Any reason M1XEP would go hinky?

[IVB]

I just got back from vacation, while I was away there was a power outage. The M1XEP is only hooked up to a 45ish minute battery backup, so it lost power. The Elk itself had 8ish hours of backup, so it was fine.

When the power came back on, the M1XEP didn't automatically re-establish a cxn to the Elk. I just tried tons of stuff, only thing that worked was for me to pull the power from the M1XEP and plug back in, at which point it worked again.

Any plausible ideas for why this would have happened?

 

[electron]

dhcp server came up after the M1XEP tried to obtain an IP address? Or is the XEP hardcoded?

 

[IVB]

it's hardcoded

 

[Madcodger]

I had a similar problem, but have no reason to think the power was out at all. We were away for the holidays and all was well for about three days. Then on Christmas day I tried to log into the Elk and got zip. Tried Homeseer and found that the UltraM1 Plugin couldn't talk to the Elk, either, as it goes through the XEP. When we got home last night I pulled the plug on the XEP and thought that would do it, but I ended up having to shut down the Elk itself, pull the XEP's plug again, and then restart both. This isn't the first time my XEP has done this, and lately I've had problems where I can log in, but when I enter my code I get a message saying that it's "busy", and asking me if I want to "retry". Retrying never, ever works...

Frankly, I'm beginning to think the XEP is the weak link of an Elk system. It won't work with Fios from Verizon, doesn't send email with 100% reliability, and now this. I'm thinking it's time for the folks at Elk - who otherwise sell only the best, most rock-solid stuff available, to spend some serious time changing out this unit through either a major firmware update or an entirely new design. I depend on my Elk to be 100% at ALL times, and really hope this XEP mess is resolved.

 

[Spanky]

FYI:
The future is VERY BRIGHT!!! <_<


For now you could build an external watchdog with Rules:

WHENEVER EVERY 5 Minutes
AND ETHERNET TROUBLE EXISTS
THEN TURNON OUTPUT X FOR 5 Seconds

Break the power going to the XEP through the relay output X using the normally closed set of contacts on the relay.

Every 5 minutes the M1 will check for any problems in the M1XEP and cause a power cycle of the M1XEP if a problem is detected.

There is a watchdog built into the M1XEP that performs automatic power cycling if the watchdog circuit detects a problem.

I had a problem with my routers locking up during the day, so now I power cycle my routers also. I built a TASK for the power cycling and can access it through the telephone should my routers lock up.

 

[gatchel]

FYI:
New things are in the works!

I hate it when he says things like that <_<

Now I'll be up all night thinking about what new cool stuff Elk has coming...

 

[IVB]

Any thoughts about why the current M1XEP wouldn't have worked though?

Like madcodger, I need a system that is up 100.0%, esp now that I have stuff like "no regular doorbell and the Elk is my doorbell". It did get us worried in Hawaii when I couldn't access the Elk remotely, but yet the CCTV, SageTV, and CQC were up so I knew the network was fine.

 

[lugnut]

Any thoughts about why the current M1XEP wouldn't have worked though?

Any chance the XEP doesn't die gracefully under depleted battery power, and maybe comes back up in some disfunctional state?

I wonder if you can re-create the problem if you temporarily plug the XEP into a GFCI outlet, push the test button to kill the power, wait a bit, then re-enable the GFCI outlet. Try it a few times to see the result. If you can't re-create it that way, that might just say the power quality when the whole house came back on line was pretty ugly for the first second or so, and maybe the XEP and its wall wart didn't handle it very well. Maybe a separate, clean power supply for the XEP would help in that case.

 

[electron]

I had a similar problem, but have no reason to think the power was out at all. We were away for the holidays and all was well for about three days. Then on Christmas day I tried to log into the Elk and got zip. Tried Homeseer and found that the UltraM1 Plugin couldn't talk to the Elk, either, as it goes through the XEP. When we got home last night I pulled the plug on the XEP and thought that would do it, but I ended up having to shut down the Elk itself, pull the XEP's plug again, and then restart both. This isn't the first time my XEP has done this, and lately I've had problems where I can log in, but when I enter my code I get a message saying that it's "busy", and asking me if I want to "retry". Retrying never, ever works...

