[SOLVED] New UZB dongle, Z-Wave PC controller immediately exits (or crashes) with no error message

What does not work with the original firmware?
My UZB is four years old, never been updated, works without any issues.

Same symptoms as the first post from @leif
I start PC Controller, it detects the UBZ and then the program exits (or crashes, no errors, just disappears). My stick appears to be running 5.25

No. I meant what did not work in regards of openHAB.

I wasn’t trying anything with openHAB, just trying to get PC Controller from zwave to work and I came across this topic. Apologize if it’s off product but this is the only reference I could find to the issue while searching for a solution. Anyways I finally solved it and will post an update if it helps anyone with the same situations.

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Mine has firmware 05.05, SDK Version 6.51.06 (=bootloader 13481) and it is running with “Z-Wave PC-Controller 5.30” and 5.38

Which SDK Version is shown in Z-Way? which UUID ??

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For folks who want to use the UZB Z-Wave stick with Z-Wave PC Controller 5.38.

Please note if your stick firmware has firmware 5.25 or 5.26 you’ll see PC Controller crash/exit as soon as it detects the z-wave stick. I was able to get it to work finally after updating the firmware to version 5.33 and also 5.34 with SDK version 6.81.01

Unfortunately the ONLY way to update the Z-Wave stick firmware is to download latest v3.0.0 of Z-Way-Server. While there is an older windows version 2.3.3, DO NOT use this as it’s outdated and cannot update your firmware.

Couple of things to note during this process

  1. Do NOT use Ubuntu 18.04 or newer, the upgrade process will fails because it uses CURL4 where as the z-way-server requires CURL3 and it will keep failing with the error Unable to update data. /ZWave.zway/ZMEBootloaderUpgrade when you try to upgrade from the UI.
  2. After installing the stick in your linux machine you need to give it write permissions, by default it only has read permissions and because of which when you try to start the z-way-server it will give an error on the console Cannot open device, permission denied. Open a new console and type in sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM0 EVERY time you see this error on the console running the z-way-server. This will be multiple times during the upgrades process (after each upgrade)

Steps to update the firmware

  1. Install Ubuntu 16.04 (I create a Ubuntu live USB stick so I could run this off a USB drive just for the firmware update)
  2. Download the Z-Way-Server v3.0.0 (z-way-server-Ubuntu-v3.0.0.tgz). It’s a TGZ file you’ll have to untar it, right click on it in File explorer in Ubuntu and click on Extract here. It’ll extract all the file into a folder called z-way-server
  3. Connect the UZB stick into a USB port
  4. Open a terminal console and type in sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM0, keep this terminal open
  5. Open a NEW terminal console and go into the z-way-server directory and start the z-way-server by typing in LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./libs ./z-way-server. The server should start and it should detect the UZB stick controller
  6. Open a browser window and goto localhost:8083, it’ll ask you to create a password and login, skip the instructions/intro
  7. Change the browser URL to localhost:8083/expert, this should open the expert pages from where you can update your firmware
  8. Click on Network -> Controller Information, this page should show you the current firmware version as show on this post 35 above by @leif.
  9. Updating firmware
    1. Click on Firmware Update and then it should prompt you to update your bootload from 5.25 to 40196. This is a quick process and in your z-way-server console you should see it update the bootloader and then try to restart the stick and it’ll give an error about not being able to open the device and device persmissions
    2. Now open your other terminal and retype sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM0, it should allow the z-way-server to now read/write to your stick again. If the server times out (after 5 retries), no worries, just shutdown the z-way-server (Ctrl + C) and then restart it again with the command LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./libs ./z-way-server and it should detect your stick again (don’t close the browser window!)
    3. Go back to Network -> Controller Information page, go back to the Firmware Update page, now it should prompt you to update the firmware from 5.25 to 5.26
    4. Click on firmware update and you should see the debug command flying by on your z-way-server terminal screen as it updates, it’ll take a few minutes. Once it’s done, after the stick is rebooted, same as before you need to reset the permissions from your other terminal as show in step 9.2 above.
    5. Repeat the above steps 9.4 and 9.5 until you’re on the latest version of the firmware or the one your want (I tested it 5.33 and 5.34 and it gave me no more update options thereafter, so that’s where I stopped).
  10. Once the firmware is updated you should be able to use it with PC Controller 5.38

I hope this helps folks and they won’t have to struggle the way I did

5 Likes

@hunnypuppy @leif

Very interesting that there are two different latest firmware versions. While @leif has version 5.36, the version of @hunnypuppy is 5.34.

@hunnypuppy @leif

Only out of interest: which bootloaderCRC do you have now?

Mine is 48059.

image

You will get this, when you are in above mentioned window (post #35) and then click on “Show controller data

Hi,

there is a chance to brick the UZB-Stick when updating the firmware. I got this answer in the zwave.me forum bricked device zwave.me forum

Sorry to inform you, but there is a known issue in some UZB manufactured by our partners on license base that after upgrade they become bricked.

