About a week ago, I realized that my lights weren't working, and discovered that my 2413U had stopped working. This was already my 2nd unit -- my first was purchased in December of 2012, then I replaced that in February 2018. So this had been in service for just about two years.
It was connected to a 2011-era Mac mini, and plugged into the wall through a single-outlet (wart-like) surge protector. It'd worked pretty well in general.
When it failed, I was seeing lots of errors like "resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)" and such. I tried all the obvious steps -- reboot the computer, power-cycle everything, but nothing worked. So I ordered a replacement from Amazon.
That replacement arrived in a day, I hooked it up, and started to sync links (I'm using Indigo). And IMMEDIATELY I got the same errors as on the broken unit.
I moved it to a different system (a 2019 Mac mini) and got the same errors. After a bit more experimenting, I returned it to Amazon, thinking I just got a bad modem. They shipped me a replacement, which I hooked up, synced, and got most all my devices working again (there were a couple I had to sync two or three times to get done, but I can chalk that up to just normal power line communication issues...)
Then a day later...the replacement also failed, in exactly the same way. If I reboot everything, quit/restart, unplug/replug the USB, etc..., then Indigo can communicate with the 2413U just long enough to say "yes, you're a 2413, great." But as soon as I send any commands, I get the "resending previous command" errors (and occasionally "SendInsteonMessage failed," or "Possible power failure.")
So to sum up:
* unit 1 purchased Dec 2012, lasted 5 years (rev 1.7, 1226)
* unit 2 purchased Feb 2018, lasted 2 years (rev 2.3, 3717)
* unit 3 purchased Feb 2020, DOA (rev 2.5, 1719)
* unit 4 purchased Feb 2020, worked for a day, then dead (rev 2.5 1719)
Units 2-4 all exhibited the same failure mode -- Indigo recognizes it but then commands fail, and once they start to fail, they *all* fail.
For troubleshooting, I have tried:
* a different computer (2019 Mac mini)
* different power outlets
* different cables
* removing the surge protector
* connecting the PLM through an older USB hub
At this point I'm really getting frustrated. With the exception of the failure a couple years ago, this setup has worked great for a long time. Now all of a sudden, nothing works, and I've had three units all fail in the same way in the space of a week.
Does anyone have any idea what could be going on? I'll send this latest unit back to Amazon but I'm not sure I want to get another from there...at some point even Amazon may get annoyed with my returning the same product over and over.
I've ordered the Insteon Hub (Alexa version -- I'd prefer the Homekit unit but for some reason that doesn't seem to support nearly as many devices as the generic hub). But I'm not convinced I'll be able to control things as well as I can with Indigo, especially for things like controlling button lights on keypads and such. I'd really rather stick with the 2413U system, but until I get some idea what's destroying my units, I'm reluctant to try *another* one.
It's possible (this is really the only thing I can think of) that my surge protector was failing in some strange way and caused the modems to die -- like if maybe its output was "stuttering" or something and the rapid fluctuations fried part of the circuitry in the modem. It's really the only thing that makes sense. Have we seen something like that before?
Or is it just a simple question of a modem failing for "normal" reasons (lousy capacitors or whatever), and Really Bad Luck got me two older and borderline-failing units from Amazon in a row?
HALP! :|
It was connected to a 2011-era Mac mini, and plugged into the wall through a single-outlet (wart-like) surge protector. It'd worked pretty well in general.
When it failed, I was seeing lots of errors like "resending previous command (busy or unexpected command)" and such. I tried all the obvious steps -- reboot the computer, power-cycle everything, but nothing worked. So I ordered a replacement from Amazon.
That replacement arrived in a day, I hooked it up, and started to sync links (I'm using Indigo). And IMMEDIATELY I got the same errors as on the broken unit.
I moved it to a different system (a 2019 Mac mini) and got the same errors. After a bit more experimenting, I returned it to Amazon, thinking I just got a bad modem. They shipped me a replacement, which I hooked up, synced, and got most all my devices working again (there were a couple I had to sync two or three times to get done, but I can chalk that up to just normal power line communication issues...)
Then a day later...the replacement also failed, in exactly the same way. If I reboot everything, quit/restart, unplug/replug the USB, etc..., then Indigo can communicate with the 2413U just long enough to say "yes, you're a 2413, great." But as soon as I send any commands, I get the "resending previous command" errors (and occasionally "SendInsteonMessage failed," or "Possible power failure.")
So to sum up:
* unit 1 purchased Dec 2012, lasted 5 years (rev 1.7, 1226)
* unit 2 purchased Feb 2018, lasted 2 years (rev 2.3, 3717)
* unit 3 purchased Feb 2020, DOA (rev 2.5, 1719)
* unit 4 purchased Feb 2020, worked for a day, then dead (rev 2.5 1719)
Units 2-4 all exhibited the same failure mode -- Indigo recognizes it but then commands fail, and once they start to fail, they *all* fail.
For troubleshooting, I have tried:
* a different computer (2019 Mac mini)
* different power outlets
* different cables
* removing the surge protector
* connecting the PLM through an older USB hub
At this point I'm really getting frustrated. With the exception of the failure a couple years ago, this setup has worked great for a long time. Now all of a sudden, nothing works, and I've had three units all fail in the same way in the space of a week.
Does anyone have any idea what could be going on? I'll send this latest unit back to Amazon but I'm not sure I want to get another from there...at some point even Amazon may get annoyed with my returning the same product over and over.
I've ordered the Insteon Hub (Alexa version -- I'd prefer the Homekit unit but for some reason that doesn't seem to support nearly as many devices as the generic hub). But I'm not convinced I'll be able to control things as well as I can with Indigo, especially for things like controlling button lights on keypads and such. I'd really rather stick with the 2413U system, but until I get some idea what's destroying my units, I'm reluctant to try *another* one.
It's possible (this is really the only thing I can think of) that my surge protector was failing in some strange way and caused the modems to die -- like if maybe its output was "stuttering" or something and the rapid fluctuations fried part of the circuitry in the modem. It's really the only thing that makes sense. Have we seen something like that before?
Or is it just a simple question of a modem failing for "normal" reasons (lousy capacitors or whatever), and Really Bad Luck got me two older and borderline-failing units from Amazon in a row?
HALP! :|
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