Remote troubleshooting for Insteon PLM - Interface Failure

I'm on vacation and the power blinked a few times yesterday back at home. Now Indigo is telling me there's an interface failure on the Insteon PLM.

"Failed to establish connection or open serial port to interface. Make sure the correct interface type and port are chosen in the Preferences dialog and that the serial device or adapter are plugged in correctly."

In the logs I see this line:

Code: Select all

Interface Failure               failed to establish connection with serial interface PowerLinc Modem on port usbserial-A906XMKP

I tried disabling and re-enabling the Insteon interface, stopped and started the server. Didn't change anything, I get the error each time.

If I were home I'd unplug, re-plug, reboot my Mac, try a different USB port, etc. But I'm not home, and I'm not inclined to drive home just to troubleshoot...

Is there anything else I can do remotely to try and get it to re-establish the connection to the PLM? I have ssh and vnc access to the Mac where Indigo is running, so can try lots of things shy of rebooting (can't reboot due to FileVault).

If there was a power surge that broke the PLM, is there any way to prevent that in the future? I believe you're not supposed to plug the PLM into surge strips or UPS power supplies - which means it is hard to protect the PLM from surges, unless I'm missing something.

Thanks,
Jason

[matt (support)]

Unfortunately, I don't know if any tricks to get a frozen PowerLinc like this (assuming it is frozen and hasn't malfunctioned) unfrozen without physically unplugging it (or possibly a Mac reboot). I've had it happen to me while on vacation a couple of times and had to walk a relative through the process of unplugging it for a few seconds to get it working.

Thanks - I guess I'll just have to wait until I'm home to troubleshoot further.

I believe you're not supposed to plug the PLM into surge strips or UPS power supplies - which means it is hard to protect the PLM from surges, unless I'm missing something.

Jason, one can plug a PLM into a regular surge protector without expecting issues.

UPS's are not ideal since they typically contain circuitry to filter the noise from the AC power mains....and, the Insteon powerline portion 'looks' like noise.

A power strip with a surge protection of 750j would be ideal. Just check the products label for Noise filtering as you would either not want that or something minimal.

There is a product that will cut the power to an AC device and effective reboot it if it (Internet Rebooter) looses a connection to the Internet. I have not tried it and the link is here:
https://www.connectsense.com/products/internet-rebooter

Pinch

If you have a Unifi System you could use a SmartPower Plug to cycle the PLM.