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dhoward
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| Posted: June 17 2022 at 17:21 | IP Logged
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All,
Here is the latest patch for PowerHome, version 2.2beta3-5.
This version has the fixes for the Elk that were broken in 3-3 as well as the long awaited option to skip the
Insteon PLM device scan when the Insteon
controller is connected. By default, the scan will skipped on a "Reconnect" but you can also select to skip the
scan on a "Connect".
Quite a few minor changes to the MQTT controller to better support Tasmota and Shelly devices. Several new
variables are now also available in the
AnalogIO formulas. Comments are now also allowed on Formulas. A number of minor bug fixes are also included. Ive
been running this in my home for close
to two weeks and everything is stable.
Just download and unzip the patch file on top of your existing PowerHome 2.2beta3 install (see the the
PowerHome 2.2beta3 thread and make sure
PowerHome is not running). The database has changed so you
will need to run the PHUPG.EXE file to upgrade your database.
Check it out and let me know if you have any issues.
Apparently 2.2beta3-4 had an issue with loading controllers. 2.2beta3-5 hopefully fixes it. If you previously installed 2.2beta3-4,
please upgrade to 2.2beta3-5.
Dave.
Edited by dhoward - June 18 2022 at 19:25
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 17 2022 at 17:33 | IP Logged
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Also wanted to give everyone an update concerning ZWave. Currently, PowerHome has ZWave support through the Razberry daughtercard for the Raspberry Pi. This
seemed to be working quite well but after using it for awhile (and having it die on me), I decided I needed to look for other ZWave support options.
I was going to use the OpenZWave libraries but upon doing research on this in the last couple of weeks, it appears that this project has been abandoned so
that option is now out.
What I did discover is an open-source project called zwavejs2mqtt. It basically is a node.js application that communicates with ZWave using pretty much any
ZWave controller (Im using Aeotec stick) and then allows for status and control using MQTT. I setup this application on my PowerHome machine, pointed it to my
MQTT broker (Mosquitto) already running on the PowerHome machine and now once again have control for my ZWave devices. All in all, this seems to be working
better than the Razberry solution as well as not locking you into a specific vendor for the ZWave controller. Anyone who is interested in testing this and
needs some help, let me know and I'll post what I did to get things working.
Based upon the success of the ZWave above, I also purchased an Sonoff Zigbee controller and will be working with the zigbee2mqtt open-source app to see how
that works with PowerHome as well. The Wi-Fi devices typically supported by MQTT are nice but the battery powered devices consume alot of power and don't seem
to last as long as a ZWave or Zigbee battery powered device. I bought several Zigbee devices so will be playing with that and will post my results.
Have a great weekend.
Dave.
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smarty
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| Posted: June 18 2022 at 13:50 | IP Logged
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hmm... having issues getting my usb rf insteon plm to come online...
The order in which PH loads controllers seems to matter.
When I move my PLM controller to the end of the load list, my other controllers load properly (they didn't
before - any controller after the failed Insteon controller also failed to load).
Here is the log error:
An error occurred while processing the execution queue.
Resetting execution queue and trying again.
*** Error Details ***
Error Number: 3
Object Name: uo_controller_insteon
Class: uo_controller_insteon
Routine Name: f_getplcids
Line: 27
Text: Array boundary exceeded at line 27 in function f_getplcids of object uo_controller_insteon.
Edited by smarty - June 18 2022 at 14:23
__________________
Elk - Insteon - BlueIris - DMC1 - PowerHome - XLobby - HA_Bridge w/Dots - Brultech
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 18 2022 at 15:15 | IP Logged
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Steve,
The array boundary exceeded is not a good sign. That means it's something I changed.
I'll look at it right away and get a fix out ASAP.
Thanks,
Dave.
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 18 2022 at 19:27 | IP Logged
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Powerhome 2.2beta3-4 has an issue with loading controllers. Version 2.2beta3-5 is available from the first post in this thread. Please
upgrade to 3-5 if you previously installed 3-4.
Sorry for any problems.
Dave.
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renard
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| Posted: June 19 2022 at 15:01 | IP Logged
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Dave:
I performed the upgrade to 2.2beta3-5 and the registration information was lost. Is that expected? How do I restore it?
Thanks,
Terry
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Terry
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 19 2022 at 21:02 | IP Logged
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Terry,
Definitely not normal. When you did the Database Upgrade, a copy of your original database file would have been made in the database directory. Before doing
anything, make another copy and store it somewhere safe. After doing that, I would move/rename/or delete the existing "trashed" pwrhome.db file and rename your
previous copy that the upgrade utility made back to pwrhome.db. Rerun the upgrade utility and watch the onscreen log for any potential errors. If anything pops
up, let me know.
Hopefully running a second time will work properly.
Dave.
