Can't load aldb for an Insteon device?

I have a 2477D that doesn’t seem to be responding to commands. When I use the Insteon Panel and go to the All-Link database and do a Load from Device, I get an error:

Logger: pyinsteon.managers.aldb_read_manager
Source: /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyinsteon/managers/aldb_read_manager.py:140
First occurred: 10:21:31 AM (1 occurrences)
Last logged: 10:21:31 AM

50.21.F0: ALDB Load error: 0xff

Is my device communication dead? I can of course, operate it. But not from HA. I THINK it responded when I first set it up when I first installed HA on my Synology Docker container because I had to go around the house and figure out which device was which address. So I probably turned the light on and off with HA to see where it was.

I also may have tried Configure add a device override on the address (hopefully, that didn’t screw it up).

I went into panic mode on this one, all of my dual band devices lost communication, the programming lock got set some how and 2477D seem to instead of locking local programming lock ALL programming that even a factory reset seems to not fix!

The trick is “master reset” the device then immediately do an all link pair using responder 1 and controller 0 to the device… using a cell phone right at the switch helps… this worked on all my dual band devices that seemed to all die at the same time…

I think Insteon was trying to be smart and figured if you wanted to lock the switch, doing a master reset by some one else would undo your setting programming lock on, so it doesn’t get undone with a master reset unless you pair immediately after. but they also locked ALL external control of the device…

I don’t know how it got set on all my dual bad devices including out door switch, but it happened and this fixed mine and was then able to read their ALDB and programming lock was set to off now and all switches were able to be controlled again.

Glad you got it sorted.

I did a manual device reset and then got it re-paired with HA. Now it all works again.

Having seen a lot of people with this problem via Google, just thought I’d post my results, I have over 55 devices and thought I lost about $350.00 of them and was going to have to resort to a complete WiFi replacement and rather have my neighbors attempts to access limited to 1 :grin: device, I already have 66 WiFi devices… computers, tablets, cameras Amazon Dots to keep up with.

I find it interesting that Insteon would make a complete lockout command that potentially makes a $60 switch become a $5.95 light switch :wink:

Out of curiosity, have you attempted to set any of your dual band devices programming_lock_on setting to true intentionally and the device stop working, I’m afraid too, it took me 4 days to figure this out :crazy_face: and still don’t know what glitch set them ALL to true because I’ve not checked that box.

Nope, haven’t tried that, and you’ve convinced me not to try :slight_smile:

I have 40 Insteon devices. and a couple of phones and a couple of desktop and table computers. I only had real trouble with 1 device. And the factory reset of the device fixed that (once I realized it wasn’t 2 steps to reset, but 4 steps as the steps were split across PDF pages and I didn’t see the continuation at first). Got it working find, used Insteon Panel to delete all the Insteon schedules, created new HA automations, changed the UI, just got Hacs, Node Red, and Mushroom. And I am running Alexa on a PC and using Home Assistant devices with Alexa and also a new Microwave we just got. At the moment, everything looks pretty good.