I will try another one :wink:

Update: 2nd device also bricked when updating from 5.27 (preinstalled) to 5.36 using
zway 3.0 on raspberry.

best, ypoosn

bootloader 40196 and the firmware doesn’t show me any options to upgrade beyond 5.34

/: None (09:46 AM)

    nodeId: 1 (09:46 AM)

    homeId: -771274748 (09:46 AM)

    SUCNodeId: 1 (09:46 AM)

    isPrimary: true (09:46 AM)

    isInOthersNetwork: false (09:46 AM)

    isRealPrimary: true (09:46 AM)

    isSUC: true (09:46 AM)

    SISPresent: true (09:46 AM)

    libType: Static Controller (09:46 AM)

    SDK: (09:46 AM)

    ZWlibMajor: 6 (09:46 AM)

    ZWlibMinor: 2 (09:46 AM)

    ZWLib: 1 (09:46 AM)

    ZWVersion: 6 (09:46 AM)

    ZWaveChip: ZW0500 (09:46 AM)

    APIVersion: 05.34 (09:46 AM)

    manufacturerId: 277 (09:46 AM)

    vendor: Z-Wave.Me (09:46 AM)

    manufacturerProductType: 1024 (09:46 AM)

    manufacturerProductId: 1 (09:46 AM)

    bootloaderCRC: 40196 (09:46 AM)

    firmwareCRC: 18024 (09:46 AM)

    capabilities: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,28,32,33,34,35,36,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,55,56,57,58,59,63,65,66,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,79,80,81,83,84,85,86,87,88,94,95,96,97,98,99,102,103,120,128,144,146,147,152,180,182,183,184,185,186,189,190,191,208,209,210,211,212,238,239,242,244,245,247 (09:46 AM)

    controllerState: 0 (09:46 AM)

    nonManagmentJobs: 0 (09:46 AM)

    lastIncludedDevice: 0 (09:46 AM)

    lastExcludedDevice: 0 (09:46 AM)

    secureInclusion: true (09:46 AM)

    oldSerialAPIAckTimeout10ms: 150 (09:46 AM)

    oldSerialAPIByteTimeout10ms: 15 (09:46 AM)

    curSerialAPIAckTimeout10ms: 10 (09:46 AM)

    curSerialAPIByteTimeout10ms: 10 (09:46 AM)

    countJobs: false (09:46 AM)

    memoryGetAddress: 25856 (09:46 AM)

    memoryGetData: 157,4,70,104 (09:46 AM)

    memoryManufacturerId: None (09:46 AM)

    memoryType: None (09:46 AM)

    memoryCapacity: None (09:46 AM)

    functionClasses: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,11,18,19,21,22,23,32,33,34,35,36,39,41,42,43,44,45,57,58,59,63,65,66,68,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,94,96,97,98,99,128,146,147,186,190,208,209,210,211,242,243,244,245 (09:46 AM)

    functionClassesNames: SerialAPIGetInitData,SerialAPIApplicationNodeInformation,ApplicationCommandHandler,GetControllerCapabilities,SerialAPISetTimeouts,GetSerialAPICapabilities,SerialAPISoftReset,SerialAPISetup,SendNodeInformation,SendData,GetVersion,SendDataAbort,RFPowerLevelSet,GetHomeId,MemoryGetByte,MemoryPutByte,MemoryGetBuffer,MemoryPutBuffer,FlashAutoProgSet,NVMGetId,NVMExtReadLongBuffer,NVMExtWriteLongBuffer,NVMExtReadLongByte,NVMExtWriteLongByte,ClearNetworkStats,GetNetworkStats,GetBackgroundRSSI,RemoveNodeIdFromNetwork,GetNodeProtocolInformation,SetDefault,ReplicationReceiveComplete,AssignReturnRoute,DeleteReturnRoute,RequestNodeNeighbourUpdate,ApplicationNodeUpdate,AddNodeToNetwork,RemoveNodeFromNetwork,CreateNewPrimary,ControllerChange,SetLearnMode,AssignSUCReturnRoute,EnableSUC,RequestNetworkUpdate,SetSUCNodeId,DeleteSUCReturnRoute,GetSUCNodeId,SendSUCNodeId,ExploreRequestInclusion,RequestNodeInformation,RemoveFailedNode,IsFailedNode,ReplaceFailedNode,GetRoutingTableLine,GetPriorityRoute,SetPriorityRoute,RFPowerLevelGet,SendTestFrame,SetPromiscuousMode,PromiscuousCommandHandler,WatchDogStart,WatchDogStop,ZMEFreqChange,ZMERestore,ZMEBootloaderFlash,ZMECapabilities (09:46 AM)

    softwareRevisionVersion: v2.3.3 (09:46 AM)

    softwareRevisionId: 25bdd65bc580b075ba69b766a4113866403c0036 (09:46 AM)

    softwareRevisionDate: 2017-04-13 21:53:20 +0300 (09:46 AM)

    uuid: f0a57bf559c4a1aa19a89c1f7a9cf3ef (09:46 AM)

    caps: 0,0,255,5 (09:46 AM)

    frequency: EU (09:46 AM)

    deviceRelaxDelay: 15 (09:46 AM)

    statistics: None (09:46 AM)

        backgroundRSSI: None (09:46 AM)

            channel1: 173 (09:47 AM)

            channel2: 179 (09:47 AM)

            channel3: 127 (09:47 AM)

