FAQ: Zwave Repair from the ST app (June 2022)

Wiki FAQ
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Since the IDE will be going away once the transition to the new architecture is complete and the method using just the app has changed a couple of times, I thought it would be helpful to have a FAQ on how to run a zwave repair now.

The following instructions are from @jkp

in the ST app, go to the Device section, click on the Home icon in the upper left of the screen, Select All Devices and locate and open your hub, then click on the 3 dots in the upper right of the screen and open z-wave utilities.

Then you can select zwave repair.

This is a standard zwave utility that just tells every device on your zwave network to update its neighbor tables so it can take the most efficient route when sending messages to the hub.

Although these tables do rebuild themselves eventually with zwave generation 5 and above, it can take a few days. And they won’t rebuild on their own in older devices. So a lot of people like to run the utility in the following circumstances:

  1. any time you physically relocate a zwave device, to make sure it knows who its new neighbors are

  2. when you add a new mains-powered zwave device. This allows other devices to use it as a repeater. (There are a few mains powered devices that don’t act as repeaters, like many smoke detectors, but it doesn’t hurt to run the repair if you aren’t sure.)

  3. when you remove a mains-powered zwave device, like putting away the Christmas lights smart plug. Especially important if you aren’t removing it from the network, just taking it off power for awhile. This also happens during remodeling.

I also once knew a family that had a Z wave power strip that they brought out when they had a guest visiting and unplugged and put away again after the guest left. Including their college age child who might stay for a few weeks.

If the visit was long enough for other Z wave devices to automatically start using the power strip as a repeater, they could have problems for a few days when it was unplugged again. So they learned to run Z wave repair after putting the power strip away each time. :sunglasses:

  1. when you have been having lag or offline problems.

To understand the error messages you may see, check the following:

FAQ: Zwave repair not working (how to fix error messages)

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just in case the process changes (and assuming documentation is updated), here’s the support article for z-wave repair

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Looks like I’ve got some ghost devices. Even though I’m able to create them per the directions in IDE, I cannot remove them in the app. When I click remove basically nothing happens (android). To properly remove the ghost devices, do they have to be removed from the app? Any ideas would be appreciated!

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are you certain they are ghost devices? If you are still using IDE and checking Routing info - Edge devices would show as Unknown.

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Yes, I’ve cross referenced every ZWAVE device ID from ST API browser.

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How long is zwave repair supposed to take? I left mine overnight and it still did not finish and I just get a spinning circle. Also is there any way to see the logs?. Old IDE had this capability, but I cant see it with the new system.