How do I delete a Phantom Device

[rsisson]

I was trouble shooting another issue and going through my Z-Wave devices...

One had nothing listed... and I realized it was a Phantom device. No ID, No Address, No Manufacture.

Ok, since I don't have the physical device, how do I delete it?

The notes for removing a phantom device go back to 2012 and talk about a menu that doesn't exist in HS3 (Settings/interface)

So... how do I delete a Phantom device in HS3

[Pete]

The ZWave controller is the keeper of all of your device nodes. BUT that is all it keeps; pure meat.

The Homeseer ZWave database is a copy of what the meat is plus it keeps a record of variables, triggers, events et al.

Typically a phantom device that you cannot delete is a gotcha or a corrupted HS3 database. The database should fix itself but sometimes it doesn't.

This is where you shut down Homeseer 3 and use a 3rd party program to read and fix or delete stuff in the HS3 database or restore an old HS3 database before the phantom device showed up.

[ScottRennie]

The ZWave controller is the keeper of all of your device nodes. BUT that is all it keeps; pure meat.

The Homeseer ZWave database is a copy of what the meat is plus it keeps a record of variables, triggers, events et al.

Typically a phantom device that you cannot delete is a gotcha or a corrupted HS3 database. The database should fix itself but sometimes it doesn't.

This is where you shut down Homeseer 3 and use a 3rd party program to read and fix or delete stuff in the HS3 database or restore an old HS3 database before the phantom device showed up.

Pete - Can you recommend a tool and describe how to do the fix?

Cheers
Scott

[Pete]

Note that this is the way I have done it in Homeseer 2 and Homeseer 3 and it worked for me. (not sure if there is a correct way to do this).

Relating to Wintel / Linux google a SQLite freeware database editor where you can delete data and clean up the database.

Typically you will just make a copy of the database and change the extension to just .db.

Edit the data on the copy of the database and run the cleaner in the software then copy your HS3 database to some other directory or just a name. Then copy over the database you fixed and change the extension back to Homeseer 3 SQLite format.

Takes a couple of minutes. Go slow, take your time, have a backup handy and keep Homeseer 3 in off mode while you do this.

If there are no references in HS3 after you have done this to the ghost variable (events or triggers) then your ghost variable should be gone.

I never did it in Homeseer 3 for windows as I went to Linux right away. In Homeseer 2 it was just access database at the time so easy to use and fix.

Note you cannot break anything if you keep a backup of the database.

Relating to fixing just:

1 - load the mysql lite Homeseer database
2 - look (browse) in the data for the ghost variable. The ghost variable name/data is the same name you see in Homeseer 3. It is not cryptic or anything special.
3 - delete the ghost variable
4 - save the database
5 - cleanse and compact the database
6 - save it again
7 - copy it over to Homeseer 3.
8 - start up Homeseer 3
9 - your ghost variable should be gone.

Just looked on my Ubuntu laptop and see that I used DB Browser for SQLite to do this. (it is freeware). Note that you are not doing anything with schema or configuration of the database. You are just removing a line of data which is the ghost variable.

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[rsisson]

So there is no way for a non-programmer type person remove a phantom?

[macromark]

So there is no way for a non-programmer type person remove a phantom?

Are you running HS3 on a Windows PC? If so, try this first:

1. From the Z-Wave controller mgmt page, select and run the "import" function from the Actions menu. This will create a HomeSeer device for the phantom node and put it on your Device Mgmt page
2. Navigate to the Device Mgmt page, locate the new device, access the Z-wave tab and click the "Remove Bad Node" button. Wait for this to finish. You may get and "unsuccessful" message but that actually may be false.
3. Go back to device list, find the phantom device again and delete it from the list.
4. Now, run the "import" again. In many cases, the phantom node will actually have been removed from the interface and nothing new will import. If that's the case, you'd done! If not, try the next procedure