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renard
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| Posted: June 20 2022 at 13:05 | IP Logged
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Dave,
Mystery solved. When I ran the PHUPG program I was not paying any attention to what it was telling me. I assumed the program would read the .ini file to find out where the database is actually located. For backup reasons, I have no data files located on the program drive (C:) but rather on the D: drive. PHUPG was reading the empty database on the C: drive. My C: drive is backed up every two weeks and the all data files on the D: drive are backed up every six hours.
__________________
Terry
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 20 2022 at 15:03 | IP Logged
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Terry,
Gotcha. Makes sense. And you're right, the PHUPG utility does not look at the INI file (I'll make a note to add that).
Glad to hear you've got a good backup process and that everything is working properly. You can never have too many backups  .
Dave.
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renard
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| Posted: June 27 2022 at 11:36 | IP Logged
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Dave,
I'd like to try the Aeotec stick for status and control using MQTT. I have Aeotek and have set up the Mosquitto MQTT broker. You have offered to supply your notes and I'd like to take you up on that. I tried the Razberry/Raspi approach and I could not get it to work.
Thanks
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Terry
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 28 2022 at 14:37 | IP Logged
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Terry,
No problem.
Since it sounds like you already have Mosquitto setup, your next step would be getting zwavejs2mqtt going. While zwavejs2mqtt recommends using Kubernetes or Docker, Ive
never really been a fan of the containerization options. I went with what they deem the hardest way to setup and that was compiling the source on Windows. On this page
https://zwave-js.github.io/zwavejs2mqtt/#/getting-started/ot her-methods, there is the "NodeJS or PKG version". I first just downloaded a zip of the GIT sourcecode and
extracted it to c:\zwavejs2mqtt. I downloaded the latest version of NodeJS for Windows and installed that. Once that was done, I then downloaded Yarn as detailed on this
page: https://classic.yarnpkg.com/lang/en/docs/install/#windows-st able
After that, I then followed the instructions on the first zwavejs2mqtt page:
cd zwavejs2mqtt
yarn install
yarn run build
yarn start
That was it. Zwavejs2mqtt was up and running and I was able to configure it from a browser at 127.0.0.1:8091. After it was able to see my Aeotec stick and I configured it
to connect to Mosquitto, I then went and setup PowerHome. I created a new MQTT controller and also pointed it to my Mosquitto broker. Restarted and I was ready to
configure.
After adding my Zwave devices to zwavejs2mqtt, I then went into PowerHome Explorer and under PowerHome->MQTT->MQTT Subscribe, I create a topic filter that looked like:
zwave/#
Depending upon how you have zwavejs2mqtt configured, you could have a different topic but you can change the topic filter to just # to subscribe to everything coming into
Mosquitto. I set the formula for the topic to show a messagebox of all the PowerHome variables anytime a message came in. After I started adding more and more MQTT
devices, it became easier to write the variables to a file rather than displaying popups. In any event, this allowed me to see exactly what was being sent/received via
MQTT to control a Zwave device.
After I had enough data, I disabled my MQTT subscription topic and went to the Analog I/O screen to create a Zwave device. I created a new device, set the controller to
MQTT and set the I/O type to "IOT Output". I then set the ROM ID/IP/Topic/Channel column to "zwave/2/38/0/currentValue". This is what is received by PowerHome to tell you
the current status of the Zwave device (periodically or when it is controlled). In my setup, all Zwave start with "zwave" followed by the unit number that was assigned in
zwavejs2mqtt followed by the command class (38 for a dimmer) followed by the instance (typically 0).
The next field to setup was the P Topic / O Channel column which holds the MQTT topic to control the zwave device. In my case I used "zwave/2/38/0/targetValue/set".
I forgot to mention that in the database directory of PowerHome 2.2beta3-5 is a file called "basetable_update.sql". In the PowerHome Multi-Editor set to SQL mode
(shift+F5), you can read in the entire file and execute it (it should be non-destructive to existing data) or you bring in relevant SQL you may be interested in. In my
case, I just brought it all in but if you want to play with just the relevant bits, you'll need all of the "insert into formulas..." lines to build the formulas and should
also bring in the "insert into rangedetail..." and "insert into rangeheader..." lines. If you want to minimize on this last step, for my example, you can get by with only
the lines referencing "ZWAVEDIMMER".
With the formulas and user ranges imported into your system, you can set the final fields in the Analog I/O table. I set the "Raw to Calculated Formula" to:
ph_formulabtn_s("ZWAVE_DIMMER") and I set the "Range ID" to: ZWAVEDIMMER.
After saving and opening up the Device Status screen, I was able to see and control my ZWave dimmer.
This all gets a little technical and complicated for the layperson to setup even with the formulas and ranges already setup so my plan for the new "Wizard" would be to
present the user with a window asking the type of device they'd like to add and a few questions about the device and then having PowerHome automatically create the entry
for you with all the relative information properly filled out. I'll need to build up a little database of possibilities so it should evolve over time.
Anyways, that is all I can think of at the moment. Let me know if you run into any problems and I'll be happy to help out.
