Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Noam]

I did a little testing, and I think I found a quick way to convert an AHX file that was originally created before version 3.302, to work with later versions.
The specific issue stems from older (non-SoftStart) Lamp modules and wall switches that default to the newer SoftStart version after AHP 3.302. Currently, you need to go back and re-define each one as an "Old Lamp Module" for the older functionality to be retained.

I was looking at my AHX file a little, and it looks like that change can be made a whole lot faster outside of AHP.
Keep in mind, that this may not work for everyone, and you should DEFINITELY back up you AHX file before trying this.

Open AHP, and open the AHX file that has your modules in it. Make sure that they now show up as "new" modules.
Save the file again, and then close AHP.
Open the AHX file in a text editor.

Near the top, you should see a section for each "room" in AHP, and then a line for each module.
Find the lines with the "type=" section that matches your module types (My old lamp modules were all LM465's, and I didn't have any old wall switches).
Change the cat="lamp" to cat="oldlamp".
Do this for each module you want to change (if all of your lamp modules are the older type do it for all of them, otherwise, pick only the ones that you need to change).
Save the file.
Open up AHP, and you should see those modules change to the "old" ones.
Save the file one more time, and then close and re-open AHP. You should be good to go now.

I have tested this a little with my own test setup, but I didn't do this to my production system, so I can't guarantee it will work.  If you have a lot of AHX files, and a lot of modules (as Dan has already said he does), then this should be a big time-saver.

[Dan Lawrence]

THANKS!!!

This should be helpful!!!

[Noam]

THANKS!!!

This should be helpful!!!

I make no guarantees, though. I strongly recommend backing up your files first. ;-)

[Dan Lawrence]

I ALWAYS back up my .ahx files in two separate areas both on and off my PC.

[Noam]

I ALWAYS back up my .ahx files in two separate areas both on and off my PC.

I figured you did. The warning was for those that might forget to.

[Dan Lawrence]

I did a little testing, and I think I found a quick way to convert an AHX file that was originally created before version 3.302, to work with later versions.
The specific issue stems from older (non-SoftStart) Lamp modules and wall switches that default to the newer SoftStart version after AHP 3.302. Currently, you need to go back and re-define each one as an "Old Lamp Module" for the older functionality to be retained.

I was looking at my AHX file a little, and it looks like that change can be made a whole lot faster outside of AHP.
Keep in mind, that this may not work for everyone, and you should DEFINITELY back up you AHX file before trying this.

Open AHP, and open the AHX file that has your modules in it. Make sure that they now show up as "new" modules.
Save the file again, and then close AHP.
Open the AHX file in a text editor.

Near the top, you should see a section for each "room" in AHP, and then a line for each module.
Find the lines with the "type=" section that matches your module types (My old lamp modules were all LM465's, and I didn't have any old wall switches).
Change the cat="lamp" to cat="oldlamp".
Do this for each module you want to change (if all of your lamp modules are the older type do it for all of them, otherwise, pick only the ones that you need to change).
Save the file.
Open up AHP, and you should see those modules change to the "old" ones.
Save the file one more time, and then close and re-open AHP. You should be good to go now.

I have tested this a little with my own test setup, but I didn't do this to my production system, so I can't guarantee it will work.  If you have a lot of AHX files, and a lot of modules (as Dan has already said he does), then this should be a big time-saver.

I tried you wrote (saved as a WordPerfect file) in a text editor my ahx file (a single file for testing using my winter.ahx file ) showed NOTHING like what you wrote. Sorry, but back to 3.296 I go.    Dan.

[Noam]

I tried you wrote (saved as a WordPerfect file) in a text editor my ahx file (a single file for testing using my winter.ahx file ) showed NOTHING like what you wrote. Sorry, but back to 3.296 I go.    Dan.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your post.

The AHX files are in XML. You'll need a plain text editor (like Notepad) to edit them in their raw form.
When you open up the file, you should see a lot of XML tags, which are enclosed by the "<" and ">" signs.
These form the framework for the XML file. It is like an outline. There is a tag to open each section, and a correctonding tag (with a "/" after the "<" sign) to close the section.