Do this if the procedure above didn't work

1. Navigate to the Z-Wave controller mgmt page and select "Back Up the interface" from the Actions menu. Make note of the file name or create your own and finish this function. A back up file will be created on your hard drive. Open this file with NotePad and visually inspect it. it should control a row of numbers for each node in your network PLUS a row for each phantom node. If it doesn't, do the back up again.
2. In NotePad, delete the row(s) for the phantom device(s) and SAVE this file. If you want to be very safe, you can save it to a new file with a different name... up to you.
3. Navigate to controller mgmt again and choose "Restore a Network to this interface". This will (a) erase the interface completely and (b) write the node information from the edited back up file to the interface. Since the phantom nodes are removed from the file, they will not be written back to the interface.
4. Restart HS3. Then from controller mgmt, choose the option to "Test node connectivity on a network" and let that run. You will likely notice a number of red entries in the log. This is normal because your routing table was erased in the 'restore' step. You have a couple options here. If most of your nodes can be reached, then just optimize a few of those nodes... the ones that are closest to the nodes that can't be reached. In many cases, that's all you need to do. Otherwise, you can perform a global optimize and just... well... have lunch or watch some TV, as this may take a bit of time.

[randy]

I was trouble shooting another issue and going through my Z-Wave devices...

One had nothing listed... and I realized it was a Phantom device. No ID, No Address, No Manufacture.

Ok, since I don't have the physical device, how do I delete it?

The notes for removing a phantom device go back to 2012 and talk about a menu that doesn't exist in HS3 (Settings/interface)

So... how do I delete a Phantom device in HS3

Describe exactly what you are seeing.

Is this device in the Device Manager, but without a Z-Wave node ID? Is the device in the Z-Wave Node Information list with a node ID, but no device in the Device Manager? Could you provide a screenshot of what you are seeing in the Node Information page and/or the Z-Wave tab for the device in the Device Manager?

Different situations require different approaches and you do not need to be a programmer.

[rsisson]

I can try those methods.

A lot on my network is door/window sensors that only wake up occasionally or to transmit, so optimizing the network can take a while. I also have a lot of ceiling mounted 4inOnes, that I can't easy reach to trigger manually...

So anything that requires rebuilding the routing table is questionable...

But I will try the import and see what happens...

[macromark]

I can try those methods.

A lot on my network is door/window sensors that only wake up occasionally or to transmit, so optimizing the network can take a while. I also have a lot of ceiling mounted 4inOnes, that I can't easy reach to trigger manually...

So anything that requires rebuilding the routing table is questionable...

But I will try the import and see what happens...

Network optimization actually ignores battery operated devices because they are not normally awake. I would suggest doing the network optimize first and then testing to see if the battery devices can communicate. If not, optimize the ones that can't manually. This will involve tapping the network button (to wake them up) and then immediately initiating the device-specific optimize function.

[sparks]

I'm not sure if these are phantoms or not, but I would like to clear them out since they are showing as neighbors on other nodes. I tried the SQL method as described, but I don't see the node in my attachment anywhere in the database. I'm having a ton of issues and frustration trying to get motion/door sensors to trigger reliably and want to clean up the node information first. Any idea how to get rid of these?

Update: Nevermind....I went ahead and did a backup / edited the file by removing the bad nodes / restore and that seemed to work. Now on to working on my motion sensor issues.

[rsisson]

[TeleFragger]

Are you running HS3 on a Windows PC? If so, try this first:

1. [2]Navigate to the Device Mgmt page, locate the new device, access the Z-wave tab and click the "Remove Bad Node" button. Wait for this to finish. You may get and "unsuccessful" message but that actually may be false.
   

Wow worked like a charm with my z-net and switch that died... thank you...

[RicardoG]

Click on the 'Home' menu, you should see the 'Device List'.
Click on the name of the node you're trying to remove. You should see 4 tabs: Configuration, Advanced, Status Graphics, and Z-wave.
Click on the 'Z-wave' tab.
Click on the 'Test Connectivity' button, wait for it to report that it can't find the node.
Click on the 'Remove Node'
Voila!