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2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 26 Jan 2019 15:31
by Spirit78
I think that this stable as it is now, it has never been.
But the problem with broken SD-cards is still a problem. I have to change after about 6 months, and that´s becoming a cost I don´t want to have.

Is there a good solution to make the pi/z-way to do some of the writing to a USB-stick or NAS instead? I believe it has something with the amount of writing to the SD-card to do, and know it is a well known problem.

And connection to HomeKit seems a bit better too. Not perfect but on its way.
It seems that for example "Virtual Rain sensor" is supported but looses it after a while. Same with Weather Conditions like WetherUnder ground, it can also work for a while, but fail later. They become "not supported", even though they have been working for several days.

It is also a problem with HomeKit that it fails when you add a new device to the z-wave network or make any changes as names on them.
And if you make a reboot on AppleTv and/or iPad it almost always fail the whole connection. And when that happens you have to do delete home and reconnect it and start all over from the beginning in HomeKit.
Before it always failed when rebooting ATV/iPad, but now, not always.

And if you delete it, you have to change name in HomeKit-app/Z-way app, in both "Name" and "Name as it apears in HomeKit

But you are on the right way :)

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 26 Jan 2019 16:34
by PoltoS
V3.0 will be even better. We have improved stability.

As for HomeKit, we are also improving it. Hope we finish before v3.0.0. may be v3.1

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 26 Jan 2019 22:01
by pierre2302
Hello,

For SD card problems, I advise you to use a hard disk.

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 27 Jan 2019 01:06
by Spirit78
Thanks

I look forward to 3.0.

How do I use a HDD to it? How and what do I point to the HDD?

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 27 Jan 2019 03:46
by PoltoS
I use a very good SD card for about 5 years and never had problems with it. Don't by cheap crappy cards. You can also make logging less intense - this will help to keep the card working better

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 27 Jan 2019 19:14
by pierre2302
Start with a sd card that contains the system.
Plug the hard drive into USB and then from the command line on the raspberry follow these steps :

Step 1. Identify the drive

$ lsblk


Step 2. Create the partitions " Create primary partition swap 900 MB / create primary partition ext4 ((eg 10GB))"

$ sudo cfdisk /dev/sda


Step 3. copy mcklb0p2 to sda2

$ sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p2 of=/dev/sda2 bs=512


Step 4. Define partition swap

$ sudo mkswap /dev/sda1


Step 5. Mount the partition sda2

$ sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt


Step 6. Edit /mnt/etc/fstab/ "as below"

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/mmcblk0p1 /boot vfat defaults 0 2
#/dev/mmcblk0p2 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda2 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
# a swapfile is not a swap partition, so no using swapon|off from here on, use dphys-swapfile swap[on|off] for that
/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0


Step 7. Edit /boot/cmdline.txt

replace : root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 by root=/dev/sda2


Step 8. $ sudo resize2fs /dev/sda2


Step 9. $ sudo reboot


The raspberry will still need the SD card for boot then it will switch to the hard drive (To see for the raspberry 3).

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 27 Jan 2019 22:23
by Spirit78
Polto: I have only used Sandisks class 10 SD cards resent, and have tried Sony class 10, and some other cheaper cards. But I dont find any difference ;)
Right now I have Sundisk for the 3 or 4:th time


pierre2302: Wow, thanks, i will try some day when I manage to gather some strenght :lol:
Must fix a HDD too first

Is it too slow to do it against a NAS over network? And problems with NAS energysleep and such?

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 31 Jan 2019 18:19
by Spirit78
A few things:

1. If I point it to USB as you describe, is an .img backup of the SD-card able to fully recover z-way if SD-card crashes?

2. If USB-Disk fails, what happens then, is it just to swap to another USB-disk? Does z-way halt during USB-crash?

3. If I want to switch back to SD-card, is it just to do the reversed order in your great description?

Re: 2.3.8 Very Stable, but HomeKit not perfect

Posted: 31 Jan 2019 20:52
by pierre2302
A few things:

1. If I point it to USB as you describe, is an .img backup of the SD-card able to fully recover z-way if SD-card crashes?

If you make an image of the SD card it will not be too much interest because we use only the boot partition of it.
Or make an image before flipping to the hard drive.


2. If USB-Disk fails, what happens then, is it just to swap to another USB-disk? Does z-way halt during USB-crash?

If the hard disk fails it is the complete system that crashes since the system partition is on the hard disk.


3. If I want to switch back to SD-card, is it just to do the reversed order in your great description?

If you use the command "sudo resize2fs /dev/sda2" you will not be able to return to the SD because this will extend the size of filesystems..
( To return on the SD card it is necessary tried but without using this command beforehand, or then the partition of the hard disk should not be bigger than the SD card )