram, its time to order a new one.