Dave.
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 09:16 | IP Logged
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Hey Dave - should this address my Communication issue with 3.3?
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dhoward
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 09:52 | IP Logged
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Jeff,
Yes, it should. That database query from the PLM will no longer take place on a reconnect so Im hoping it will take care of your issue.
I would give it a whirl and if you have any problems, let me know and I'll give it another round of fixes.
Dave.
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 10:54 | IP Logged
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Thanks Dave - I assume the procedure is
1) exit PH
2) make copies of all my Powerhome-related folders
3) install ph22beta3setup
4) install pg22beta3-5
5) run the phupg.exe
I'm not sure if step 2 should be "MOVE my existing folders" (so
that step 3 is a clean install).
if there are problems, I can move the PH folders to something else,
and move the copies back to their old positions, and fire up the old
PH until issues are resolved.
Am I missing anything?
Thanks!
/j
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dhoward
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 11:09 | IP Logged
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Jeff,
Close. The upgrade steps I prefer are:
1. Exit PowerHome
2. Rename PowerHome directory (c:\powerhome to c:\powerhome_2.2, etc.)
3. Install ph22beta3setup
4. Unzip ph22beta3-5 on top of c:\powerhome. Overwrite existing files
5. Copy pwrhome.db and pwrhome.ini from previous version to new version
6. Run phupg.exe.
This will be a clean install with an easy fallback by just renaming the previous version directory after either deleting or renaming the
new install directory.
Hope this helps,
Dave.
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 11:35 | IP Logged
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Thanks Dave - will try it now...
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 12:34 | IP Logged
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Hi Dave - thanks - I did the upgrade. I had a little trouble getting
the Web interface going but I appear to have figured everything out
and am fully functional.
Three Minor Questions:
1) I have "Execute Past Timed Events at Startup" checked, and
pwrhome.ini agrees, but it still asks me whether I want to do this on
Startup. I hope the default is YES because I'm often not at the
computer when it is re-initialized. How do I get it to stop asking?
2) I have "Activate Timed Events at Startup" checked, and
pwrhome.ini agrees, but it still -sometimes- asks me whether I want
to do this on Startup. I hope the default is YES because I'm often
not at the computer when it is re-initialized. How do I get it to stop
asking?
3) Every time I start up PH I have to select "Show Test" for the top
row of buttons. How do I make this sticky?
Thanks!
/j
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 12:59 | IP Logged
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HI Dave - Spoke too soon - looks like I am still getting occasional
"Communication Problem (no response) with Insteon controller
PLMMODEM detected. Attempting to restart controller (1 of 5). Does
that surprise you? So far I only see "1 of 5" messages so it may be
benign?
Also - one more minor thing
4) In PHStat window - How do I get the EventLog window to display
more than 11 lines?
THANKS!
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dhoward
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 17:11 | IP Logged
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Jeff,
Im thinking that you may not have copied the pwrhome.ini file from your old version into the new version directory. All of the settings for the webserver and
timed events, etc. are contained there and everything should have started up the same way as your old version.
If you have "Activate Timed Events at Startup" and "Execute Past Due Timed Events at Startup" checked (YES in the INI file), then the default on the windows
will be "Yes" and that is the option that will be automatically selected when the messagebox timeout occurs. If they were unchecked, then the default would be
"No".
If you don't want to even see the windows giving you an option, then you need to check the "Quiet Start" option on the Setup Preferences screen.
Im not sure what the "Show Test" is or the top row of buttons you're referring to. Probably best to post a screenshot.
In the PHStat window, you can increase the Eventlog window lines in the PWRHOME.INI file under the [PowerHome Status] section. Set the "eventlogrows" to
however many you would like. The default is 10.
Im not too surprised to see the "Attempting to restart controller" message because PowerHome detected an issue and is just restarting the controller
connection so that everything is clean. This check is more sensitive than in previous versions to solve some issues that were causing the system to "hang".
Prior to beta version 3-5, this would trigger a rescan of all the PLM database entries and for those with alot of devices, this could cause problems. With 3-
5, this rescan is now skipped. I would monitor the system and see how many you get in a day. If it's excessive, we may have to do some Insteon log captures so
I can hopefully detect what is causing PowerHome to think there is a communication problem with the PLM.
Hope this helps,
Dave.
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jeffw_00
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| Posted: July 01 2022 at 17:21 | IP Logged
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Sigh Dave - one day I will learn to proof my own posts. I meant
"Show TEXT" :-) (I want the big buttons across the top with the text).
Thanks for all the other.
I keep my pwrhome.db and pwrhome.ini on a different HDD because
my windows HDD is an SSD. So I just did the upgrade in place and it
accessed the old pwrhome.ini without any doing on my part.
/j
Edited by jeffw_00 - July 01 2022 at 17:24
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Topic: PowerHome 2.2beta3-5 patch now available
