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    Group of lights turning themselves on

    I have a group of lights that have started turning themselves on. It is always the same group - a combination of outdoor modules, in-wall switches (Levity and GE), etc. I don't see an event firing around this time that could explain it. So my first thought was to reset the Z-Troller. If I backup, erase, and restore - does that give me a clean Z-Troller?

    #2
    Be Careful

    It probably will not give you anything different that what you had when you backed it up.

    If you are using HS3 it might destroy your setup.

    In October, several z-wave plug-in betas ago (in the low to mid .170's ?), I did it.

    I got my 78 Devices with no Z-Wave nodes matched, and 78 new undefined devices with the 78 node numbers. I could not manual assign the node number back to the previous Device (it was not available) even after deleteing the new Device with needed number.

    I had backed up the entire HS3 Directory before starting. Copying it over still left me with a mismatched HS3 config to what was on the Z-Troller.

    Had to delete all devices from the Z-Troller, erase it, delete configuration and rebuild my network and and configuration from scratch.

    Never had an issue doing that with HS2. Have not tried it again with HS3, nor will I.

    You might consider trying disabling the z-wave plug-in, restarting HS3, then re-enabling z-wave plug-in. That has solved some problems for me in the past.
    Last edited by clay2young; February 6, 2015, 11:08 AM. Reason: Added last sentence

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      #3
      Sorry - I should have mentioned that I am on HS2 (still stuck with two two legacy plugins hoping that they will be updated). The question is - is it possible that my phantom on/off situation would be fixed by this?

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        #4
        The lights in question are showing:

        !~Device Update~!

        in the log. This seems to imply that Homeseer is just detecting that their status has changed - right? So assuming that no one is activating these lights what could be causing them to come on? I used to have this issue in the old X-10 days but I didn't expect it with z-wave?

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          #5
          It is unlikely that the Z-Troller is sending random commands. It is also very unlikely that erasing it and restoring from backup would cure it even if it as. We have seen a rash of defective Z-Wave devices that have gone noisy. They can begin transmitting randomly resulting in a slowed network, a failed network and even random commands in some instances. First I would check to see if the devices that are turning on are set to respond to an "all on" command. If they are, disable it in parameters. Second, if the group of devices are on different circuit breakers I would try killing circuits to see if you could isolate the device or group of devices responsible. Sometimes power cycling a noisy Z-Wave device will cure it for a while, but hey will usually revert to their bad behavior.
          HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

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            #6
            Thanks, I went through all of my devices and all of them were set to respond to All On. I switched this off.

            If a bad device was transmitting an all on command then in theory all of the devices should have gone on - not just the same subset each time? But I will watch it today to see what happens.

            Is there a detailed log for the z-wave traffic. Something I could look at to see what precedes this group of lights turning on?

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              #7
              Ok, that didn't work. The lights went on again this afternoon. I am looking at the log and I can't see any connection between other events and these lights going on.

              Some of the switches do not have an option to respond to all lights on in the configuration yet they go on.

              Is there any other way to hunt down this bad switch?

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                #8
                Originally posted by simonmason View Post
                Thanks, I went through all of my devices and all of them were set to respond to All On. I switched this off.

                If a bad device was transmitting an all on command then in theory all of the devices should have gone on - not just the same subset each time? But I will watch it today to see what happens.

                Is there a detailed log for the z-wave traffic. Something I could look at to see what precedes this group of lights turning on?
                There is no rhyme or reason to the anarchy a defective Z-Wave device can cause when it transmits pure noise. I'm not saying that is definitely happening, just that would be the most likely culprit since there is nothing in the HS logs indicating commands are being sent. There have been a few cases of failed Z-Sticks generating erratic commands, but I cant recall reading of a Z-Troller doing that.

                You could turn on Z-Wave debugging, but it is a log few of us can decipher. You get there from Plug-ins>Manage then click on the Z-Wave name in the bottom left corner. Then you will get the screen below to enable Debug Logging. The logs will be in your HomeSeer HS3/Debug Logs directory. They will get VERY large Very fast.
                Attached Files
                HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by simonmason View Post
                  Ok, that didn't work. The lights went on again this afternoon. I am looking at the log and I can't see any connection between other events and these lights going on.

                  Some of the switches do not have an option to respond to all lights on in the configuration yet they go on.

                  Is there any other way to hunt down this bad switch?
                  Only by disconnecting them one at a time. Most wall switches have air gap switches that will disconnect them, other than that you can kill entire branch circuits int he house one at a time to see if the symptoms stop. You would only need to kill circuits that have Z-Wave devices on them. The sad thing is that the device that is causing the problems may not be the one displaying them. Also if you have any battery operated motion sensors, make sure none of them is constantly transmitting. There have been reports of some HSM100s doing this with nearly dead batteries.
                  HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

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                    #10
                    Thanks, I will keep looking. I am running HS2 so I turned on DebugMode with a 64 to start tracking the activity. Let me see what shows up in the logs.

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                      #11
                      OK, it is getting weirder. One of the lights that is turning on is a bedroom light which is one of my legacy X10 2-way switches. I have about 3 or 4 left. I have turned on script and event debugging to see if something is firing just before these lights go on.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by rprade View Post
                        There is no rhyme or reason to the anarchy a defective Z-Wave device can cause

                        Oh Snap!

                        My new signature!
                        Originally posted by rprade
                        There is no rhyme or reason to the anarchy a defective Z-Wave device can cause

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                          #13
                          So help me out with my deductions here:

                          For the X-10 device to turn on then it must receive an X-10 command.

                          An errant z-wave device is not capable of producing a command (on it's own) that can cause an X-10 device to go on.

                          Also the reverse is true - if the X-10 device were bad it is not capable of switching on a set of z-wave devices.

                          The group of devices that are switching on are not linked - and I have disabled respond to all on with each of them.

                          So, something is sending an (apparently) random command to turn on the same set of devices which include two different protocols.

                          This starts to point more and more to Homeseer (HS2) as it is the only thing in this bizarre chain of events that is capable of doing this.

                          One other note - I recently switched to a new server. This issue arose after I did this. I started with a fresh install and then slowly copied all of my settings over. I am not sure if this is relevant but I thought I would mention it.

                          Are my deductions sound? Thanks.

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                            #14
                            There has got to a better way of diagnosing a bad module. I am slowly working my way through the house and garden unplugging or disabling modules and then waiting to see if the errant commands show up. The problem is that I am now getting down to the necessary lights - which I cannot unplug or disable for any period of time.

                            If a bad command is going out on the network - is there absolutely no way to track its source and destination? This method of debugging is quite frustrating and so far has not revealed the culprit.

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                              #15
                              I have had this problem for over a year and I could never figure out what was causing it.

                              It was usually the same group of devices, but not always. Sometimes it was a different set of devices and sometimes it was the same group but not all of the same group.

                              It got real frustrating when the bathroom heater was one of the devices that would go on and stay on for hours.

                              The devices involved were not all in the same location of the house and were not of the same type.

                              The devices were not close together in node number.

                              I made sure my devices were not accepting "all on" codes, and that didnt help.

                              I did notice that when this happens on my system, Homeseer does NOT log the event and does not know that the devices have been turned on.

                              I am running HS2 with three Ztrollers.

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