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Z-wave device lost

Ola Lundqvist shared this problem 8 years ago
Known

Hi,


I just noted that my Qubino flush dimmer has disappeared from both device manager and the rules. This happened without any changes made to the system. I have rebooted and now also upgraded the firmware but the device is still lost. Any ideas?


Thanks

Ola

Replies (38)

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Thanks Jimmy,


I guess i can just add it again. But the question remains. How can I trust this sytem to guard my house?

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I have had this problem many times, this same night a device zwave heavy duty of Aeon Labs has disappeared to me. I have it installed 6 months ago and today suddenly it is not. It is very frustrating and creates a lot of mistrust in this system. Again, I have to add it again and go over all the rules where it was included.

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I have had the same issue a week ago, one of my qubino's (flush 1 relay) vanished from device manager I opened a ticket regarding power consumption not being reported in my qubino flush shutter and zipato said they would work on it. I assumed this "disappearance" had to do with them working on my box and maybe modifying descriptors, I had to unwire the qubino, add it again, wire it again to the shitch and fix all rules, Zipato support's answer was very dissapointing;

"The most important thing is that now everything is as before. We will try to explore your issue."

This needs to STOP!! I thought this was more of a fat finger on zipato support, but this looks more like a glitch in the processors, Zipato must give us a professional answer, it is a pain to add qubinos again to the system and rebuild the rules, not mentioning the grief that this causes, the automation that is supposed to help our life easier is busting our chops!!

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Just to share the pain. Same happened to me with a qubino flush shutter module. After installation in the wall it's gone. Not even as off-line - but really gone.

Zipato always offers new bad suprises and just when you wan't to give up everything it works for a short time to keep you on the leash.

For what I've spent just in working hours I could operate all houses and flats of a reasonable city for the next 100 years :-(

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Today it happened again, this time with one of my Zipato RGBW bulbs. I guess this is due Zipato platform changes, not qubino devices... Zipato is dropping the ball again without any warning.

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Support says issue is under investigation, developers don't know the reason why. Also they say they think this might be a zwave issue since other manufacturers are experiencing the same problem, sounds hard to believe but that is the response so far.

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I just had one of my Aeon Micro Switch G2 v2 in wall switch automatically removed from the z-wave network.

All the related rules became invalid. I opened a ticket few minutes ago, let's see what zipato say.


Also, from yesterday i had sync issue but without having any error: modify a rule, save, sync, system reply that sync was good. Reload the dashboard and the rule is the old one. Lot of time wasted.


I dont think is related, but when I notice that my device desappear i was using imperihome making a reload of the devices.

Do you use it also? I dont think this is the issue, but just to have all the possible clues.

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I reported the same issue several months ago. This happened to me only with Qubino modules and not any other, so I assumed it's a qubino bug.

In most of cases the reason for this device loss is that they enter an arbitrary Add/Remove state without doing any action on them. I don't know if there is any "help" in it from zipabox controller. But when they are in this add/remove state, any device reset procedure (which is done when you click "Add new device" -> "Z-wave") can affect them.

So basically you loose devices when they enter an arbitrary add/remove state and you try add new devices.

Only 2-3 times on 15-20 my device was lost in other circumstances that Add new device procedure.

And I've found out a workaround for this. From z-wave network properties I click "Add device" before I add new device from Device manager. If this procedure times out, then no of my devices is in arbitrary add/remove state. If it is, then I see message like "Device with NodeId = XX already added" and I know that I need to make a circuit break on that device to get it out from add/remove state. Without a circuit break such device would be affected by add/remove procedure until removed from network.

So to avoid loosing Qubino modules:

1) go to Z-wave network properties -> Add node and wait for timeout

2) If you see "Device with NodeId = XX already added", then circuit break this device and repeat procedure

3) If you have timeout, do normal Add new device -> Z-wave device procedure using your new device you want to add to network

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Thank you Thomas, this is very good to know. I added a new device (a zwave lamp) a couple of days before the switch lost, so can be possible that it was the moment when the switch was removed but I notice it just later.


Thank you very much for this workaround. I will try to follow your instruction before adding the next device.

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I don't think this is related to the adding method of devices, also not specific to Qubino, I got a Zipato RGBW bulb removed from the network, and on both times I experienced (first a qubino module, then the Zipato bulb) I wasn't working with the controller. According to Zipato team this issue is under investigation and they mentioned this might be happening because another controller had an "impact" on the network, which I don't know how that can happen, I indeed have to zipatiles at home plus the zipabox with all devices, but right now the zipatiles act only as dumb tablets logging into zipabox.

