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[Doid]

The CM-15A will no longer turn my lights on from the downloaded programs. Nor will the lights turn on when directly control from the Active Home software.  Both the CM-15A and Active Home software will turn the lights off BUT not on. Ironically, Active Home Palm Pad can turn the lights on and off. This is very frustrating.  The system use to work now it doesn’t.  Please help!

[Brian H]

Are the lights controlled by older before Soft Start X10 modules and did AHP recently update.
The later revision AHP. Has a separate Before Soft Start list and a Lights list of modules.
If your modules are not soft start and you recently updated.
Redefine the modules from the Old Before Soft Start List.

The HR12 Palm Pad is being transceived by the CM15A interface?

[Tuicemen]

Windows Updates have been known to mess up older AHP versions.
You don't state which version of AHP or Windows your using.
Since you state no programs can control X10 It appears X10nets have been corupt!

[Doid]

 Thanks, I refined my modules as Before Soft Start and it seems to have done the trick.  I had recently downloaded a newer version of Active Home and that is when my problems started.

[Dan Lawrence]

That's why we needed what version of AHP are you using?   All the recent versions of AHP have TWO versions of modules.  Most of the modules under Lamps have Soft-Start modules and some older non-soft types and a section called Older Lamps (no Soft-Start) which are all old-style.  You only have to convert older modules in your .ahx files once (you know which ones you have).   Takes the worry of what kind of modules to use.  To convert takes about 5-7 minutes per .ahx file and once set up properly you never have to to do it again. 

[Noam]

It looks like you already figured out that you have non-SoftStart modues.
However, it is possible you have a mixture of newer (SoftStart) and older (non-SoftStart) modules, and here is the *simple* test to figure out which ones are which:

My preferred method is to do this using a PalmPad, or some other "simple" controller, but you can use the AHP software, as long as you can already control the module (you may need to define it as an "old lamp - NoSoftStart" or an Appliance module for the test).

Watch the light as you turn it on. If it "ramps up" to full brightness over the course of a second or two, then it is "SoftStart." If instead it immediately comes on to full brightness, then it is the older, non-SoftStart type.

Around 2008, the X10 corporation changed the design of their lamp modules (a category which includes dimming wall switches, too) to include the SoftStart functionality. However, they kept the model numbers the same as the old design.

The older design modules did not have the ability to turn on at a dimmed level. They first had to come on at full brightness, then dim down by a percentage. The percentage dimming was somewhat inaccurate, and was really hard to manage. If you wanted to make sure the lamp was at 50%, no matter what it was at before (on/off/dimmed at some level), the best way to do it was to brighten it to 100%, then dim it by 50% again.

The new modules can respond to "Extended Dim" commands, which allow for more precise brightness control. They can go from any state (on/off/dimmed) directly to any other state (on/off/dimmed at a different level) without having to go through the full brightness stage.
If you want to go to 50%, you send an Extended Dim 50% command, and the light goes right to where you want it to go. It doesn't matter what state it was in before. This functionality is very helpful for applications where various dim levels are needed, as the "relative dim" of the older design would get "out of tune" with repeated dim level changes, unless you went back to 100% again.

I hope that explanation helps.