I’ve been trying to include a bunch of new light switches into my Z-wave network. Unfortunately, inclusion is super-unreliable and “smart start” generates a bunch (~10-15) of fake extra nodes for every successful inclusion. I’d love to get rid of all these dead fake nodes but I have 2 legitimate devices that are currently unplugged and given how much of a miserable nightmare inclusion is I don’t wan’t to lose them. As far as I can tell, the only relevant command in Z-wave JS UI deletes all dead nodes… so it will delete the unplugged devices too. Is there any way in Z-wave JS UI to remove some select dead nodes without removing others?
Have you tried the Advanced menu option available for every node? Click the down arrow for the ndoe to show node details, hit the big green “Advanced” button
And select “Remove” under Failed Nodes from the menu
That has worked for me in the past without issue and never impacts other nodes.
Thanks but if I recall, the previous times I have tried this command it removed ALL dead nodes in the network, not just the currently-expanded one. Am I misremembering?
I don’t know as I can’t say I’ve ever had multiple dead nodes to remove at the same time. If they are in fact dead, what’s the downside?
Thanks. I have 2 sets of dead nodes:
- “Fake” nodes that appeared in the process of inclusion (using “SmartStart” if the node doesn’t respond quickly enough to the S2 security setup up, I believe an artificial “fake” node gets added that immediately then appears as dead… and inclusion keeps trying, often generating multiple of these nodes).
- I also have ~5-6 light switches and outlets that are waiting to be installed. (Given how lengthy/uncertain a process it is to include devices into the network, especially if they are located far from the controller, I temporarily installed them in the same room as the controller, included them, and then set them aside until the electrician was coming back.)
I would love to delete the former, but not the latter (as it took many days to get these few successfully included into the network…).
Well, you could temporarily power your 5-6 devices during the process of removing “dead” nodes.
I don’t believe inclusion “keeps on trying”. It has a finite time limit. The default is 30 seconds.
As to your “let’s call it a working hypothesis” about inclusion problems - dead nodes are dead nodes as far as the controller is concerned. once the controller and node no longer have a valid relationship, they are simply dead nodes in the controller’s node table. It has no idea they are the same device you tried to include 10 minutes later.
Adding nodes and then taking them offline isn’t a great practice for a mesh network. You’re impacting the reliability of the network doing that. Better to keep them powered in place. I do that with my Christmas lights.
Thanks for the advice. I powered up the “legitimate” dead nodes and went to remove the failed nodes one at a time.
I confirmed that you are correct @mterry63 : if you expand a node, choose advanced, then “remove Failed” it removes just that failed node. Thanks, and sorry for the confusion!
However, separately, my “fake” nodes do not actually get removed. I’ll start a separate thread on that, as it no longer matches the title of this one. Thanks!
As I understand it, Smart Start inclusion begins when one scans the QR code which causes ZWaveJS to build a “Provisioning” entry for that device and does not do anything other than wait for the device to show up. I have seen ZWaveJS-UI at the same time create a temporary node in its list of devices but it is rather ephemeral, as I’ve also seen it disappear (especially after a restart of ZWaveJS-UI). These aren’t real nodes yet so they aren’t dead so to speak. If you are seeing multiples of these ephemeral nodes show up for the same provisioned entry, then yeah maybe a problem.
Nevertheless at this point there is still no node to remove, but you can delete the Provisioning entry for that node if for some reason you don’t want to use it later on. You can see these provisioning entries in ZWaveJS-UI under the Smart Start Panel and you should see a trashcan icon to remove the entry, but if you want to use that device or already using that device, then leave the entry alone.
Then sometime/someday later the device is powered on and without any human intervention it should send and periodically send out an “Inclusion Request” with additional information. ZWaveJS will get this request and get this additional information and from it, find the device in its list of Provisioning entries and then start the inclusion process for that device. If that is successful, then the device should show up in the list of devices and all should be good. Those Provisioning entries remain.
If you power down those devices and move them to another location and then power them back ON and they appear in the ZWaveJS-UI as dead, then my recommendation would be to do a heal on the network, and then have ZWaveJS-UI Re-Interview the Node. If that is not the problem, and you still have a bunch of these ephemeral nodes, and they don’t disppear after a ZWaveJS-UI restart, then this is probably a bug.
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Great information, thanks!
Thanks so much, @wmaker ! Unfortunately, I am frequently seeing more than one “ephemeral” node appear per device that I’m trying to include… and they aren’t actually that “ephemeral” in the sense that they don’t disappear even when the real node is eventually included…
(FWIW, I usually turn off the “active” switch in the provisioning list once a device has been successfully included… Though I do leave them listed in case, e.g., the device disappears and I need to re-include it later.)
And FYI I started a new thread on this HERE.