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Hi Alberto,


I dont know, but for sure I have just 1 controller (a zipabox). Not any others (nor zipatile or others). So I dont think this can be the issue (unless the controller is maybe one of my neighbor, but I really dubt that. As far as I know there are very few people that use z-wave actually, and have one near my home should be at least very rare).


What I know is that in the last days, due to the vacancy, I play a lot with zipato. First to solve an issue where the network heal fail for all the devices. Then with a rule that fail to syncronize without giving any error, and now the device lost. I know there is same server issue, but I dont know how much my problems are related to them or to a poor zwave protocol (I really hope in an issue with the zipato server, otherwise it means that the whole zwave "thing" is bugged and we have to move to a different solution).

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It is indeed very strange, even zipato support says it has been very difficult to find the reason, they told me they where going to monitor and log the activity on my zipabox so they know next time it happens. What I know from other user that had an issue with a device causing noise in the network and causing slow communication in all network, not sure if that is our case, I highly doubt this could be a z-wave issue as comm standard, they have been around for many years, I think this could be more related to server issues from zipato together with some weird conditions on the user side... I would recommend all to open a ticket and wait to see what zipato can find out.

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Today again.


Wall Switch gone in Devicemanager and Rules.

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@Alberto, Zipato support told me the same thing about logging over half year ago. They found nothing. Since that time some devices were gone. In vast majority of cases during inclusion of other devices.

Arbitrary device readiness for inclusion/exclusion is only fact I have that influences device removal from network. Most of my devices are Qubinos, so I can't tell if other brands act this way.

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In none of my both cases I was performing inclusion/exclusion of devices, both happened while I was away, even my alarm partition was armed away. And one time happened with a Qubino and the second with a Zipato RGBW, so it is not problem exclusive to Qubino and I really doubt this has anything to do with the process of inclusion/exclusion of a device, this process is standard for any z-wave controller (or at least should be).

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Guys,


I think that the assumption of Thomas could be correct. Reading from the manual of my AEON switch it say:


"While the Micro Smart Energy Switch G2 is powered in a 3-wire system,

the external switch/button can be toggled to initiate pairing into the

Z-Wave network. or the internal button can be pushed to initiate pairing

into the Z-Wave network, if Micro Smart Energy Switch G2 was not put

into in-wall box."


Basically, switching the light 3 times (I dont know how fast) put the switch into the inclusion/exclusion mode. Once in exclusion mode, it is sufficient to click on "add device" on zipabox to remove the switch. So It could be really easy to get mistake (like a rule that switch the light 2 times followed by a manual switch for example).


I dont know about others device, but if you can confirm that all the lost device could be put in the inclusion/exclusion mode WITHOUT pressing manually any button, that could be the root cause.


If we can confirm this, maybe zipato can introduce a middle step into the inclusion process: after founding a device, it should ask to the user if the user want REALLY remove the founded device. Actually the process is fully automatically (when you start the inclusion, the first step is to exclude a founded device). I think Zipato must prompt the user before automatically remove what found.

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M4,


What you describe is a standard z-wave inclusion procedure, all devices have different ways to start the inclusion/exclusion process, and they ALWAYS start with exclusion then inclusion. This is part of Z-wave standard and the reason being is simple, lets say you have your energy switch at your home already included in your network (controller has assigned a network and node ID to this device) and then you decide to take this device to your "country house" so you go ahead and remove this device from Zipabox/Zipatile, but, while doing this you only deleted the device from Zipato cloud server and the controller, the device still "thinks" is part of the network (network id and node id remains on the switch). If controllers wouldn't start by telling any device on "Exclusion/Inclusion Mode" to be "Excluded" (deleting their network and node id) they wouldn't be able to include it in the network, and you will have to perform a "factory default" reset to the device in order to include it on your second home.

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No, this does not make sense. No way everyone is so "unlucky"that while in inclusion process someone would accidentally do an exclusion command. No way. This is something else.

Another reason why the backup feature is urging...

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Hi,

have you been doing any network healing before noticing device getting lost ?

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No, oddly the dissapearance of the devices happened while I was away, zipato team gave me time and date of when these devices dissapered and on both cases I was away from home with my security alarm armed away.

