Performance Degradation

Everything was working great. Then I built a basement. I added 16 insteon switches,... and it all went to hell.

My next step was to try an extender.. and although it identifies its address to Indigo,... it cannot pair with indigo. So I'm stuck....

How do I extend insteon when the extender won't pair with indigo ?

Everything was working great. Then I built a basement. I added 16 insteon switches,... and it all went to hell.

My next step was to try an extender.. and although it identifies its address to Indigo,... it cannot pair with indigo. So I'm stuck....

How do I extend insteon when the extender won't pair with indigo ?

An extender is a passive device. It doesn't need to communicate with Indigo.

Thanks.

Are you suggesting that I have a device that improves the performance of my network but it's ok that it's not a recognized part of my network?

Thanks.

Are you suggesting that I have a device that improves the performance of my network but it's ok that it's not a recognized part of my network?

At the physical link level, the other devices on the network will see it and use it to relay as appropriate. And your Insteon interface is seeing it, so you know it's there. But Indigo sends all commands via the interface, and has no reason to try to talk directly to an extender. So no reason to pair it.

This is helpful. I'll monitor whether it improves traffic.

Thanks @FlyingDiver

With Insteon if you have too many devices you might get a broadcast storm as each devices repeats the message. Just the opposite of zwave. That defines paths and only uses those devices to relay messages.

You might want to disable have the devices in the basement and see if they helps. If that is working then you might be stuck.

At least that is my understanding.

Karl.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[matt (support)]

Also for troubleshooting try turning off some circuit breakers in the house to see if the problem improves. It is possible something is causing a lot of power line noise. It could be some other electronics, or could be a malfunctioning Insteon device.

I found that Insteon will degrade performance with a lot of devices, especially the wireless ones. Line noise can also greatly affect reliability. Even though I could never get good reliability with Insteon things started to really be unstable at around 100 devices for me. I examined the protocol closely especially with a view to signal collisions and decided that it can't handle collisions well in larger setups (this takes in to account number of modules and number of messages sent). see: https://forums.indigodomo.com/viewtopic.php?p=172602#p172602 Currently I'm changing many devices to z-wave and so far things look good. I'm concentrating more on the wireless modules and the ones that receive/generate the most traffic. After changing out about 20% of my insteon modules (i'm still over 100 insteon left) things improved dramatically. I will probably leave my newer insteon switches as is (they handle collisions a bit better) and have most of the sensors as z-wave.

The one problem with z-wave, is signal propagation when modules are far apart or blocked by walls (stone in my house). This is the case for me for my outside structures. But at least z-wave gets a positive notice of the failure and can act on it, with insteon the modules acted on the corrupted messages without Indigo knowing what has happened. In my setup a repeater helped, and I plan to add another half-way between the buildings.

As to noise, these are the ones that caused most problems for me: motors and HID lamps (my pool uv sanitizer)

I've been reading through others' experiences. I only have about 60 Insteon devices and the vast majority of them are switches (40). I'm seeing most of the issues with KPLS and ApplianceLincs. Here's a sample of trying to turn on my daughter's heater. The command should simply turn on the heater and then turn on the LED for the corresponding KPL button that controls it.

Code: Select all

Sep 19, 2019 at 5:52:18 PM
   Sent INSTEON                    "Lexi's Room Heater" on
   Trigger                         KPL LED For Lexi's Room Heater Synch - ON
   Error                           resending previous command (reply mismatch)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Sent INSTEON                    "Lexi's Room KPL" keypad button 6 on

Sep 19, 2019 at 5:52:49 PM
   Error                           "Lexi's Room Heater" off; send failed (no acknowledgment)
   Sent INSTEON                    "Lexi's Room Heater" status request (received: 0)
   Trigger                         KPL LED For Lexi's Room Heater Synch - OFF
   Error                           "Lexi's Room KPL" keypad button 6 off; send failed (no acknowledgment)


Here's another example of an ApplianceLinc issue. Also controlling a heater but I don't think that's pertinent:

Code: Select all

Sep 19, 2019 at 5:59:21 PM
   Error                           resending previous command (timeout)
   Error                           "Guest Bathroom Heater" off; send failed (no acknowledgment)


Here's another. Not a heater:

Code: Select all

Sep 19, 2019 at 6:01:11 PM
   Error                           "Alana's Room White Noise Machine" on; send failed (no acknowledgment)


And when I control a switch:

Code: Select all

Sep 19, 2019 at 6:02:20 PM
   Error                           resending previous command (timeout)
   Error                           "Foyer Light" on; send failed (no acknowledgment)


I turned off all the ApplianceLincs and attempted to shut a bathroom light:

Code: Select all

Sep 19, 2019 at 6:31:36 PM
   WebServer                       Indigo Touch client connected from 192.168.1.1
   Error                           resending previous command (reply mismatch)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Sent INSTEON                    "1st Floor Bathroom Light" off
   PowerLinc                       Unexpected command 02 62 (flushing)


[jay (support)]

These errors:

Code: Select all

   Error                           resending previous command (reply mismatch)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)
   Error                           resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)


Are almost always because of signal noise. I'd recommend following Matt's advice if you can't think of something else that's new on your electrical system that might be causing issues (check the signal troubleshooting page for tips). Perhaps the basement buildout also included some new electrically powered items?

Thanks for your time and thoughts guys.

In real life outside of this forum, shutting down power to parts of the house to troubleshoot HA isn't realistic. What we really need is a usable approach to measuring comms effectiveness in real time. It seems like some folks have ideas that can help n this area.

I'm thinking back to the thread I read about a guy whose garage door sporadically opened in the middle of the night. Right now I'm only dealing with bathroom lights turning themselves on , but I also have garage door I/O's.

I think the best bet for me is to shut down Indigo until I can figure this all out.

[jay (support)]

In real life outside of this forum, shutting down power to parts of the house to troubleshoot HA isn't realistic.......I think the best bet for me is to shut down Indigo until I can figure this all out.

It's going to be difficult to diagnose the problem without Indigo running unless you have some hardware to directly interface to your electrical system and know how to interpret the results. Perhaps shutting down circuits isn't realistic for you, but I can guarantee you that a LOT of people over the years have successfully used this method despite the very short-term inconvenience it may cause.

Unfortunately, this is a problem with Insteon and other power line carrier technologies (like X10). There isn't really much Indigo can do about it nor diagnose stuff since we don't build the hardware that interfaces to the power line.

Many users have started switching at least parts of their system over to Z-Wave (which is a fully RF-based technology), which seems to be much more robust in the vast majority of cases.

Thanks Jay. I'll reconsider the approach and give it a shot.

Thanks Jay. I'll reconsider the approach and give it a shot.

Just in case you are thinking about it incorrectly, you don't have to shut things off for a long time. Often times if you can catch a time when you see things failing consistently (such as getting several failures in a row), you can do your tests then. Since the basement is new, think about just turning off those circuits. If things immediately improve on the devices that were failing, then you start narrowing from there.

Of course, it could be totally random in the pattern it is generating noise, but most of the time it is sometime repeatable... a particular appliance, light fixture, switch/device, etc. So shutting power to that has an immediate impact on stopping the timeouts.

It is a pain, no doubt. I've only had to do it once that I remember even with a bunch of INSTEON devices.

Adam

Attempt 1:

I installed an Insteon extender
I air-gapped all the Insteon switches in the basement and unplugged the new TV, Alex, and Xbox.

Issues persist. I haven't turned off the circuit yet but I'll try that next.