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HC2 will not boot af power failure


severin

Question

My HC2 will not boot af power failure.:-(

When the power comes back the blue leds starts flashing but the process stops when all 8 LEDs are turned on.

I have checked the bios in the HC2 is set to Power on "After power failure".
The Warm Boot function (pressing the on / off switch on the rear panel) restart the HC2 and provided access to the BIOS.
But the Cold Boot function (the power supply is dis- and reconnected) do not work. O
nly 2 times out of 10 attempts I was able to connect the BIOS settings at a Cold Boot.
I also have tried to change Power on setting to "last statement" but it did not help. Then the BIOS was set back to Power on "After power failure".
Since there has only been one power cut since I bought the HC2 center januar 2016, it must be open to question whether it is a manufacturing defect?
Fibaro informs in a service video: "After this (setting the BIOS to:
Power on "After power failure) Center should start correctly. Otherwise, it is damaged and you should return it to service".
Is there someone who knows if there are more repair opportunities or whether the device should be returned to service / repair?

 






 

Edited by severin
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I had exact the same symptoms as Marbe described, and I've solved it. I saw on this forum a hint about the CMos battery, so I checked the voltage.

It was 2,8 Volts, and the CR2032 should have 3 Volts, so I assumed that it was "empty". I replaced it with a new one, measured voltage 3,3 Volts.

Bios settings were not affected when I replaced the battery. Now the HC2 boots when I remove the power and plug it in again. I had this issue for months, and now I'm a happy person. I live in an area where we have several power outages for hours and that happens a few times per year, and my UPS will not hold that long. I hope, by sharing this, that many of you can solve this now finally. 

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@Stealth is that a recent photo of your HC2? In that case you may want to remove that "recovery dongle" because fw > 4.500 does not use that stick and it can cause issues...

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Pull out the Recovery stick and try to start your HC2 without it.
If your HC2 boot up successfully, then you have a corrupt Recovery stick.

It is not so uncommon problem, but expensive, if you have to send the box to Poland

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  • Inquirer
  • Hi RH Dreambox

    Thank you for your suggestion.

    It seems that it is not the usb key that is the problem.
    The restart stops in the same way even if the USB is removed.

    Best regards

    Severin

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    I have found my box to misbehave after power cuts. A random series of booting into recovery mode (but not doing recovery) and powering down via the button at the back, and normal power on seems to eventually get the box back up and running with no ill effects. No idea why it does it, I presume a flag is set somewhere for improper shutdown and booting to recovery sets this to be cleared again, allowing a normal boot to happen. 

     

    I did get a UPS, but that only lasts ~1hr. This allows a clean shutdown but even then sometimes it does not come back up without the above repeated power off/on, if the power has at some point been completely removed from the box.

    Edited by Cameleon
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    I experience the same problem.

    Judging by the lights on the device all is well but in fact is not.

    I did similar actions as @Cameleon and it works... eventually.

    Not a clean solution though, and something that should be fixed asap.

    Even in my router it shows me the device is not connected, which seems to suggest a deeper lying issue...

    As it seems to running Debian at the back I can't understand why they cannot get the OS to boot.

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    If you want to know why the OS can't boot... you'll have to attach a monitor to the HC2. I made this suggestion to other members and sometimes a clear cause can be found (like "file corrupt" message). If you don't have basic knowledge of linux, then the boot messages will be difficult to "evaluate" though, but it still might help Fibaro support to diagnose boot issues.

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    Given how infrequently it happens, I'm happy to leave the HC2 on its shelf and let it be. Its not very accessible where it is to be able to hook it up to a monitor in situ and I don't want to get it down and mess about with it near a monitor if it might corrupt it. 

     

    If FIbaro suggest there is something that can be solved by hooking it up to a monitor though then I dont mind getting it down to do any tests. 

     

    Out of interest, how do we know just looking at the box if the OS has fully booted?

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    If I remember well, the boot phase ends when the "pulsing lights" stop. Then the LEDs turn on to indicate "power", "lan" and "internet" (right to left). After that, Z-Wave is started and scenes run too. I think it is advisable to start a boot script (aka "%% autostart" scene) with a 30 to 45 second delay. That's the worst case time between the start of the scene and the devices being operational. But technically, it may be incorrect to count that as part of the boot sequence...