I notice because I have automatic lights using motion/luminance sensors and suddenly one day this lights weren't working, I logged into zipato and surprise! my device count decreased by one, then I go device manager and their gone, also rules are invalid showing "unknown".

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@Attila.

I think that the add device command in voluntary. What is not wanted is the device that go "alone" into the inclusion/exclusion mode. Of course this is just a guess. I have added a device (a lamp) just 2 days before i notice the lost one (a switch). Maybe is not related.


@Chistian

yes I was playing with the network heal a lot during the last week. But I'm pretty sure that after the last one the swith was still there (I checked the nieghbor section of all my devices to see if they were updated, and they do.

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You can't put a Z-Wave device in inclusion/exclusion mode without user interaction.

A middle step wouldn't help here, once you put a controller in exclusion mode and if a Z-Wave device is in range and in exclusion mode, that device will be removed from its current network. We can't change this since this is done automatically by the Z-Wave protocol.

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Marko, all those people including me just wrote that their devices were put into inclusion/exclusion mode without interaction. Moreover I definitely say, that when Qubino devices are in this mode they stay in it indefinitely long. So *every time* I enter Add device mode in z-wave protocol properties tab *the same device* is reported as "already added" and I don't even know what device it is because only it's ID is displayed. I have to do a circuit break to get such device out of that state. And each time it can be different device - there is no rule in that matter.


So please - don't write theory where people discuss about practical problems and their causes.

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Tomasz,


What Marco says is not theory, is a fact. Is part of the z-wave standard used as security, otherwise would be easy to "hack" into neighbour's device, in order to put a device into inclusion/exclusion mode you have to have physical interaction with it, whether with the press of a button, switch or cyclying power to it.


Inclusion/exclusion process performs two basic tasks, first, assigning network and node ID to the added device and update the routing table of the controller and including it into his memory. Deleting a device can be done unilateraly from the controller side without the need of the device inclusion/exclusion mode, exclusion mode (on the device side) only deletes its network and node ID.

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Alberto, with all respect - I know that a device can be in mode when it responds to all add/remove requests from controller without user interaction. Each time I call add node from controller I get "device with ID = XX already added". Normally you have to act on device to make it respond to add/remove request, but in case of my qubinos I don't have to do anything and it responds to all requests. And THAT's a fact, and when it happens again I will post you a video if you can't believe. What Marco says is theory and I'm very frustrated that this theory is not true, because it makes me a lot of trouble with reincluding devices many times. I have installed 50 qubinos and there were weeks when I had to reinclude a device once a day. I even saved results of getDevices api method to do a differential to spot lost devices. Please don't explain to me how inclusion/exclusion works, because I know the process. In my company we experimented with Vera, Zipato, Domoticz, OpenHAB and Fibaro. Zipato was best in terms of functionality and devices support, but unfortunately is worst in terms of reliability. The same applies to qubino modules - best functionality/price ratio but they have bad quality - long delay for sensor events in all modules, relatively many faulty devices (no state reporting, making buzzing sound when turned on - which is minor defect, welded relay, exploding). We've bought about 80 devices and had problems with 6 devices which is 7,5% in first year.


As from my experience both zipabox and qubinos have reliability issues I don't know who is responsible for this arbitrary exclusion problem. My intuition says that it's qubino, because those devices don't get out of that state after "already included" message they still respond to add signal, and normally you have to repeat add steps on device each time.


Another thing is device removal - what I also observed is that Zipato makes some kind of restoration of cloud state. Sometimes I renamed a device and next day saw it with previous name (and it wasn't deja vu) - this happened maybe 2-3 times during last year so generally very rarely. I also experienced their reset of my device settings without noticing - so my monostable switches became bi-stable and I had to reconfigure about 30 devices. When such reckless actions are performed, then it's possible that there is a bit of code in the cloud that results in device removal.

For three weeks all virtual endpoints I add are not operable, scenes and group actions don't work and I don't know why and when they will work. Ticket is pending :)

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The first step for inclusion/exclusion is always on the controller side, you can put the controller into this mode without user interaction, also with that many amount of qubino devices you have I'm sure you have read many times their manuals where you can clearly read that these modules always start on exclusion/inclusion mode when power has been removed and put back, this mode lasts for 5 seconds, it is called "Auto-Inclusion".


