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Reliability of HS3

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    Reliability of HS3

    It has been 2 years since I started working with HS3. I have totally stopped using HS2. While I appreciate the vast capabilities of HS3, I feel that it is a constant battle to keep it running. OK, I know that I have been making constant changes during the past 2 years, but since the first of the year, I have tried to minimize any new stuff. But still I find HS3 is frequently crashing or simply not responding. I am lucky to get 3 days of run time, and I don't think I have ever had it run for a week! HS2 would run for a month or more! And HS3 always seems to have a different problem each time it quits. Sometimes the z-wave plugin stops, sometimes x10, sometimes speaker client stops speaking, sometimes events stop triggering, sometimes the web interface stops responding. Restarting the computer always fixes the issue.

    I can't keep babysitting HS3 like this. Any suggestions? What are you experiencing?

    Steve Q


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    HomeSeer Version: HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.368, Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 - Home, Number of Devices: 373, Number of Events: 666, Enabled Plug-Ins
    2.0.83.0: BLRF, 2.0.10.0: BLUSBUIRT, 3.0.0.75: HSTouch Server, 3.0.0.58: mcsXap, 3.0.0.11: NetCAM, 3.0.0.36: X10, 3.0.1.25: Z-Wave,Alexa,HomeKit

    #2
    Very strange. On your hardware, do you have all power management turned off? For example, disks dont spin down, ports dont 'sleep', hibernate/sleep is disabled, etc.

    If you have the option, running on one of the hometrollers is a good choice as they just run with no intervention required. I'm partial to the Linux flavors since there is no overhead or maintenance compared to windows; e.g. windows updates, antivirus, firewall, etc.
    HS4Pro on a Raspberry Pi4
    54 Z-Wave Nodes / 21 Zigbee Devices / 108 Events / 767 Devices
    Plugins: Z-Wave / Zigbee Plus / EasyTrigger / AK Weather / OMNI

    HSTouch Clients: 1 Android

    Comment


      #3
      What version are you on? I am in 243 but recently upgraded last week from 218. I have to say, mine has been pretty stable. To the point that I sometimes forget about it. My tinkering has really slowed down as things are starting to fall into place.

      The only real issues I have had is the stability of HStouch clients, both android and Windows, but even those recently I am finding are not needing to be bounced as often.

      It's funny, I was thinking about this last night. I was going to ask if people have done any redundancy? I am mainly looking to make sure the lights and sensors still work. Not so concerned about the data scrapping I have or the clients, but it is upsetting to the wife when the lights don't work.

      Overall to me the HS ecosystem has been pretty bullet proof. But I am also cautious about what I add and update.

      Comment


        #4
        Also I am running it on a small windows 10 machine (low powered). Disabled all the forced OS updates (registry hack). And made sure there is no power management happening. Plus it only runs two things. HS and squeezebox LMS

        Comment


          #5
          Mine has been pretty stable and I had been getting run-times longer than a month when I'm not messing with it. I'm running a lot of plugins on a relatively light XP based system. I do have the occasional blue-screen on the box which I have narrowed down to a driver issue and is not HS related. It happened again yesterday morning at around 5 AM and everything restarted properly on its own.

          I'm not running HS Touch...

          Cheers
          Al
          HS 4.2.8.0: 2134 Devices 1252 Events
          Z-Wave 3.0.10.0: 133 Nodes on one Z-Net

          Comment


            #6
            I can't keep babysitting HS3 like this. Any suggestions? What are you experiencing?

            Here running two Linux HS3 boxes (RPi2 and Intel CPU Ubuntu) over a year now. I understand that there are a few plugins that only work in HS3 for Windows.

            HS3 sometimes is shut down to do stuff but it has not shut down on it's own relating to any issues or errors with the plugins (which I do see in the logs).

            Running VB's of W2003, W7, W8 right now on the Linux box and really only need W7 and up for Kinect stuff. For basics of HS3 the W2003 32 bit VB is all I really need right now. Never have seen a BSOD on any VBs running on the Homeseer 3 Linux box.

            Testing HS3 touch using Windows 10 (stripped down to the nub) and it works fine. No BSOD's here with speaker dot exe, HS3 touch, Kinect and Alexa plugins running.

            I didn't need any extra services such that metro apps are all gone, no updating is happening, no cloud services enabled, no email enabled, nothing / nada.

            W10 OS is really tablet like while they did keep the old desktop look; it still is more of a touchscreen tablet OS than a desktop OS.

            Just also starting to play with W8 embedded. (and currently using W7e and XPe).

            Really though Homeseer 3 is 32 bit based and you do not get anything more running it in Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 these days.