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    I'm trying to remember what state mine comes up in. I'm sure all lights finish pulsing and then either get all lights on (which I think is an error state?) or I get a few lights on but the HC2 is not contactable over its IP. I'll remember to make a note of this next time it needs to be powered down. 

     

    Something seems to correct itself though as cycling through the power cycles as above eventually gets it back up and operational and doesnt seem to have any adverse effects. 

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    these 8 LEDs, they are connected to separate PCB (made by Fibaro, that PCB contains µC and zwave chip and it does run its own firmware), which simply start playing LEDs sequence after power has been applied. During the boot sequence, that PCB can only catch the action taken by the + button (start recovery mode) and blink with LEDs. The power button is (over optocoupler on that Fibaro PCB) directly connected to Intel Mainboard. After the OS (Linux in this case) has completed the boot sequence, and the gpio driver took the control over I/O communication, the HC2 Firmware will send to the Fibaro PCB command to turn all LEDs off, and then based on status to turn on or off the other LEDs. 

     

    That means, when your HC2 stopped "booting" with all LEDs on, then the issue can be:

    - the OS has not started

    - there is communication problem between Intel Mainboard and Fibaro PCB - i saw such issues only on HC2 with old Intel Mainboard, i belive S/N under 10000 or so)

    - gpio (or gpio driver) is crashing

     

    Issue 1 and 3 can be (very often) repaired with full recovery, of course as long you can still boot to recovery mode.

     

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    I to have had this same problem and fixed it today by plugging a USB stick into one of the black USB ports. After observing the boot on the VGA monitor I saw that the BIOS was not handing off to the boot device "FIBARO FIBARO HD" (or RE). I also noted that "USB Boot" is enabled in BIOS and this may be part of the problem however the BIOS should not misbehave in this way in the first place.

    Further, the current BIOS I have is MTCDT10N.85T whilst Intel support lists MTCDT10N.86A. I personally don't intend to flash the BIOS as the USB stick appears to address the problem.

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    Hello I had exactly the same problem with a HC2 and after having fibaro support check it they said that the network card is corrupted and I should ship it to Poland for repair. But I found a workaround by turning off the unit remove the network connection start the unit and when it finishes booting only the first led stays on then plug the network cable back and ...magic... the three leds turn on and everything is OK.

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  • Hi Patrick Phillips and dgcon.

    Thank you for your suggestions.

    I've tried both, but unfortunately they do not solve my problem.

    Fibaro has still not responded to my request for a solution!!!!

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    I've experienced this issue too.  Last time I had to do a full recovery to get the system working again.  If it happens again I'll try the advice above but it would be nice if Fibaro technical responded as there's an issue somewhere. 

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  • Inquirer
  • Hi Bash
    I've tried "a
    full recovery" to get the system working.

    Unfortunately it did not solve the problem.:-(

    In addition i lost all my uploaded icons.:-(
    I have spend many hours to reinstall my configuration.:-(

     
     
     
     
     
     

     

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    Thank you amoebe!!!! For me it was indeed the CMOS battery needing replacement. This was a very serious issue for me because my installation NEEDS to come back up unattended. There is often nobody on location, and it is costly to have someone go physically just because the FHC2 doens't boot on the first try after losing power.

     

    Changing the cmos battery in the HC2 is a bit of a hassle, as you have to take the main board out of the chassis to access it. The battery is is a standard CR2032, but with soldered contacts and wrapped in plastic and connected to the mainboard by a small connector.

     

    You _could_ cut the plastic open, de-solder the contacts and re-use them, as I did, but I don't recommend that. If you are at all patient you should just order a plastic wrapped cmos battery ready to connect. Amazon has them. BE AWARE that there are two common types of connectors used. Look closely at what you are buying. I see that on Amazon they have images showing which connector you are getting, and which you are NOT getting.

     

    Do a full zwave dump + backup first. Seriously.

    Edited by tini
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