However you can read in this topic that NOT only Qubinos have this issue, I personally had a problem with a Zipato RGBW bulb that dissapeared, this device does not have an auto-inclusion feature (you need to tap the bulb three times in order to put it on this mode), and both cases I have had they dissapeared while I was AWAY!!!, I wasn't performing a inclusion/exclusion process from the controller, you don't need anything from the device in order to delete a device from Zipato controller, ANY device can be deleted from Zipato controllers without the need of inclusion/exclusion process!!


"Another thing is device removal - what I also observed is that Zipato makes some kind of restoration of cloud state. Sometimes I renamed a device and next day saw it with previous name (and it wasn't deja vu) - this happened maybe 2-3 times during last year so generally very rarely. I also experienced their reset of my device settings without noticing - so my monostable switches became bi-stable and I had to reconfigure about 30 devices. When such reckless actions are performed, then it's possible that there is a bit of code in the cloud that results in device removal." as you mention here, deleting arbitrarily devices doesn't have anything to do with inclusion/exclusion.

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I also lost devices on a regular base supposed to be "impossible" as per the Zipato team.

I have stopped doing network heal - and it seems more stable now.

Once i will have a proper backup available i will play again with it , now it takes me too much money to reinstall all the devices to the controller.

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OMG It just happen again to me :(

just woke up and discover that one of my two Fibaro motion sensor disappear. Lost. Vanish. In the rules is reconginzed as Unknow (and the rules marked as NOT VALID) and in the Zwave devices list is just missing.

How can **** be possible this? That's the second time in two months. If this system is also sold as security alarm (And it is) how can be accettable a bug like this? Regardless all the time that I have to spend to reinclude the sensor and do again the rules that actually are NOT VALID, but what happens if something bad happens and the alarm is not working because one (or more then one) sensor are just removed by themself? I think you should be considered as responsible due the fact that this bug was reported ages ago and not yet fixed. I think a bug like this should prevent you to sell the product as a security system. How can be this considered *secure* by Zipato? I mean, at least having a backup system in place or any other workaround that in case like this can "on fly" restore the system should be the priority number one. Or at least enable the log file on the operations. do you think is normal that is impossible to understand why and when this happens? how can you fix this without a log?


ps: Just to be extremly clear: I was sleeping, so no action by me on the controller or on the device. The device is battery powered (while the previous disappear for me was a main powered switch). Last time I used the device was 23pm last night, and it worked (it turn automatically the light in one room on, and it worked). This night I woke up at 2 or 3 am to drink and I notice all the light in my house on. So the rules based on one variable that check the motion was not working. this morning i checked and i found the device is missing.


@Zipato: I love you and i love your system, but this is really unacceptable.

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I also lost one qubino device from network during night yesterday and it could have been around 23:00-0:00 CET. As in @m4dt3o case, no action was taken from my side when it happened.


I reported to Zipato support a case over half year ago and they've done nothing since that time. This is one of most frustrating bug in their system, as it requires redefining all rules, groups and scenes that involved missing device. Please fix it!

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Same happened to me yesterday witho two domitech zbulb

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This is worrying, I have yet to experience this and hope I never will. especially for a client.


Can you rejoin the device? the device itself is not faulty is it? has anyone raised a ticket and had a response?

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Adrian,


It has happened to me a couple times, one with a Qubino FRelay and second with a Zipato RGBW. I did rise a ticket which is under investigation, support told me this issue is not exclusive to Zipato, they mentioned other controllers having the same issue over Z-wave but i really don't know the answer, Zipato is the only home automation controller I have experience with, they are logging my box to find out why this is happening although some other users have this same ticket opened for long time and no resolution to this day.


Both devices were able to be re-joined to the network and they don't appear to be faulty either.

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I did too. They said that apologize and to re add the device. After that send them devices manual and model to review the descriptors.


My major concern is that do this for devices already in place is a pain in the bones and highly decrease reliability of the whole setup...

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Backup should solve this problem.

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Yesterday my next device disappeared from zipabox device list. I start to think, that it's a bug in their code and that device is still in the network but it's not displayed in devices registry. That device was purely remotely controlled and there was no button connected to input, so there was no possibility to exclude that relay from z-wave network. And very irritating thing is that they don't look for such bugs in their software, but try to explain to people that they probably removed devices accidentally :/

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I drilled down the problem and found out, that devices that were lost from z-wave network are still visible as neighbor nodes in "advanced tab" of their neighbors. Instead of device name there is GUID value of the node. In my opinion those devices were not excluded from z-wave network but simply deleted from device list by a bug in zipato cloud software. After you notice a disappeared device in your network check other nodes for GUIDs in neighbor list. I use API method getDevices for frequent (once a week) device listening and save it to file. It helps in such situations to display differences in device list using a diff tool, like https://www.diffchecker.com/ I paste current output of getDevices and former version and see differences. It can also tell you what lost device stands for particular GUID in neighbor list.