            If you only utilize the PC for Homeseer 3 there really is no maintenance needed other than backing up your stuff then XP 32bit would be all that you would need.
            Last edited by Pete; March 1, 2016, 11:46 AM.
            - Pete

            Auto mator
            Homeseer 3 Pro - 3.0.0.548 (Linux) - Ubuntu 18.04/W7e 64 bit Intel Haswell CPU 16Gb
            Homeseer Zee2 (Lite) - 3.0.0.548 (Linux) - Ubuntu 18.04/W7e - CherryTrail x5-Z8350 BeeLink 4Gb BT3 Pro
            HS4 Lite - Ubuntu 22.04 / Lenovo Tiny M900 / 32Gb Ram

            HS4 Pro - V4.1.18.1 - Ubuntu 22.04 / Lenova Tiny M900 / 32Gb Ram
            HSTouch on Intel tabletop tablets (Jogglers) - Asus AIO - Windows 11

            X10, UPB, Zigbee, ZWave and Wifi MQTT automation-Tasmota-Espurna. OmniPro 2, Russound zoned audio, Alexa, Cheaper RFID, W800 and Home Assistant

            Comment


              #7
              I had one issue last year on two times in one week that was cured by moving HomeSeer to a different server (VM). I had one issue where the Z-Net quit communicating, that could have been a problem with the Z-Net or with my network. Other than those three I have not had any problems since 2014 and 2 out of those three were hardware problems and the third might have been the Z-Net or a network switch.

              Even in the bad old days prior to September 2014, other than one know event related bug, HomeSeer core program never crashed or locked, it was just the Z-Wave plug-in that was horrendous. The event bug was discovered in May, 2014 and was fixed by HST. Since September 2014 the Z-Wave plug-in has been good to excellent.

              Other than a nuisance with recurring events that crept in about a month ago (seemingly fixed with 3.0.0.245) I don't think i have had any other problems with the HomeSeer software in over a year. There are still bugs, but they are more annoyances than problems.

              If you are having HomeSeer crash regularly, it is likely to be inter dependencies with other software or hardware issues rather than with the program itself. I don't think it is a problem with a particular version of Windows either. I started on Windows 7 (x64) moved to 8.1 and then to 10 on both my physical machines and VMs. I did run mostly on a physical machine late in 2014 until mid to late 2015, because it was faster for editing events. Once I had my system to the point I was comfortable with the event structure, and subsequent to two inexplicable hardware crashes I moved it to a Windows 10 VM last year. It has been running on the VM without a hiccup since.
              HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

              Comment


                #8
                My experience with HomeSeer is solely with HS3, particularly on HST boxes -- at first an original Zee, and now with two SEL's.

                HS3 has been absolutely rock solid for me. We have two houses, where we will not be at a given house for six months of the year. HS3 runs each house, and I was sufficiently concerned about reliability that I purchased a remote reboot outlet so I could power cycle the SEL box if needed. It has proven to be unnecessary.

                HS3 on the SEL just works. I'll often go weeks without even logging into the box at the current remote house. Further, our Internet went down at one house for a few months, and bought for the daily emails I get from HS3 no longer being sent, HS3 dutifully plugged along. When Internet came back (bad cable under the street from the tap to the house that had to be replaced by the cable company), I checked the logs, and all was and had been well.

                I read these forums daily, and am always in constant amazement about the people having problems with HS3 in terms of reliability. The vast majority are Windows installations. The remainder are homebrew Linux setups (typically Raspberry Pi for whatever that's worth).

                Therefore, the recommendation I can make based on personal experience is that if you need an absolutely rock solid system, bite the bullet and buy an SEL. You will forego some plug-ins that are Windows only. Cost-wise, the price of the included hardware plus the included HS3 license is a bit cheaper that if you bought the hardware yourself and the HS3 license separately.

                I've had some frustrations with HS3, but reliability has definitely not been one of them. And if it was, I don't think I could continue to use HS3, because we have some light switches and some other things (sprinkler systems in particular) that don't work unless HS3 is running.

                Comment


                  #9
                  I've been an early adopter of HS3 and for me crashes have (almost) disappeared since .147
                  I'm now running .208 on Win7 64 bit on a Dell D830 with 4 Gb memory. That machine also runs Sighthound for camera supervision. and it receives all Win 7 updates manually when convenient.
                  The only unscheduled shutdowns over the last three months have been due to Z-wave failing completely three times (for no identifiable reason).
                  My X10 is rock solid, but that was also the case with HS2.

                  Devices:219
                  Events: 86
                  Enabled Plug-Ins
                  3.0.0.94: HSTouch Server
                  30.0.0.29: RFXCOM
                  3.0.5874.18252: UltraNetCam3
                  3.0.0.36: X10
                  3.0.1.61: Z-Wave

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Thanks all for your comments. I'm running HS3 ver 208 on a win 7 Dell Laptop with all power management options turned off. I'm sure some of my issues are hardware related because I have always had problems with COM port assignment, but these issues have now disappeared. But it seems like there is something software related that is creating a hardware conflict that causes the computer to crash. I think one of my issues is my IP security camera software (NetCam Studio) that is also running on the HS3 laptop. I have a huge amount of LAN and wireless traffic. Troubleshooting all of this is really difficult!

                    Based on your comments, it sounds like I need to break my setup into subsystems so I can get a better handle on the source on my problems.

                    One thing I have noticed is that my HS3 test setup running on my Windows 10 desktop computer has never crashed. It is not connected to anything but my LAN and the Internet and I am using it with the Amazon echo to pass JSON commands to HS3 running on the Laptop.
                    The desktop goes to sleep when not in use; HS3 has no problems going in and out of sleep mode.

                    I guess I will think about how to create some subsystems. I know nothing about Linux. Is it worth the effort? I have done some work with VM running XP on Win 7. I had HS2 running on virtual XP for a year. Has anybody run multiple instances of HS3 on separate VMs on the same computer?

                    Your thoughts on the direction I should take would be most appreciated.

                    Steve Q




                    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
                    HomeSeer Version: HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.368, Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 - Home, Number of Devices: 373, Number of Events: 666, Enabled Plug-Ins
                    2.0.83.0: BLRF, 2.0.10.0: BLUSBUIRT, 3.0.0.75: HSTouch Server, 3.0.0.58: mcsXap, 3.0.0.11: NetCAM, 3.0.0.36: X10, 3.0.1.25: Z-Wave,Alexa,HomeKit

                    Comment


                      #11
                      It's stable here.

                      Win 8.1 on Intel NUC.

                      Once in a while an interface hangs or a device dies on me but that's not a Homeseer problem.

                      Regards
                      Morten

                      Comment


                        #12
                        I am running HS3 in two houses with no problems. I spend about 6 months in each, both running on dedicated Dell windows 7 machines. I have several plugins active and just updated to the latest beta of HS3 to be able to use the Amazon Echo (which works great). I rarely reboot these machines.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Steve Q View Post
                          Thanks all for your comments. I'm running HS3 ver 208 on a win 7 Dell Laptop with all power management options turned off. I'm sure some of my issues are hardware related because I have always had problems with COM port assignment, but these issues have now disappeared. But it seems like there is something software related that is creating a hardware conflict that causes the computer to crash. I think one of my issues is my IP security camera software (NetCam Studio) that is also running on the HS3 laptop. I have a huge amount of LAN and wireless traffic. Troubleshooting all of this is really difficult!

                          Based on your comments, it sounds like I need to break my setup into subsystems so I can get a better handle on the source on my problems.

                          One thing I have noticed is that my HS3 test setup running on my Windows 10 desktop computer has never crashed. It is not connected to anything but my LAN and the Internet and I am using it with the Amazon echo to pass JSON commands to HS3 running on the Laptop.
                          The desktop goes to sleep when not in use; HS3 has no problems going in and out of sleep mode.

                          I guess I will think about how to create some subsystems. I know nothing about Linux. Is it worth the effort? I have done some work with VM running XP on Win 7. I had HS2 running on virtual XP for a year. Has anybody run multiple instances of HS3 on separate VMs on the same computer?

                          Your thoughts on the direction I should take would be most appreciated.

                          Steve Q




                          Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
                          I am running my VMs under Hyper-v on a Windows server. I would think that a stable Windows 8.1 or 10 pro system running an instance of Hyper-v would be as stable. My windows server is 2012r2 - essentially the same kernel as Windows 8.1. That machine has not been shut down except for updates for more than 2 years. It or any of the several VMs have never crashed - ever. The Windows 10 kernel is the basis for Server 2016.

                          VMWare ESX is another option for virtualization and there is a free version. The ESX implementation has better serial and USB support (Windows offers next to none) for virtual machines. if you are using direct serial or USB, you can forget about Hyper-v. I moved all of my interface communication to Ethernet, so that I no longer have to move wires to switch servers. I think that would be a good idea no matter what you move to.

                          Virtual machines still need a license for the client operating system. Personally, I will stick with Windows for HomeSeer, unless/until Linux support is equal or superior.
                          HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

                          Comment


                            #14
                            My philosophy, right or wrong has always to run HS on a dedicated machine. I don't suppose it matters if that's a real or virtual machine but in my case its always been physical hardware running Windows and almost fully dedicated to HS3.

                            I've been running HS3 since the early beta's on hardware that's very similar in spec to a Hometroller S6. All solid state and running Windows 7 x86.

                            Whilst HS3 has been restarted quite a few times over recent months, the OS has been up for over 8 months now. I do appear to have a small resource leak on the main HS3 exe but its so small that I have no reason to believe that HS3 won't run for months.

                            I too have only Ethernet interfaces these days. Nothing connected to my HS3 machine bar power and an Ethernet cable.

                            As an aside, I've not seen a single error from my 52 node Z-Wave network in over 2 months so I'm quite a happy bunny right now.

                            Paul..

                            Comment


                              #15
                              HS runs ( dedicated machine w ssd on XP) fine but every now and then I get HS log database corruption/ errors. Still HS run without problems. So you guys don't have these log problems?


                              Sent from my iPhone
                              Tom
                              baby steps...starting again with HS3
                              HS3Pro: Z-NET & 80 Z wave Devices,
                              HSTouch: 4 Joggler (Android Kitkat), 2 iPhone, 3 iPads
                              Whole House Audio: 5 SqueezePlay Jogglers w Bose Speakers
                              In The Works: 10 Cameras Geovision, new Adecmo/Envisalink Alarm, Arduinos
                              System: XP on Fanless Mini-ITX w/ SSD

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