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Author Topic: Unable to Control Lights from PC After AHP/Win7 Upgrade  (Read 2627 times)

nhoeller

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Unable to Control Lights from PC After AHP/Win7 Upgrade
« on: August 15, 2011, 09:21:09 AM »

I had previously run ActiveHome Pro on a Windows XP laptop controlling a CM15A communications module.  At the time, I was using 3.228 due to problems with dusk/offset/security issues on the then current release of AHP.  Over the weekend I installed AHP on a Windows 7 Pro (32-bit) laptop, using 3.316 to pick up the Windows 7 drivers.  Although I could communicate with the CM15A and download the previous configuration, I could not control lights from the AHP interface on the laptop.  The problem did not appear to be the CM15A or the lights - I could control everything as before using the old WinXP laptop.

Further investigation showed that AHP 3.316 was able to turn lights off, but not on.  A closer look at the activity log showed that AHP was sending 'extended code' commands to all my controllers.  That led me to http://forums.x10.com/index.php?topic=24327.0.  I did not see the Tools/Preferences/Macros option mentioned in the post, so I deleted and recreated all my controller definitions using the 'Old Lamp' devices. 

Defaulting to 'soft start' for new devices makes sense.  Assuming that existing devices in an existing configuration are 'soft start' seems rash.
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Brian H

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Re: Unable to Control Lights from PC After AHP/Win7 Upgrade
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2011, 09:28:29 AM »

If they are before Soft Start.
3.316 has a separate section called Old Lamps (Before Soft Start) Redefine the switches and lamp modules from that list and then reload the timers and macros.

X10 didn't change the part numbers. When they went to soft start and unlike some two way modules. They can't be interrogated for their hardware revision levels or firmware version. Like Insteon Modules can be.

My thoughts are. Presently sold modules are soft start so let the latest AHP match what is being sold now.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2011, 09:33:04 AM by Brian H »
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Noam

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Re: Unable to Control Lights from PC After AHP/Win7 Upgrade
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2011, 10:26:15 AM »

Since the developers inherited the problem (old and new modules with the same part number behave differently), they could only work with what they had.
As Brian said, they decided to make it easier for new users, (and for users with modules less than three years old).
However, there was nothing stopping them from creating a "wizard" when the upgrade was done, to help a user with older modules determine if their modules are old or new, and adjust AHP accordingly.
But they didn't do that...
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nhoeller

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Re: Unable to Control Lights from PC After AHP/Win7 Upgrade
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2011, 09:13:11 AM »

3.316 has a separate section called Old Lamps (Before Soft Start) Redefine the switches and lamp modules from that list and then reload the timers and macros.

It turned out to be slightly more complicated.  I had redefined the modules and was able to manually control my lights including running macros.  However, scheduled events were not working.  I normally do not have ActiveHome running on the PC, relying on the program stored in the CM15A.  I noticed that the modules in the macros had the green stripe indicating soft-start.  I edited each macro, removing and re-adding the modules.  This was a bit surprising - I assumed that the macros contained pointers to modules that were defined previously.   
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