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Z-wave stick breakdown, no alternative to setting up new?

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2019 2:32 pm
by superholz
After some working with my network (adding new devices, resyncing old devices) one device was not reachable. After unplugging the z-wave stick and restarting the computer etc. the Z-wave stick was not accessible by indigo because it was continuously throwing errors (I don’t remember exactly but something with “unexpected bytes received”.

Since the Z-stick is battery powered there is no way to restart it (that’s what I think). So I decided to wait if the error goes over, also because I saw something like “starting node healing proces”. After some time there where no errors any more and the the z-wave stick was accessible to indigo. BUT all devices where inactivated in indigo since no match with the devices in the z-stick was possible.
When open the “define/sync” dialog of an arbitrary device, some of the devices seam to be still there - just named in a basic manner (“051- Slave”). Syncing however was not possible. When trying so the devices is not reachable.

My solution is to buy a new Z-wave stick and exclude, include and resync every single device. Buy a new one because if I have to go through the whole proces I want to make sure to also switch to the 5gen version and be safe that the stick is not hardware damaged.

This post is to make sure that there is no other (simple) option I could try to recover the existing stick and also to make sure it is good to switch from the Aeon S2 stick to the 5Gen. And of cause to vent a bit of my Z-wave frustration :shock:

Re: Z-wave stick breakdown, no alternative to setting up new

PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:03 am
by jay (support)
One thing I'd try before anything else: make sure that the problem isn't because of some other RF interference. I know that's hard to do perhaps, but removing power from anything that might generate RF noise that's anywhere near the stick is a good start. You might even try moving the Mac (if it's not too much trouble) to a completely different area in your house (temporarily) just to see if that's the problem. RF interference doesn't happen very often, but we have had a few reports.

One other thing would be to unplug all other USB devices on your Mac (except keyboard/mouse and the Z-Stick) to see if there's something on the USB bus that's causing issues. We've definitely seen this before as well.

Re: Z-wave stick breakdown, no alternative to setting up new

PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 2:12 pm
by berkinet
superholz wrote:
...This post is to make sure that there is no other (simple) option I could try to recover the existing stick and also to make sure it is good to switch from the Aeon S2 stick to the 5Gen. And of cause to vent a bit of my Z-wave frustration :shock:

I just moved from the Z-Stick 2 to the Gen5 and, other than the pain of the move, had no problems. The Gen5 Z-Stick is much better than the 2. Also, using the Aeotec software (requires a PC, real or virtual) you can make a backup on the Gen5 Z-Stick.

And, I feel your pain :cry:

Re: Z-wave stick breakdown, no alternative to setting up new

PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 2:16 pm
by superholz
Nice to hear that you did not regret to switch to the 5Gen. What did you experience to be better about it?

A backup indeed would have saved me here, so I will try to do that after setting up the networ again.

So your S2 also died and you had to lean the hard way?

Re: Z-wave stick breakdown, no alternative to setting up new

PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 2:23 pm
by berkinet
superholz wrote:
Nice to hear that you did not regret to switch to the 5Gen. What did you experience to be better about it?...

...So your S2 also died and you had to lean the hard way?

I find the signal to be stronger and interface to OS-X and Indigo simpler. My Z-Stick 2 is still working, I just decided it was time to upgrade, mainly for the back-up. Also, I wanted to remote the Z-Stick and was hoping the Gen5 would work with a USB-over-IP solution (it didn't, but I worked around that and, in fact, the Z-Stick 2 would also work wit the solution I found.

BTW, I would be happy to just send you my Z-Stick 2 - are you (just guessing) in Germany? I am in France and can easily mail it to you.

Re: Z-wave stick breakdown, no alternative to setting up new

PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 3:28 pm
by superholz
Thanks for the offer! However, If I have to built up again the network I will use a new 5Gen stick. I think there is a good chance that also my S2 would work after a factory reset.
German living in the Netherlands btw.