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Yesterday after upgrade to 1.2.22 six (SIX! 6) devices dissappeared from z-wave network, including two battery powered devices (sensors) and four wired. I'm not sure if it was immediately after upgrade, as I didn't check rules if they became invalid, but problems occurred when evening (sunset) rules haven't started. Battery powered devices report normally to the box as they signal no problem with connectivity or range. The problem is that box doesn't have them in registry.

It's hard to explain how frustrating is when one needs to reinclude devices and fix many broken scenes and after few weeks, up to two months such incident happens again.

As there is no updates to support tickets related to this critical failure, I ask Zipato on this forum - what do you do to fix this fundamental flaw of your software?!

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My door sensors also stopped working today. I thought it was low battery, but I switched it and it did not work. I had to delete and re-add to the Zipabox. I noticed a lot of slowness in the responses and status update (Open / Closed). The rule involved in these sensors also stopped working.

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Alessandro,


Your issue seems to be a different issue, seems to be related to overall performance rather than z-wave devices dissapearing from the routing map of zipato controllers. Try to update to latest official firmware and performing a complete zwave network heal.

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Thanks! I will try your suggestion

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Make sure you wake up your battery powered devices when it's their turn (network heal or ZWNTUT will say something like "waiting for battery powered devices to wake up"), such as Zipato Sensor Quad.

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Yesterday happened again. A device disappeared from configuration, device manager and device browser. Rules that uses it became invalid.


How is it possible?

And, how to fix it???

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I suggest to open a ticket with support (support.zipato.com)


Happened to me in the past with Aeon Range Extender.

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Thanks Simone, I've opened a ticket yesterday but still no answer ...

When happened to you the support was able to restore the device or you ended up in manually re-adding the device?

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happening again and again ... hope that Zipato shall explain us once how to prevent this

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Again today - added new actors to the z-wave network and again other actors got dropped for no apparent reason. It seems the issue still persists. So annoying!

rules are broken and adding the actor back in the network is always a pain as it need to located / disassembled from the installation and then rejoined. Once that is done you can start fixing your rules.

worst part of it is, the rules are now broken so you never know if the automation is still working or the whole execution of the rules seize to function.

To track the actors i started labeling them all with an identification code which is stored in the website (name). When 1 is lost i can find it because there is a gap in the numbering, dig up the blue prints of the electrical system and find the damn thing.

@Support; When is this getting fixed!

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Hi

I had this problem also today with firmware 1.3.10. After that I've updated to 1.3.13 as Mislav from Zipato mentioned in another thread that with firmware 1.3.13 this problem has been fixed! I hope so....

Thanks

Beat

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They declared that this issue was resolved in previous major update, and initially I thought so. But after 2-3 months devices started to dissappear again, when I added more devices to the box. For me it's the #1 issue in Zipato, but I can imagine that people suffer from this issue when they have dozens of devices (like ~150 in my case).

So when you add 4-5 devices to zipato and no device is silently removed from the system is the time for celebration :)

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Hi Tomasz

Yes I agree it would be #1 issue to me too! It did happen last night the first time to me and took me down from 107 to 103 devices. Then I did an upgrade to firmware 1.3.13 and added 4 devices. After that I check every single rule if another device is missing. But everything is there.


See the comment from Mislav in the update thread about version 1.3.13:


***************************************************************

Hi Beat,


This is an oversight from our team which happened since we were in a hurry to resolve the following issues with the 1.3.13 firmware:


Fibaro devices compatibility - some Fibaro devices had issues with inclusion and configuration settings

Z-Wave devices missing - in some special cases devices would get deleted by the controller (deemed malfunctioning and unavailable)

Virtual Thermostat - fixed issue with thermostat not turning on in some instances


BR,

Mislav

***************************************************************

Did it happen to you on firmware 1.3.13? If yes then you should report to support immediately (I know grrrr)...

Thanks

Beat

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2 years spent but the problem the same. Qubino dimmer 0-10 lost Node ID absolutly unpredictable. All data were sent to manufacturer- no ractiion more 2 months. My vision is following be careful with products from GOAP. Qubino must be in black list until recovery lost of Node ID problem.

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