INSTEON PowerLinc Modem (2413U)

I had a brief power failure at my house yesterday and since then Indigo will not connect to my 2413U PowerLinc modem. The error message is:
Interface Failure: failed to establish connection with serial interface PowerLinc Modem on port usbserial-A6028K2G

I have done the following to try and re-establish the connection:
- Reset the PowerLinc following the instructions about 6 times - light is green and all appropriate noises happen
- Unplugged all USB devices except for the PowerLinc
- Restarted Indigo multiple times
- Restarted the computer multiple times

Thinking it I might have had an invisible power surge that fried the PowerLinc, I then went to my laptop, ran Indigo there, and plugged in the PowerLinc - it worked perfectly.

I notice, however, that in the Configure Powerline Interface pop-up, with Interface type = PowerLinc Modem ... 2413U, the serial port = usbserial - A6028K26 - port not found and this is the only choice in the dropdown. In addition, on occasion, when I go into this pop-up, the serial port dropdown is empty. (On my laptop, that same pop-up specified a serial port without the "port not found" error.

I am thus thinking that the FTDI driver is not generating a correct port any more. Unfortunately, having Yosemite, the driver is built in, and I don't want to blindly go loading FTDI drivers that might screw up the O/S.

I have not seen anything in the forum about how to get Yosemite to change the port; I don't even know WHEN this port is generated (when the PowerLinc is plugged in?).

Any help is appreciated, since my entire house is now without the delightful automation that I have come to rely on all too much, it seems.

[jay (support)]

Very odd - have you tried different USB ports on your Mac? I wonder if the port it's plugged into got hosed by the outage. When you try it on your laptop, are you using the same cable to the PowerLinc and is the PL plugged into the same outlet?

Jay - you are the master.

I, however, apparently do NOT understand how electricity works.

The culprit was the outlet. When I plugged the PowerLinc into a different outlet it worked fine. But the PowerLinc showed a green light when plugged into the suspect outlet.

As it turns out, my UPS (with computer and monitors attached) was plugged into the other plug of the outlet. I unplugged the UPS, relying on battery power, and plugged the PowerLinc into the suspect plug. Worked perfectly! Plugged the UPS back into the other plug - still works perfectly!

I totally do NOT understand why having the UPS could result in a port not found error on the computer, but it's fixed, so I will continue to pray to the Power Gods to keep everything happy.

Thanks Jay!

[jay (support)]

When the PowerLinc sees a bunch of Insteon traffic - or in your case, a lot of signal noise that it's attempting to decipher as real Insteon traffic, it can get into a state such that it ignores everything else - including the serial/USB controller. So when you plug it into your Mac, and the Mac's USB system tries to query the device to find out what kind it is (so it can load the correct driver), the PowerLinc never responds.

I suspect that to get a fully reliable system, you'll need to get a FilterLinc for your UPS - they are notoriously bad about generating signal noise.

I put the Insteon filters on all my computer/hub UPSs in the house. No more problems. Huge difference.
Chip

Hey yall,
I was reading this thread yesterday after my 2413u was pretty much written off as a hardware failure , but after I reinstalled the latest FTDI driver (ver 2.3) specific for 10.9 and above it's working perfectly again .

you can get it here: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

Something recently has occurred on my machine the PowerLinc Modem to stop working. I'm unsure specifically as to what has happened. I have assumed that it was the 2413U modem. I attempted to reboot, restart, reinstall but nothing has seemed to work. The Indigo 6 software continues to show the PowerLinc Modem in red with a line through it indicating it's not found.

I've done some digging and for some reason my iphone is listed as the 'serial port' so perhaps something is misconfigured? Here are some screenshots if it will help:

https://space.zeo.net/g/4bu38
https://space.zeo.net/g/5hp4p
https://space.zeo.net/g/2040f

I have the latest driver loaded (FTDI 2.3) as you can see.

About my Mac:
https://space.zeo.net/g/4bu3d

Any thoughts, reconfiguration, resets, etc would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Gregory

[jay (support)]

Those serial ports are definitely not for the PowerLinc (the name would start with usbserial). Is your PowerLinc plugged directly into a USB port on your Mac (not a hub)? If so, then try a factory reset on the PowerLinc and then resync.

I just spent several days fighting the same problem. I tried replacing the PowerLinc, replacing its USB cable, and then updating to the latest version of Indigo and the Mac OS in case something had become corrupted. Finally I tried a third USB cable, and that fixed the problem.

Thanks for your reply. I am connected to a Mac Pro (Cylinder) to one of the 4 USB ports. I moved the connection to another USB port and rebooted, however, no joy. Still the same issue.

I have factory reset the PowerLinc Model (2413U). I have one I purchased a year ago and one I purchased recently in case the one I've been using failed. Both give the same response. I've also tried a separate USB cable just in case. I've rebooted the Mac, I've uninstalled and reinstalled the indigo software per http://wiki.indigodomo.com/doku.php?id= ... g_indigo_6 and reinstalled. Still the same issue.

Somehow when running the "Configure Insteon/X10 Powerline Interface" isn't displaying the usbserial serial port. It seems to only display my iphone.

Is there a registry (like a Windows Registry) or some place where I can wipe our the serial settings and allow the system to rebuild what's actually there? It's very strange that the only serial ports that show up or related to my iPhone.

Somehow when running the "Configure Insteon/X10 Powerline Interface" isn't displaying the usbserial serial port. It seems to only display my iphone.

The 2413U did display in the Configure menu in my system, but Indigo couldn't access it.

Is there a registry (like a Windows Registry) or some place where I can wipe our the serial settings and allow the system to rebuild what's actually there? It's very strange that the only serial ports that show up or related to my iPhone.

My USB ports also worked with other devices including my iPhone. I upgraded to Yosemite hoping that might clear out any kind of software contamination that might exist, but nothing changed. It seemed unlikely that I would have two bad USB cables, but trying a third one is what fixed it. It's easy to try, and I'd recommend doing so, if only to eliminate that possibility.

Hi Otis -

Per your suggestion, I disabled and exited the software, installed a 3rd cable (I have about 5 of them around here) and unfortunately, that didn't work. So, just to be sure, I used a 4th one that goes between my Fujitsu scanner and computer (which I know works), and that didn't resolve the issue either.

I believe the cable is OK. I believe this has to do with a system driver issue as when I go into the TERMINAL and look for cu.usbserial driver in /DEV, I don't see it in there even after I've installed the FTDI driver.

I experienced the same problem this week. All these failures can't possibly be a coincidence? Can they?

I purchased a new module to restore functionality.

[jay (support)]

Remember, El Capitan seems to have some relatively serious USB issues that Apple doesn't appear to have addressed yet - not sure if this applies to you or not.

I am seeing issues were it appears that Indigo and the 2413U quits communicating. I saw on the FTDI site that apple now provides some support for some FTDI devices. Do you know if there is a conflict between the apple provided support and the FTDI provided driver? Is it worth either uninstalling the FTDI drive and seeing if the apple driver works or disabling the apple drive and installing the latest FTDI driver? I see that people are having issues with El Capitan but didn't see any mention of trying this? Thanks for the help.