Dead/old devices keep reappearing

Configuration
1

I have four Devices named “FIBARO System FGD212 Dimmer 2 (2)” that keep appearing in my device list. Each of them has only 1 entity (Fibaro dimmers have many) and they don’t do anything. I can’t delete them from the UI so stopped HA server, deleted them from core.device_registry, rebooted HA… and they appear again. I cannot seem to get rid of them.

I had a couple of Fibaro dimmers die on me in the last year, and replaced them with ones that got a new node number. I guess these entries are some corrupt leftovers.
The json has this for one of them, I guess the part below are the Zwave node numers? (16 is indeed a new one, node 2 is no longer in my network).

"identifiers": [
                    [
                        "zwave",
                        16,
                        2
                    ]
                ],

Anyone got an idea in how to clean this up?

2

Could be pain in the a** :frowning:
Steps I followed and that finally worked for me (I use legacy integration yet, but for new one idea might be similar):

  • Remove all unwanted devices/entities from HA
  • Stop HA and remove ghost nodes from zwcfg_xxx.xml file
  • If only possible make sure that physical device won’t be available in the network when reconnecting restarting network after connecting stick to PC. If few cases only this step allowed to complete the task.
  • Connect Aeotec Zstick to Windows PC, run Zensys Tools and remove all unwanted nodes. This might be tricky; you need to refresh network neighbours for ghost node first and when it fails node become marked as failed and can be removed. Might require several reties, not always working instantly. Might require connecting/disconnecting stick and restarting app.
  • Connect stick to HA (whatever machine it runs on) and start HA.

In my case issue was that nodes (also fibaro) were not properly integrated into Zwvae network and had to retry inclusion several times. Outcome was as you described; one properly configured and working device/node and several ghost nodes, that could be removed as they were not working properly. At the same time some traces of these nodes were left on stick itself, so after any software cleanup I could imagine they were sooner or later returning…

3

Thank you!
I did not know the Zensys tool. Have downloaded it now and will try tomorrow to see if that helps. Will let you know!

4

mirekmal, unfortunately that did not help.
The devices are not in the zwcfg_xxx.xml file, they only show up in core.device_registry. When connecting the stick to my Windows PC and running Zensys, the nodes they refer to are also not there (also not after refreshing network neighbours). In the UI of home assistant, the devices cannot be deleted.

Do you have any other ideas?

5

For anyone who ends up here with a similar problem: this seem to be “normal” behavior. This post claims that Home Assistant creates a second device for “multi-cast” z-wave devices. So my ghost devices are not from dead/old devices, but from some Fibaro devices that are multi-cast. How strange and annoying… :woozy_face: