I have had various X10 products for years and started automating my lamps with the ActiveHome Pro software about 18 months ago or so. Early on I had some problems with noise due to the high volume of electrical devices I have in the vicinity of where my lamp modules and the main X10 controller (whatever it's called) is located. I resolved those with some noise filters and everything was fine for several months.
Suddenly one day the lamp module in my room stopped working reliably, and nothing that I could think of had changed. More importantly, at this point when I would try to control any of my modules on the computer with the ActiveHome software installed, there would be a HUGE delay when I would try to turn a lamp off or on, and when I would try to change the dimmer setting. Prior to this the response would be near instantaneous when I would adjust one of the modules. Now when I turned a module on it would take several seconds (about 5) before the switch would flip on or off, and several more seconds before the accompanying dimmer setting would follow suit to 0% or 100%. If I tried to adjust the dimmer setting itself, again it would take several seconds before it would respond.
In the VERY beginning when the problem started the light in my room would sometimes respond even though there were the huge delays, but the response was now flaky and inconsistent. In short order the lamp stopped responding entirely although the lamp itself worked fine. Another lamp module I had in the house continued to work normally, turning on and off at the scheduled time of day and respnoding to commands sent from the ActiveHome software, but the software continued to exhibit the huge delays regardless of which module I was addressing, something that had never happened before until this started.
When I started encountering problems I tried unplugging a lot of the electrical equipment in the vicinity of the malfunctioning lamp module to see if something was interfering, even though I have at least 3, 10 amp noise filters used with electrical equipment in the vicinity of that room. Nothing made any difference. Today I tried moving the USB cable to another USB port which connects the ActiveHome computer to the primary controller (whatever it's called), but it made no difference and the severe lag continued. At this point I was still unable to do anything with the malfunctioning lamp module, but another lamp module would respond to ActiveHome commands even though the horrible lag continues.
Today I finally tried replacing the offending lamp module with another one I wasn't currently using, and it worked, usually, but the horrible lag continues when I send commands from ActiveHome. I haven't tried testing the offending lamp module in other locations around the house yet so I don't for sure yet if it's defective, but nothing explains the huge lag when trying to control anything from the ActiveHome software.
FYI the computer this is being run from is a top of the line custom built Intel P4 (less than a year old), with an almost completely clean WinXP SP2 install on it. Because I've been bed ridden from a critical accident I don't actually use that system, so it's extremely clean. It's only been used to control my printer, scanner, ActiveHome Pro software and controller, and direct connection to my cable modem/wireless router. Until last XMAS I had been running ActiveHome on an older P4, but I moved that computer elsewhere in the house when I had this new system built exactly a year ago to replace the old one. I left ActiveHome installed on the old system just in case, which is on my wireless network, but I kept the controller in the same location and connected it to the new system after installing ActiveHome Pro on it. Again though, everything worked pefectly for several months with the new system until the problems mysteriously started occuring.
Bottom line, has anyone else witnessed the same lag problems I'm talking about, possibly coupled with flaky or intermittent control of one or more modules? I haven't tried replacing the batteries in the controller module yet, that's about the only thing I haven't done.
Thanks in advance for any help.
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Topic: Problems with Activehome Pro software - controlling lamp modules (Read 3162 times)