Remove a ghost Z-Wave Node from HABmin

Apps & Services HABmin
,
1

Hi,

I have a ghost/zombie node in my Aeon Labs Z-Wave controller.

The node is the result of a battery-device that ran out of battery. I had to reinclude the node, but the original node could not be removed using the exclusion proccess. I was able to include the node again, but I was unable to exclude the node before the new inclusion.

The thing is that I have two nodes for the same device. One works fine. The other is a ghost node.

I would like to know if it is possible to delete this ghost node via HABmin (or with some other tool) WITHOUT risking to modify/delete the working node…

2

At the moment, removing battery nodes is a problem. The controller doesn’t allow you to delete nodes unless they are on the controllers “failed nodes” list, and battery nodes don’t typically end up there since the controller doesn’t know if they are failed, or just sleeping.

I have something I want to try at some stage that might allow us to move devices manually into the failed device list, but at the moment I’ve not had time to look at this.

There might be other software that can do it (probably), but as I don’t have any other software I can’t offer suggestions there…

3

Should I propose it in the “Pull request” section of GitHub?

4

Yes - feel free to raise an enhancement issue on this.

Chris

1 Like
5

Perhaps a device that does not wake up or send traffic within some large multiple of its wake-up period, or small multiple of the max wake-up period if it is set? I have a few of these too. I try to just ignore them

6

The issue is that it’s only the controller that moves devices into the failed list - not openHAB… I believe there’s a command to manually force devices into the list, but I’ve not tried to add/test it yet.

7

Put the stick to a windows pc. There you can use the tools ZTools or ZenSYS-Tools to delete the device.

8

@hubertus_hettenkofe1
Nice. Thanks for pointing to those software (escpecially Zensys). Helped me and I could remove dead nodes. But that wasn’t straight forward. I had to play a bit with NOP etc. to remove them. But worked in the and.

1 Like
9

For those of you trying to remove a node using zensys tool here are the steps required:

  1. Highlight the node you believe has failed from the top left frame’s node list/table
  2. Toggle the “Quene Overrided” checkbox for this selected node (a check should appear)
  3. Send a NOP (i.e. no operation) command by selecting the exclamation mark from the tools menu
  4. Check to see if the node is failed by selecting the “is node failed” icon from the tools menu. If it has failed, you should see a message stating it has failed in the lower right frame (i.e. log actions tab)
  5. Select the “remove failed” icon from the tools menu
    Note: If uncertain which icon from the tools menu corresponds to a particular action, hoover your mouse over each to receive a “tool tip” message specifying the corresponding action.
19 Likes
10

This is a brilliant set of steps - thank you @ellisbjohns

I had a couple of items were removing the failed node itself failed. However you can replace failed nodes with a random other device, and this worked fine - I could then delete the random device as normal.

So I now have no more weird ghost nodes, and a faster startup.

11

Hi @chris, could you make some progress on removing dead berrery devices. Again I have a device not functioning properly and would to permanently remove with from the controller. I used the advanced tools, but after removing it and deleting the thing it re-appears on a new scan. Now I have 4 of them on the controller from previous tests…and want to get rid of them

I don’t have Windows, so the suggested tools are not suitable.

12

I’ve run the Aeotec zwave tools successfully on a vmware virtual windows box on my mac, if that’s any help. That removes dead notes easily.

13

I have VM ware, but no suitable Windows Image, so…

But in any case it shows that it is possible, so @chris might find a trick to fix that issue. :wink:

1 Like
14

yes - backing up and killing dead nodes directly from openhab would be fantastic…

15

You may accelerate it:

16

Dear Ellis!

Thanks for the “manual” - do you know what step 1 does/means technically seen?

Regards,
Herbert

17

@hl_at.
Truthfully, I’m not exactly sure as I wrote these instructions about a year ago. One thing I have noticed is that openhab’s zwave binding doesn’t always reflect the true state of the node when compared with the z-stick controller’s node state (i.e. eprom). This often leads to inconsistencies that have to be addressed using a third party tool which directly changes the z-sticks internal node status (e.g. Zensys). The combo of Zensys and Chris Jackson’s binding have allowed me to accomplish a ton of zwave reconfigurations over the past year, but either tool alone has not been sufficient. Step #1 likely allows you to delete a node which the z-wave binding believes to be dead/failed but the node still has an active entry in the zstick’s eprom (i.e. it was never truly deleted by the bindings api calls to the zstick). Hope this helps.

18

I think this is very unlikely. The binding reads the list of nodes directly from the controller (ie eprom) so it will be consistent.

I think what you are talking about is removal of devices that appear in the OH list, but can’t be removed - I think this is a bit different…

19

Yeah…What Chris said :slight_smile:

20

hey @ellisbjohns
I havent tried the zensys tool yet (link not working atm).
Do you know if this tool has a option to change the state from FAILED to OK ?
I have some nodes that acutally work but the controller lists them as failed and therfore openhab reads them as offline

cheers