ISY99 - How do I spider for links?

[Madcodger]

I just received my ISY99, and am beginning to figure it out. I intend to replace my existing Homeseer control of my Insteon network with ISY control via my Elk. I hope to NOT use the Homeseer plugin for the ISY, and instead want to interface directly with the Elk itself, making use of Elk Rules to control most of my lighting logic. Any connection with Homeseer will then be via the Elk and the UltraM1G plugin for Homeseer, if necessary.

My Insteon network is working well, and the links, etc. are as I want them prior to this migration. I will use my current PLM (now connected to the Homeseer machine) with this new ISY, and an initial test run using it (and pluggin the ISY into my router) shows that I can log into the ISY, reset the IP address, etc. I have NOT attempted to manually link anything, and in fact have NOT added in any Insteon devices.

What I hope to do is to set the ISY into a mode where it simply spiders my system, detects all my devices, and adds any links currently in those devices. I understand this is possible after scanning the forum, but how do I accomplish it? The UDI forum, wiki, etc., don't readily provide an answer. Also, I would like to be able to switch the PLM back to use by Homeseer until I get the ISY and Elk set up over the next couple of weeks. Is that possible?

Thanks for any help,

Joe

 

[MikeB]

I'm personally a fan of factory resetting everything and starting from scratch, but can understand why you wouldn't want to do that.

When you add a device to the ISY, I believe you want to choose the option that says "Add devices found in links and keep existing links". If you manually add a device linked to as many other devices as possible, that should go out and spider your network.

 

[upstatemike]

I think you have a couple of challenges:

1- If you switch a PLM between controllers without doing a factory reset in between you will have problems since each controller expects the link table int the PLM to match the database maintained in the controller. Any time you switch you will need to let the current controller re-write the PLM link table from scatch to get it back in sync with the database. Otherwise bad things will happen.

2- If you do not clear the links found in devices when you set them up then the ISY will put whatever it finds in each device link table into its database... even if what it finds is junk links, partial links, non-standard links, etc. Once that information is in the database there is NO WAY to edit it or clean it up or even see if something strange is there. Plus, any time you restore the module, this garbage information will also be faithfully restored so doing a factory reset will not be able to help you clean up the link table after the junk data is saved in the ISY database. Best practice would be to choose the option to "Add Devices Found in Links and Remove Existing Links". This will do the spidering but will also clear the link table in each device so it can be written over fresh by the ISY thus ensuring there is no garbage stored in the device link table OR in the ISY database. If you keep the links that were written to the devices by Homeseer bad things will happen.

Unfortunately clearing the links in the devices will break the Homeseer setup and the existing links between devices. It will require you to redo your link programming but link programming with an ISY is very easy while troubleshooting invisible link table glitches is very frustrating and time consuming. Is homeseer doing anything beyond time based control? If not I would let the ISY handle the lighting events directly unil you are ready to set things up with the Elk M1.