Cleaning up my Z-Wave network

Add-ons Bindings
1

Hi,

Setup:
OpenHAB 4.1.2
RaspberryPI 5 (Bookworm, Openhabian)
Aeotec ZWave+ USB Stick, ZWave Binding 4.1.2

I’m running a ZWave network since a few years now. Recently I had a few problems (nodes not responding) for which I had a closer look into my ZWave network. Every time I start Openhab I get two warnings:

2024-04-29 11:22:01.994 [WARN ] [l.commandclass.ZWaveThermostatSetpointCommandClass] - Reached max tries to init the setpont Furnace, this will be our last attempt 
2024-04-29 11:22:08.505 [WARN ] [l.commandclass.ZWaveThermostatSetpointCommandClass] - Reached max tries to init the setpont Moist Air, this will be our last attempt

These messages, at least the second one are odd, as I don’t have a moist measuring device. I used to have one, ages ago, which was removed from the network. So I was looking into the folder

/var/lib/openhab/zwave

where I found a lot of xml files describing ZWave devices. And not only my current devices, but also about devices which have been excluded from the network.

For two identical devices (Eurotronic Spirit Thermostat ZWave) I found differences in the XML content. One of the files contained a tag about moist (which the other doesn’t):

<entry>
      <setpointType>MOIST_AIR</setpointType>
      <setpoint>
          <setpointType>MOIST_AIR</setpointType>
          <initialised>true</initialised>
          <initCount>0</initCount>
          <outer-class reference="../../../.."/>
      </setpoint>
</entry>

which is wrong, as the device does not support moist measuring. Looks as the binding is trying to initialise a setpoint which just doesn’t exist.
Now, before I start playing with the XML files and perhaps screwing up system I have the following questions:

  • First of all: Is it something I should worry about? Can it affect the ZWave network negatively?
  • Does it make sense to edit these files at all? Or are they generated and will be overwritten the next time? The file dates are mostly from today (last restart of OpenHab)
  • Or should I deleted the all?
  • If there is nothing I can do here, how can I get a correct device description?

Lots of questions, I hope there’s some experience on the secrets of Zwave networks :wink:

Jens

2

No it doesn’t. They will likely be overwritten. However, if the date stamp is old they probably can be deleted and won’t reappear.

As background your network is on the zstick. Likely devices were not removed properly, or the XML would have been deleted. What I would advise to start is to get the free Silabs Simplicity Suite and use it to remove any old devices from the stick. Review this post [SOLVED] Unresponsive Z-Wave Network: Tools and Approaches to track down the issues - Tutorials & Examples / Solutions - openHAB Community.

Also (as a minor note) if the devices were not removed properly there could be orphan links that contribute to excess activity. In karaf check openhab:links orphan list then purge

1 Like
3

Hi Bob,

Purging orphans did the trick, no timeout messages from the Zwave binding anymore.
I checked for the orphans using the console command you’ve recommended and found nearly 800(!) of them, accumulated over years of OpenHab usage and it looks as if they have even survived multiple upgrades and Raspi changes. And there where multiple ZWave related orphans found.

It looks as if I create new Items (I do that in text mode) and delete them later, because e.g. I found out that there is no use for me, they still have a second life as orphans. When I installed the Openweathermap binding I used a pre-configured .items file with all data as Items. Hundreds of them. For most of them I did not have any use, so I deleted them from the .items file. I found them now within the orphans.
I need to check orphans more often!
And thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

4

I didn’t about this one! :heart_eyes: