ZWave died suddenly before update - can't bring it back online

Configuration Z-Wave
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This is a followup to this thread I’ve also posted, but this has more information and I think it points to a different issue than with the JS UI.

Last week I used a ZWave switch that, through HA, controls an Intseon dimmer. It wouldn’t work. I found out that all my ZWave devices are no longer working, which is quite frustrating. I do NOT have anything set to auto-update because usually when something breaks, it’s after an update and I’d rather deal with that at a time of my choosing, not when I suddenly lose functions due to an auto-update. So whatever made ZWave die on my system was not from an update.

(Previously I was focused on ZWave JS - but that seems to not work because ZWave itself is not working.)

I found ZWave wasn’t working and when I tried to find a way to configure it, I got this:

Screenshot 2023-10-04 at 4.11.18 AM
Screenshot 2023-10-04 at 4.11.18 AM800×350 11.2 KB

This makes me think HA can’t connect to my USB dongle (an Aeotec Z-stick 7Plus). One point about this: We have a full house standby generator and my HA system, like others, is on a UPS. So they do not lose power. I can think of no reason why my HA system would have rebooted, somehow leading to a change in my setup. (Unless there’s something doing an auto-update that I haven’t found and stopped.)

So here’s the issue: I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. I’ve gone through and found which USB device was my Z-Stick and entered it into Z-Wave. But now I’m in a bind. My wife and I are both frustrated because home automation features we have gotten used to are not working and it’s quite frustrating. ZWave devices can’t be controlled by our phones. And I’m working 12-16 hours a day right now, dealing with configuring computers, 3D printers, a CNC, and other systems for a new business. It’ll be weeks before I can sit down and go over, from the start, how to check the USB info on my Z-stick (so I know which USB device it is) and so I can find out just where I can make the change to my HA configuration to make sure it’s still pointing to the correct device. (And if that doesn’t fix it, it’s a bigger mess to solve.)

I’m currently running:
Home Assistant 2023.9.3
Supervisor 2023.09.2
Operating System 10.5
Frontend 20230911.0 - latest
Z-Wave JS UI: 2.0.1

I don’t know how to get the Z-Wave version, since I can’t get the integration to do anything at all.

I’ve thought of reinstalling the ZWave integration. I’ve thought of re-installing HA from scratch. I haven’t tried because I am not sure if I can just backup the configuration, then reload it without losing anything. Of course I want to keep the friendly names for the ZWave devices and any scenes and automations and so on. (As I understand it, the ZWave controller, in my case, the Z-Stick 7, holds all the ZWave device information.)

I hate to ask for this kind of help, rather than reading up on everything, but does this error look like HA has lost track of the ZWave controller? If so, what are my best options to try to get this up and running when I have very little time to work on it?

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I feel for you. That’s part of the reason I’m always reading every entry on this community. I expect it to fail, and I want to avoid it…

That error means the add-on is not running and hence the integration can’t connect to in on port 3000. I don’t use the add-on so can’t be much help.

I’d do two things:

  • shut it all down, disconnect power, disconnect the stick
  • reconnect it all and start back up
  • post the zwavejs log file
1 Like
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I wish I could do that, but with my wife’s business needing me to go in and set up a few things she needs, and me starting a new business of my own, my time is seriously limited. I’m thinking I might need to just switch to a commercial system - but I need one that handles different systems, since I don’t use just ZWave. I still have a lot of Insteon devices I’ll be installing. Plus there are other things I’m looking at and all say, “Works with Home Assistant.” But it takes so much time! I think HA really needs to do what Ubuntu and some other projects do - create an LTS version, as well. as, for that version, not sending updates several times a month.

I’ve done that and when I go to look at that log file in the UI, there’s nothing there. Seems like the js part won’t start because the integration doesn’t start.

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Problem solved in my original thread.

I still don’t know why ZWave went offline. The most likely reason I can think of is that I had the addon set to autoupdate and didn’t realize it. There are so many frequent updates to HA and things in the HA “ecosystem” and sometimes one creates issues, so I don’t like updating as soon as updates show up, in case of a problem like this. (What happened to me apparently happened to others - and from what I saw, the bugfix update took care of this issue - but for some reason the bugfix didn’t help me.)

I also don’t know why it works now, but, again, I’m thinking if it was on auto-update without me realizing it, and the bug that hit others also hit me, then the bugfix worked and it must have been my tinkering with it to try to fix it that kept it from working right away.