debug mode to see spurious 'noise'/commands?

hello all.

i've had very little issue over the decade plus of the insteon system i'm running, probably about.. 60 nodes?.. but recently i'm experiencing another period of very unreliable communication - slow, spotty device response, system sync confusions... etc.

i have added no new equipment in the house, that i can think of; i did replace an irrigation unit (one ezrain finally seemed to be failing), replacing that did get things running well again for a minute, but the last two days, very spotty response rate. seemingly across the board, no specific areas worse than others.. it does seem to happen at night more, but perhaps that's only because many more devices are used at night..?

my fear is that there is something in the neighborhood, at a neighbor's house or something, that is putting noise in the power line. i can't determine what, but it's a thought.

are there any modes in indigo, or using a utility app, whereby i can see insteon traffic to try to narrow down: spurious commands clogging the power line, devices failing and sending garbage over the line, noise, etc etc. something i can use to help diagnose this issue. not sure how else to solve it, other than systematically unplugging every device in the house until it resolves...??

thanks for any thoughts.

[jay (support)]

Benjamin's Survey plugin may help.

thanks jay, you know, i did try benjamin's plugin. most devices work fine, it does help narrow down the 'slow' guys.. but, maybe not enough to allow me to diagnose anything. slow responders aren't necessarily a real issue. (his latest version plugin also errors out at the fact that i currently have z-wave disabled and won't complete a pass, so.. i haven't emailed him about that yet.)

anyway, thanks for the tip. i'm plugging away, so to speak. i'm beginning to suspect an original keypadlinc might be putting garbage in the line, am planning to disconnect (or replace) that this weekend and see what kind of change that makes. it's exceedingly difficult to guess at what a device 'might' be doing when it's finicky, just a little slow or actually failing and putting out garbage commands/responses.. i have seen more than the usual (none?) number of 'unknown commands, flushing' in the log of late.. which is why i'm suspecting a failing unit. oh, smarthome. how i curse thee.


thanks again.

[jay (support)]

If you can see any pattern (like location and/or phase) among the "slow" ones, it might help narrow down the problem.

You can air gap in-wall stuff (turn them off) by pulling out the LED set pipe below the switch/buttons until they stay out, FYI, so you don't have to remove/replace them until you know for sure that they're the troublemaker.

You can air gap in-wall stuff (turn them off) by pulling out the LED set pipe

right, thanks for the reminder. maybe i'll do that tonight even. thanks jay