The first one should be "<xml>", which is the opening tag for the file. At the very end of the file, you should see a "</xml>" tag closing out the file.
Next, you'll see a "<ahp>" tag, (with a corresponding "</ahp>" tag right before that final "</xml>" tag at the end of the file).

Inside that, you'll see more tags, some of them "nested" within  others.
For example, mine then starts with a "<rooms>" tag, under which is a number of separate "<room" tags, each ending with a "</room>" before starting the next one.
The "<room" tags have more information in them (like the name of the room, etc), before the ">" at the end of the tag.
Inside each of those sections, I have a "<mod" tag for each module in that room.
Like the "<room" tags, these also contain more information inside the tag itself, and end with a "/>", which makes the entire tag self-contained.
It is inside these "mod" tags that I found the "cat" parameter.

If you are not seeing anything at all like what I'm describing, then I'm not sure what's wrong.

[Tuicemen]

Dan, don't save the AHX as any thing!
Simply right click on the AHX file and open with Note pad.
Then you will see what Noam is saying!
Once you have made the changes click save not save as.
 

[Dan Lawrence]

Dan, don't save the AHX as any thing!
Simply right click on the AHX file and open with Note pad.
Then you will see what Noam is saying!
Once you have made the changes click save not save as.
 

Notepad is what I used.  That's why I posted to Noam what I did.   I had saved Noam's post as a WordPerfect file for future use.  Installed 3.305 and opened my Winter.ahx file in it.  Saved the file and AHP, opened the file in Notepad and as I posted nothing looked anything like Noam did. I could not find any reference to type of module, just the module type.

[Tuicemen]

AH!
I opened a old AHX file  one created before the 3.305 verion of AHP and it doesn't have the Cat= entry anywhere!
So this would actualy be more work as every module would have to have the Cat= entry.
Just adding the entry for the lamp modules would most likely result in a corrupt AHX file And we all KNow what they can cause!
Good Idea Noam but it is flawed!

[Noam]

AH!
I opened a old AHX file  one created before the 3.305 verion of AHP and it doesn't have the Cat= entry anywhere!
So this would actualy be more work as every module would have to have the Cat= entry.
Just adding the entry for the lamp modules would most likely result in a corrupt AHX file And we all KNow what they can cause!
Good Idea Noam but it is flawed!

That's why I said to open it in 3.305 first, save it, and then close AHP. From my testing, that seemed to add that property into the file.
You can THEN change the "lamp" to "oldlamp", using a search-and-replace, which should be easier than doing it manually for each module within the GUI.

[Knightrider]

Noam's method worked for me.


BTW, Noam gets a +1

[Noam]

Noam's method worked for me.

BTW, Noam gets a +1

Thanks for confirming! I'm glad that I wasn't only imagining that it worked.

[stackj43]

Wow! That was my solution. I had purchased the new CM19A controller and when I upgraded my software all the lamps lost their dimming capability. I even went back to the old style controller and found I could no longer dim the lights. I replaced the new controller and the new receiver (I had purchased 3 of them) and still no luck. I reloaded the software and even did an additional load into another directory. No luck. Then I googled Activehome help and found this site. Within a few minutes the answer was found.

Changing the module cats to "oldlamp" fixed all of the issues. Thank You!

[Noam]

Wow! That was my solution. I had purchased the new CM19A controller and when I upgraded my software all the lamps lost their dimming capability. I even went back to the old style controller and found I could no longer dim the lights. I replaced the new controller and the new receiver (I had purchased 3 of them) and still no luck. I reloaded the software and even did an additional load into another directory. No luck. Then I googled Activehome help and found this site. Within a few minutes the answer was found.

Changing the module cats to "oldlamp" fixed all of the issues. Thank You!

You CAN do the same thing from within the AHP program, by editing each module, and re-selecting the module type.
However, for those with very large setups, this might be a faster way (using search/replace).