        RFTxFrames: 0 (09:46 AM)

        RFTxLBTBackOffs: 0 (09:46 AM)

        RFRxFrames: 0 (09:46 AM)

        RFRxLRCErrors: 0 (09:46 AM)

        RFRxCRC16Errors: 0 (09:46 AM)

        RFRxForeignHomeID: 0 (09:46 AM)

        priorityRoute: None (09:46 AM)

            dstNodeId: None (09:46 AM)

            routeType: None (09:46 AM)

            speed: None (09:46 AM)

            hops: None (09:46 AM)

    homeName: (2019-07-30)

    homeNotes: (2019-07-30)
1 Like

@hunnypuppy

5.34 seems to be OK (based on your steps). But now it isn’t active anymore.

Probably you went: 5.27/40196 --> 5.33/40196 --> 5.34/40196

And @leif went: 5.27/40196 --> 5.36/40196

See here:

You can also view them (active or incative) here.

I don’t want to confuse anyone here, why the 5.27, 5.33, 5.34, 5.36 are now shown as “inactive or hidden”, probably only zwave.me knows it. (6-7 weeks ago, they were “active”).

But (above picture) is the only plausible explanation why some have 5.34 and others 5.36.

1 Like

Hi Leif

Id like to do the backup of an Aeotec Z Stick, but it says the command isnt supported on the stick?

Is this possible?

Regards
Kris

Were you using the Aeotec app? If it says that the stick doesn’t support it, I’m going to guess that it’s not possible. The Aeotec sticks use ancient firmware if I remember correctly.

Sorry I was using the Silicon Labs to backup, but the Aeotec App does the job! Works :slight_smile: Thanks!

Anyone found a way to do a backup with the Aeon backup tool via command line? I’m already running OH on Windows so I was hoping to automatically do a backup occasionally in the middle of the night. Just recovered from a corrupted stick without a backup and want to avoid that going forward. And a backup isn’t a good backup if it requires manual intervention to do it

If you were able to do that you would need to shutdown OH, backup, and then restart OH which would need to rediscover all the zwave devices. I find many of my battery powered devices need to be woken up manually to get fully discovered.

Who said a backup isn’t a good backup if it requires manual intervention to do it? I don’t agree with this statement at all. A backup isn’t a backup if it never gets done, but that’s not the same thing.

Realistically, how often do you really make changes to your smart home controller once it’s set up and running? Certainly the rate slows way down. If you haven’t made more changes, another backup is superfluous or even undesirable. As long as you make a backup once you’ve got things up and running, and some time after you’ve made some additions, I’d think you should be fine.

That reminds me – it’s time I make another clonezilla image of my openhab system.

For god know what reason, I never reach the stage where I can say, “I finally got things up and running”. I simply change to much all the time :slight_smile:
But I agree with you about the backup anyway.

It seems to work just by stopping the Z-Wave binding and then starting it up again, which can be done via the console. I’ve seen some latency between starting the z-wave binding and battery devices being detected, but I haven’t had an issue with data being reported or the battery-based buttons not working, etc… when they should be.

Maybe I should rephrase to “backup strategy”. It could be that I’m just not disciplined enough, but a manual backup schedule for me usually looks good for the first month or so then there starts to be large gaps. I just can’t keep up with it. And this results in not meeting my recovery point objectives when a failure actually happens. The sentiment is directed more towards things like file systems, etc… but I still try and apply it wherever I can when I know something needs to be backed up… especially after recently having a z-stick have corruption issues and not having a good backup.

I probably add/remove a device at least once a month. I’m in a place in life where I don’t get that much time to work on home automation due to kids and other family commitments, etc… So often times I just get things working and don’t necessarily want to/have the time to take things down again to do a proper backup in the waking hours. I’d much rather have a script that stops the Z-Wave binding once a month at 2:00am, does the backup, and gets everything going again. That costs me some time to write the script, but no time going forward.

Wouldn’t it be nice if that image backup was automatic? :grin:

Things are up and running, but I’m always wanted to add more devices/functionality!

1 Like

Does this statement imply there’s a better USB zwave stick to use than the Aeotec one? I’m based in the UK and as far as I know the Aeotec one is the only USB one available. Though I do admit I haven’t really looked for any others since I got an Aeotec one. Is there an alternative with newer and “better” firmware?