Wiser constantly losing connection

[saintjerome]

After installing a wiser to control our c-bus network around 4 months ago (mainly for the Windows MCE and extender client, we have had nothing but pain from it. It appears to me that the product is highly unreliable and prone to lose connectivity at any time.

I am qualified in networking and programming, and the electrical side also, and deliberately left the wiser in it's default setting (192.168.2.1-2) for simplicity, with the existing router (ADSL Modem) as gateway on 192.168.2.10, etc. The Wiser sees this fine and all works perfectly for a time.

We are seeing:
- The Wiser unit works fine for a day or so, including schedules working as expected;
- Then it just stops. Can get a response from 192.168.2.2 on a browser, but the GUI doesn't come up and the schedules no longer run. The only solution is rebooting the wiser and then all is well;
- Except that when it comes up, it randomly starts up some schedules (it seems) and most annoyingly, these are often the watering systems!!
- One of the times it died, after rebooting, it had COMPLETELY lost the program - it was empty! We had to reload the program into the Wiser.
- It has twice died AFTER starting the watering schedule and left our system watering for hours - only that we noticed it and reset the stupid thing.
- Connectivity to MCE is unreliable also. The main server unit can typically connect, but only now and then can any of our 4 XBox 260 Extenders connect to the Wiser GUI. Usually they cannot, so the Wiser has proven to be fairly useless for the purpose we obtained it.

Has anybody found this device to be reliable at all? Perhaps I have a dodgey one?

I thought I would see how people are going with these before contacting Clipsal.

[Conformist]

Before contacting Clipsal, I would suggest posting....

Firmware version in the Wiser
Version of PICED used to program

Any info you can provide will assist in solving your problem(s)

[saintjerome]

Problem was occuring with previous firmware, but updated to latest (Kona_1.12.0) and made no difference. Wiser locked up again twice today - the 192.168.2.2 web page indicates all is working fine, and "ready to connect", but not the case!

Piced is 4.7.0.

Has anybody else seen this instability with Wiser locking up?

[kjayakumar]

Originally Posted by saintjerome

Problem was occuring with previous firmware, but updated to latest (Kona_1.12.0) and made no difference. Wiser locked up again twice today - the 192.168.2.2 web page indicates all is working fine, and "ready to connect", but not the case!

Piced is 4.7.0.

Has anybody else seen this instability with Wiser locking up?

Hi,

PICED 4.7.2 is the currently released version that is compatible with Wiser firmware 1.12.0. I would recommend upgrading to that version and reuploading your project to the Wiser. If the problem still occurs, please PM your PICED project and we'll try to figure out what is going on. If possible, your Wiser router settings export file, (Administration->Backup Configurations) could also help.

Also, just to confirm, you are using your Wiser as a LAN device right? That is, not as a router, and you have an existing ADSL modem+router on 192.168.2.10 that serves as your Wiser gateway.

[Mr Mark]

Originally Posted by saintjerome

Has anybody found this device to be reliable at all? Perhaps I have a dodgey one?

Our one at home had to be re-started every few days (at least twice a week) initially until the latest update, since then it hasn't missed a beat. The only other issue we have had is with the VMC plugin. On/off, fan control, camera and scene control all work well but we constantly have trouble with the dimming function. For example, if a light is off and we try to ramp it on media centre will show 5% and stop responding. The light will ramp to 100% and media centre displays an error message saying Home Control has stopped responding and will now close etc.
Vista Media Centre version: 6.0.6002.18103

Regards,

Mark

[joeel1]

hi Mr Mark...

it will be helpful if you can provide us with your project.xml and socket-data.log files, which normally located on C:\Program Files\Wiser\.
we hope, with those files, we will be able to replicate your problem here.

cheers...

[Colin]

Hi

In response to the original post there’s an item here that I need you to clarify.

"deliberately left the wiser in its default setting (192.168.2.1-2) for simplicity, with the existing router (ADSL Modem) as gateway on 192.168.2.10, etc. The Wiser sees this fine and all works perfectly for a time."

The ADSL modem is connected to the LAN or WAN port of the Wiser?

You say you left it as the default setting but this would imply that you are running it in network configuration option A or possibly C, as Option B requires considerable alteration to the Wiser default settings. Can you please confirm the configuration type (refer to wiser insulation manual for reference).

The reason this is confusing is that you state "with the existing router (ADSL Modem) as gateway on 192.168.2.10"

Which would imply operation as Option B network type. Please let me know which one it is so we can help you further with the issue.

[7iron]

Originally Posted by saintjerome

- The Wiser unit works fine for a day or so, including schedules working as expected;

I'm having a similar problem which appears to be related to schedules. I have all the latest PICED and the new firmware update.

Trying to track down the issue

[Colin]

7Iron

If you think the lockup may be related to schedules could you provide feedback on the following.

How many schedules do you run.
What type of schedules

• Sunset
• sunrise
• fixed time
• random time
• repeating interval
• everyday
• specific days
• specific months
• other

Does your unit stop responding at a specific time every day, week or month, and does this time correspond to a specific schedule.

Please remember that almost all Wisers are running at least two schedules all the time (daylight savings schedules) so the generic statement of its related to schedules is of little help, it would be good if you could give additional details to back it up, and perhaps help identify the cause of your issue.

I would appreciate your feedback.

[kjayakumar]

Originally Posted by Colin

The ADSL modem is connected to the LAN or WAN port of the Wiser?

Above is a good point to raise. A quick one for all of us to be aware of. When a Wiser is used as a router, it has to use memory to track all of the outgoing connections from behind it. This memory is needed for network address translation between the external IP address and the internal IP address(es). "swarming" protocols like BitTorrent will create as many outgoing connections as possible in order to maximize download speed and each of those connections takes up memory on the Wiser. There could possibly be a scenario where the amount of memory and cpu used on the Wiser for routing tasks starts to impede Wiser's C-Bus services. If you're using your Wiser as a router and you are seeing stability issues, please consider constraining your Bittorrent client's maximum connections to see if that helps.