Does USB work or doesn't it?

Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:08 am
Collings offline
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Does USB work or doesn't it?

Guys, I love you and appreciate how hard you work. But I've spent months not upgrading to 7 (and not upgrading my only mac from a now very old version of MacOS) because the only way I can get information is to spend my free time sifting through this forum. I wanted to install a HomeBridge plugin that requires Indigo 7, and I did a quick search a few months ago to see if there was anything I needed to be afraid of. The first thing I came across is this thread in Announcements:

High Sierra - our yearly warning [UPDATED WITH WARNING INFO]
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19100

It sounds like Apple broke the fragile USB Insteon stuff? The last message in that thread was in January. It's June now. I'm left to assume that it's still screwed up? I spent an hour just now trying to figure that out. I found page 4 of some other thread that links to a "workaround" that was posted one day after the last post in the announcements thread:

http://www.indigodomo.com/blog/2018/01/ ... orkaround/

So, does this mean the workaround solves the problem in the announcements thread? Is the workaround still necessary in 10.13.4? 10.13.5? That stale announcement thread is certainly keeping me from upgrading.

How many systems are affected by this USB nonsense?
When will Insteon ever move to a more reliable (or at least widely supported) USB chipset? Maybe the one that's in my ancient printer or any of my other myriad USB devices that have never had a connectivity problem and never been destroyed by a power failure?
How can I know when it's safe to upgrade without spending an hour every few weeks mining forum threads?

Thank you.

Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:12 am
Colorado4Wheeler offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

There is a work around for upgrading to High Sierra and the USB that seems to be doing the trick for those that go down that road. I haven't gotten to a point where I want to test that myself yet but I've kept a close eye on the thread and it seems to be spot-on and I may pull the trigger myself soon.

I can, however, attest that Indigo 7 + Sierra works just fine.

My Modest Contributions to Indigo:

HomeKit Bridge | Device Extensions | Security Manager | LCD Creator | Room-O-Matic | Smart Dimmer | Scene Toggle | Powermiser | Homebridge Buddy

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Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:29 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Collings wrote:
Guys, I love you and appreciate how hard you work. But I've spent months not upgrading to 7 (and not upgrading my only mac from a now very old version of MacOS) because the only way I can get information is to spend my free time sifting through this forum. I wanted to install a HomeBridge plugin that requires Indigo 7, and I did a quick search a few months ago to see if there was anything I needed to be afraid of. The first thing I came across is this thread in Announcements:

High Sierra - our yearly warning [UPDATED WITH WARNING INFO]
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19100

It sounds like Apple broke the fragile USB Insteon stuff? The last message in that thread was in January. It's June now. I'm left to assume that it's still screwed up? I spent an hour just now trying to figure that out. I found page 4 of some other thread that links to a "workaround" that was posted one day after the last post in the announcements thread:

http://www.indigodomo.com/blog/2018/01/ ... orkaround/

So, does this mean the workaround solves the problem in the announcements thread? Is the workaround still necessary in 10.13.4? 10.13.5? That stale announcement thread is certainly keeping me from upgrading.

How many systems are affected by this USB nonsense?
When will Insteon ever move to a more reliable (or at least widely supported) USB chipset? Maybe the one that's in my ancient printer or any of my other myriad USB devices that have never had a connectivity problem and never been destroyed by a power failure?
How can I know when it's safe to upgrade without spending an hour every few weeks mining forum threads?

Thank you.


First, the very first sentence in the first post of the warning thread (the first link you posted above) has a link to the driver bug workaround (the second link you posted) that you apparently missed and subsequently found after "mining" other threads. Apple has acknowledged the bug but will not (they never do) give developers who submit bugs any idea if/when any given bug will be fixed. All we will see is that magically one day our bug report will change states. We will post on that thread when Apple claims to have solved the issues. With regard to the workaround, most users who experience the bugs report that the workaround works correctly. We've had a couple of reports of it only partially working, and one report of it not working at all, but because the workaround implementation procedure is somewhat tricky we think that if you follow it exactly you're chance of success is high.

Second, Apple didn't break Insteon - they broke any device that uses the FTDI driver, which is the most used and most reliable USB UART chipset out there. This is definitely one scenario where Insteon is totally blameless. The first sentence in the warning post also mentions that can effect the RFXCOM devices as well since they use the same chipset.