Frankly, I'm beginning to think the XEP is the weak link of an Elk system. It won't work with Fios from Verizon, doesn't send email with 100% reliability, and now this. I'm thinking it's time for the folks at Elk - who otherwise sell only the best, most rock-solid stuff available, to spend some serious time changing out this unit through either a major firmware update or an entirely new design. I depend on my Elk to be 100% at ALL times, and really hope this XEP mess is resolved.

Define not work with FIOS?

 

[Madcodger]

Define not work with FIOS?

See this thread: http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=9027

 

[Madcodger]

Any thoughts about why the current M1XEP wouldn't have worked though?

Any chance the XEP doesn't die gracefully under depleted battery power, and maybe comes back up in some disfunctional state?

I wonder if you can re-create the problem if you temporarily plug the XEP into a GFCI outlet, push the test button to kill the power, wait a bit, then re-enable the GFCI outlet. Try it a few times to see the result. If you can't re-create it that way, that might just say the power quality when the whole house came back on line was pretty ugly for the first second or so, and maybe the XEP and its wall wart didn't handle it very well. Maybe a separate, clean power supply for the XEP would help in that case.

I don't think it's a power issue, or at least that's not the only cause. I had my XEP plugged into a UPS, which would clean up the power, and besides, we had no indication there was a power outage while we were away.

 

[aehusted]

This isn't the first time my XEP has done this, and lately I've had problems where I can log in, but when I enter my code I get a message saying that it's "busy", and asking me if I want to "retry". Retrying never, ever works...

I have had this problem a lot myself. I was thinking that I was the weak link, but I am glad to hear that is not the case. Well, not that glad really, but it's good to know I am not alone. I also doubt that it is a power problem because like Madcodger, I have mine plugged into a UPS. For the future to be "very bright", there will have to be a fix for these problems as well as an upgrade to the email functionality. I still have not gotten that to work.

 

[Madcodger]

This isn't the first time my XEP has done this, and lately I've had problems where I can log in, but when I enter my code I get a message saying that it's "busy", and asking me if I want to "retry". Retrying never, ever works...

I have had this problem a lot myself. I was thinking that I was the weak link, but I am glad to hear that is not the case. Well, not that glad really, but it's good to know I am not alone. I also doubt that it is a power problem because like Madcodger, I have mine plugged into a UPS. For the future to be "very bright", there will have to be a fix for these problems as well as an upgrade to the email functionality. I still have not gotten that to work.

Is anyone else with this problem running M1XSPs as well? More than one? And what firmware versions?

I updated to .37 and then .39 XSP firmware recently (betas) to resolve a thermostat problem, and that may be about the time this all started. Then again, I just started accessing the Elk directly recently, so it may be a coincidence... Will see if I can go back to pre-.36 XSP firmware and try it while I have a couple of days at home, to see if it has any effect.

I've found that the XEP locks up whenever I attempt to access it directly. It is able to communicate with Homeseer via the UltraM1 Plugin just fine, but then when I try to access the Elk directly through it from a remote location, it initially displays the virtual keypad, but often without complete info (example: it doesn't show the armed status, or the thermostat status, although it does show the temperatures at the keypads). Then it loses its connection with Homeseer, and I can't log back into the Elk. The login screen comes up, then the blue screen that asks for my code (prior to virtual keypad, but when I enter my code I get a busy / unavailable message. Restarting homeseer, reloading the page, etc., etc. have no effect. The XEP has to be restarted, and at least yesterday, the Elk had to be shut down and restarted as well. Will check it again in a few hours when I return home, and report any findings that might be potentially useful.

Joe

 

[IVB]

No M1XSP's here at all. I don't use ElkRM though, and almost never hit the XEP directly via the web browser. I bought the XEP specifically to make life easier for CQC/ElkRP swapping.

 

[rfdesq]

I'm running an XEP, and an XSP. I also run a TS07 and ELKRM. The only glitch that happened to me is the lease on the router expired, the IP address of the XEP changed and nothing worked. I set the IP address of the XEP to fixed and haven't had a problem since. Sending email through the XEP is functionally non existent for me.