Need some quick help.

[bphillips]

Hi there,

So, I haven't posted here in a good while, and have been very busy all summer.

I leave for school in 2 days and unfortunately this means the first time I'll be away from my hobby of automating my house.

Anyway, since about December of 2011 I've been using HomeSeer on the same PC and my mother and I have been the only two in the house that have been somewhat "dependent" on HomeSeer to be able to turn on/off lights and run thermostats, etc, until yesterday.

This is the problem:

HomeSeer will not recognize anything powered by USB. This means my ZWave controller, Insteon controller, AD2USB Alarm Controller, etc. I'm unsure if this is a problem with the computer or with HomeSeer, but all I'm getting in the log is a constant flood of "Cannot open COM port 9, will keep trying...: Unable to obtain a handle to the COM port" for ZWave and "Initializing interface: Insteon-Could not open COM8 - The port 'COM8' does not exist." for Insteon.

The two main technologies that run my house are now offline and I'm leaving for college in 2 days. I need some help or suggestions to figure this out ASAP.

Could it be that all the USB ports on my PC have failed? I don't know what else to try or where else to ask.

Also, on the setup page, it shows "N/A" for Com Port for nearly every plug-in

This makes me think it's a PC error but I don't know what else to try.

Every suggestion is welcome. Thanks in advance! - Brandon

[mrhappy]

Is there anything common to these USB devices, are they all connected to one hub, one expansion card or one set of connectors? Are the devices still recognised in the windows device manager?

[bphillips]

The devices are on two separate hubs, and are no longer recognized in device manager, which makes me think it's a PC error

[Rupp]

If the Device Manager can read your ports they have failed. Time for an add-on USB card maybe.

[Pete]

Here is a link for a USB device checker.

Make sure you are checking your computer without HS running and with the USB hubs unplugged. Reboot your computer without HS running and USB hubs plugged in.

This will show if your USB ports on the computer are still OK.

You want first to check that.

Then after you have validated the built in USB ports you want to plug one hub in without any devices on it to see if it comes up in USBDeview first. Then the second hub without any devices on it.

If they do come up without any devices on it you could also have a piece of bad hardware connected to one of the USB ports.

If you do not see any USB devices on your computer then you are going to have to purchase a USB card maybe. I have never seen a USB port go bad. I have seen them shut down due to overloading power stuff.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

BTW you are better off using a powered USB hub rather than an unpowered one for HS. (that is my opinion though).

[Pete]

Curious what was the result of said issue?

[bphillips]

Just saw this.

I wonder why I never responded!

Apparently I got everything working, as I don't seem to recall any significant downtime. I think I ended up replacing both USB hubs in the end.

Thanks for the support!