Third, there is some unknown subset of Macs which have the issue. We suspect it's older Macs but we don't know for sure because we don't have one model of every Mac ever made to test with. All we can do is relay the experiences that we have directly and those others report to us. Once we discovered the workaround, we've not really had much of a follow-up from others about subsequent dot releases. As we get them, we'll post them on that first thread (I'll be adding one for 10.13.5 - we just got a report today that indicates the bug still exists).

We try very hard to clarify what things work and don't work with respect to 3rd party dependencies. We have no direct control over them, particularly with Apple, so what we're doing is the best we can do. Our users are generally technical enough that they can determine for themselves the risks associated with any given change to their environment, and yes that sometimes requires doing some research. At this point, I'd recommend upgrading Indigo 7 without upgrading your OS - doing multiple upgrades at the same time is often a recipe for disaster. If your Mac isn't on Lion, then consider upgrading to Sierra instead, making sure that things are stable for you, then upgrade to Indigo 7. Stepwise change is always best.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:18 am
Different Computers offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Collings wrote:
But I've spent months not upgrading to 7 (and not upgrading my only mac from a now very old version of MacOS) because the only way I can get information is to spend my free time sifting through this forum. I wanted to install a HomeBridge plugin that requires Indigo 7,


Is Sierra not an option for you? I'm on 10.12.6 and my system is rock solid, including HomeKit Bridge.

SmartThings refugee, so happy to be on Indigo. Monterey on a base M1 Mini w/Harmony Hub, Hue, DomoPad, Dynamic URL, Device Extensions, HomeKitLink, Grafana, Plex, uniFAP, Fantastic Weather, Nanoleaf, LED Simple Effects, Bond Home, Camect.

Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:40 am
Collings offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

I'm not hating on you. I realize you're getting grief because of a problem someone else created. I'm just super frustrated because I spent three hours trying to make something that should be simple work this morning and I failed, and now I'm late to work with nothing to show for it.

Please understand what this is like for someone coming at it without the benefit of continuous engagement. I'm coming at this from nothing, and here's what I see: The first three lines of the first post of your announcement thread (which is from months ago, and I have no way of knowing if it is still relevant) link to a blog post, another post which may be the same one but may not, a potential workaround from last September which may or may not still be relevant (how would I know without reading 10 posts there?), and then another post. So just three sentences in I'm spelunking four other pages. When I saw that I scrolled to the end of the thread, saw that the LAST message (before the one you posted just now), presumably the most recent announcement with the latest information, begins with, "A user report on the latest 10.13.3 OS release, and it's not good:" That post is almost five months old at this point, and only clearly conveys that the problem at least still existed at THAT point.

So, the expectation is that your average customer will read 11 posts, two other threads, and an oppressive page of "workaround" that talks about serial chipsets just to know that the first one has the latest information, assuming they find the forum at all. This is a LOT to dig through to know if I've found the most recent information. That's what I meant by "mining". It would be far more efficient to have one post in that announcements thread link to a single page that had the current information so that I don't have to relive every development since last September to understand the state of affairs. If I'm missing some more efficient way of finding this information, please help me find that.

My experience of using Indigo software is long periods of being afraid to touch anything (during which it's nice and I'm able to control my lights from my phone) punctuated by solid days of frustration. When I get it leaned together just right it's great. It's these times when I want (or need) to make a change that are not.

Maybe it's not even a big deal? How do I find where you are relaying which systems have a problem? Anyone with a 2011 iMac having this issue?

Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:45 am
Collings offline
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Joined: Dec 04, 2008

Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Different Computers wrote:
Collings wrote:
But I've spent months not upgrading to 7 (and not upgrading my only mac from a now very old version of MacOS) because the only way I can get information is to spend my free time sifting through this forum. I wanted to install a HomeBridge plugin that requires Indigo 7,


Is Sierra not an option for you? I'm on 10.12.6 and my system is rock solid, including HomeKit Bridge.


That's on me. I missed the window to upgrade to 10.12 (because I was afraid to change anything), so my machine is stuck at 10.11. Also frustrating because iCloud doesn't work, etc. I haven't done any research on updating to 10.12 when the App Store only offers 10.13. Is it possible?

Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:47 am
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Collings wrote:
I haven't done any research on updating to 10.12 when the App Store only offers 10.13. Is it possible?


Sure. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 3:14 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Collings wrote:
How do I find where you are relaying which systems have a problem? Anyone with a 2011 iMac having this issue?


As we've said, we don't have a list because we don't have access to every Mac made over the past 10 years or so. Apple won't provide any information like this either. So, beyond our anecdotal evidence that it seems to be older Macs (I have a 2010 MacBook Pro that has the problem and a 2015 MacBook Pro that doesn't), we don't know for sure. Users don't often give us that level of specificity when reporting issues.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed Jun 06, 2018 4:22 pm
jltnol offline
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Joined: Oct 15, 2013

Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Hey Jay

Does indigo "phone home" with any info on computers, OS's, or anything else ? I'd be more than happy to give up some level of privacy if Indigo was interested in collecting the data. May be too much work on the back end for you guys... I know you've got bigger fish to fry... but might be something to consider down the road at some point, and may be helpful in determining what combination of hardware and software is working and not working...

JT

Posted on
Thu Jun 07, 2018 10:02 am
Collings offline
Posts: 16
Joined: Dec 04, 2008

Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

FlyingDiver wrote:
Collings wrote:
I haven't done any research on updating to 10.12 when the App Store only offers 10.13. Is it possible?


Sure. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202


Aah! Thank you! I'll get that going as soon as my backup is up to date!

Posted on
Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:35 pm
colovin offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Bottom line, what is the highest trouble free OS recommended for Indigo 7? I'm generally a, if it ain't broke don't fix it kind of guy. I'm on a Late 2012 Mac Mini that runs my whole house. I've been happily running 10.10.5 and should probably stay there. Some of the other programs that I'm using (most notabily box) are telling me they will no longer support 10.10 which has got me looking to update my OS. Obviously 10.13 is out. Some one earlier said that 10.12 was solid for them. If I'm going to update I want to update to the highest stable situation. Is 10.11 better than 10.12 in the Indigo environment? (I get all the names confused so I'd rather just go by the number. Guess that's why Bond goes by 007) :-) My Davis VantagePro2 weather station, which is integrated into the system is out being renovated / updated so I will want until I get that back and stabilized before I venture into the upgrading the OS. But when I get there, what do you experts suggest?

Indigo 7.1.1, OS 10.14.6, MacMini .3.2 GHz 6 Intel Core i7, 64 GB ram

Posted on
Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:46 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

I personally would recommend 10.12. Yes, the TLS issue with Python can be a problem, but IMO it's less an issue than the 2 OS bugs that screw up the FTDI driver. You have to reapply the patch every time the OS gets even a minor dot release to get around one of them (though, if you can live with having to unplug/replug your PowerLinc after a reboot then you don't need to redo the patch).

Of course, you may not even have the issue on your particular Mac. It's a mess and a conundrum for sure.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:09 am
colovin offline
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Joined: Oct 27, 2009

Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Yes I'm pretty much looking for a trouble free experience so It's looking like 10.12 is the way to go. Weather Display is integrated with indigo so I'm waiting to see what the OS issues are with it. If there are no 10.12 issues there I'll go with that. Thanks for your reply.

Indigo 7.1.1, OS 10.14.6, MacMini .3.2 GHz 6 Intel Core i7, 64 GB ram

Posted on
Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:31 am
Colorado4Wheeler offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

jay (support) wrote:
if you can live with having to unplug/replug your PowerLinc after a reboot then you don't need to redo the patch

I'm wondering something after reading this statement. What if your PowerLinc was attached to a Z-wave outlet adapter, like the Dome plugin adapter, and you toggled the power on startup. Would that replicate the "plug and unplug" situation since the PowerLinc would essentially be "unplugged" from power? I assume so, but it's an interesting work around if this is what someone had to do to keep the PowerLinc connected to High Sierra.

I use this same technique on my various Echo's and HomePods if there is an Internet outage and my "Internet Indigo Sensor" trips, just to make sure when I ask them for something I don't get the dreaded "I cannot contact the Internet right now, please try again later" and it works wonderfully.

My Modest Contributions to Indigo:

HomeKit Bridge | Device Extensions | Security Manager | LCD Creator | Room-O-Matic | Smart Dimmer | Scene Toggle | Powermiser | Homebridge Buddy

Check Them Out Here

Posted on
Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:02 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Does USB work or doesn't it?

Colorado4Wheeler wrote:
I'm wondering something after reading this statement. What if your PowerLinc was attached to a Z-wave outlet adapter, like the Dome plugin adapter, and you toggled the power on startup. Would that replicate the "plug and unplug" situation since the PowerLinc would essentially be "unplugged" from power? I assume so, but it's an interesting work around if this is what someone had to do to keep the PowerLinc connected to High Sierra.


Possible, though Insteon is pretty finicky about signal noise/interference - it's possible that being plugged in through another device could effect it's ability to reliably see the signals on the powerline.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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