ZNIFFER help

[Neo Andersson 67]

Hello there

May I ask some more experienced user to give me some support with Zniffer.

We were able to get it up and running, but the table what we see just doesn't tell me anything.

I have tried to grind through several topics and documentations, but i would rather ask someone for help here in human language.

I can see several crc errors, and routed errors.

I read that CRC error should not be bothering us as it is happening due to zniffer inability to cacth data, and its not realted to zwave problems at all.

How about these Routed errors ? 

Can someone explain how to understand these abbreviations?

How can I know which device cuased these Routed errors? Which column show me the device ID or something?

Please, any help would be appreciated.

 

Please login or register to see this attachment.

[petergebruers 1,250]

I want to help. I am not at home and do not enjoy typing on my smartphone... So for now some very terse answers.

 

- Zniffer has captured a real problem, it is not a phantom

- For routing protocol I will send links when I am at home. It is not trivial. It is a bit unfortunate that your real first Zniffer problem is of this type

- A routing error gets send by a node along the path, that it cannot reach the next step. So it is telling "this route is probably not good to get to the destination"

- IMHO node ID might be powered off. But HC keeps trying to send. Or the network around that node might have a problem. But there is a 'but' ...

- For the HC to send that fast, you would have scene looping fast, plus someone would have changed the option to send to dead nodes

- the snippet shows these packets eat 100 of your bandwidth

 

 

That's my initial diagnosis. Sorry for being terse. Have to go now.

Edited May 21, 2022 by petergebruers

[petergebruers 1,250]

I have trouble counting hops and don't have my docs. But I am fairly certain node ID 26 is down, unreachable or does not exist, or els it is the destination node, 15

 

The info is in the gobbledygook at the bottom left of the packet info ?

[petergebruers 1,250]

4 hours ago, Neo Andersson said:

I have tried to grind through several topics and documentations, but i would rather ask someone for help here in human language.

Routing has been the "secret sauce" of Z-Wave... Maybe it still is! AFAIK the owner of Z-Wave tech and patents has never fully disclosed routing algorithms and full packet formats. But community effort + reverse engineering + the "Zniffer Decodes" gave the geeks among us enough information to piece things together.

 

Especially @robmac, @tinman and @Tony270570 have discussed this many times, and in great detail, but always in private. There are a few reasons for that but I think the ;ain reason too keep it private is this: it is a bit complex and you would also want some detailed information about the particular Z-Wave network. Plus it is tedious

 

Since a few years, @robmac has moved to open source, but he still has an account here.

 

Conclusion: it is no surprise that you did not find relevant documents about Z-Wave Routing!

 

@robmac did an excellent job of explaining this, with enough detail, to understand how it greatly it differs from IP routing

 

Please login or register to see this link.

 

I can also recommend my own post:

 

 

 

I count the number of people with in-depth knowledge of routing on this forum to be errrrrrrrrrm, probably less than 10, so we always welcome new members.

 

I hope I didn't insult anyone by forgetting to count them. EDIT: I mean "end users" in this context, I am not counting Fibaro or Silabs employees here, because this mainly an end-user forum.

 

4 hours ago, Neo Andersson said:

I read that CRC error should not be bothering us as it is happening due to zniffer inability to cacth data, and its not realted to zwave problems at all.

I say this without any sarcasm ( I do not do sarcasm on public forms because it does not work well) - I am so glad you picked up that idea! Yes, CRC errors tell you "Zniffer got something that looks like a packet, but the CRC does not match so we aren't sure" This can happen because of collisions but mostly it is a matter of weak reception (far away node). To be 100% sure you need more context. Put differently: Z-Wave devices do not make CRC packets. Zniffer sometimes has hearing loss and cannot understand what is on the network.

 

4 hours ago, Neo Andersson said:

Can someone explain how to understand these abbreviations?

Eh. The left bottom panel on your screenshat can be explained but AFAIK nobody has ever tried to document it.

 

The most important thing to keep in mind is this:  a "routed error" is not "a packet that is in error", it is a correctly functioning packet sent by a repeater to signal the source that it cannot get to the destination, and thus the selected routed is not good.

 

What "selected route" means can only by understood after readin the post by @robmac and I also recommend my topic on "mesh update"

 

IMHO it is not 100% necessary to understand the botto; left panel, the "line" at the top gives you enough clues to investigate in situ

 

Error (1) - 18 <- 11 - 26 - (15)

 

The arrow tells you the packet is traveling backwards. So the packet that gave rise to this response was going from 1 to 15 but it never got that far

 

From "18 <- 11" we can with 100 % certainty deduce that node 11 is working and is asking node 18 to send it further along (or more correctly: further backwards)

 

Node 1 should receive this and decide, next time, to try another route - if such an alternative exists. That depends on "mesh updates" (and explorer frames but forget about that for the moment)

 

4 hours ago, Neo Andersson said:

How can I know which device cuased these Routed errors?

Yes, it says "Failed Hop 0x02" and that is an "index" into the route (1) - 18 <- 11 - 26 - (15) but I always forget if it counts from left to right or the other way around, and if you count from 0, 1 or even -1 ........... but you can make an educated guess that is 11, 26 or 15 and if you know what and where those nodes are you might understand what is going on

 

4 hours ago, Neo Andersson said:

Please, any help would be appreciated.

I know you do appreciate this and I hope it will soon make sense, I am sure it will give you a skill very few people have, which might be a bonus.

Edited May 21, 2022 by petergebruers

[Neo Andersson 67]

Thank you Peter..

Honestly...ehhhh

This is way beyond my comprehension..so far..

I just dont know what to do, if I find those errors..

I bet, there is not a single answer..like..."If you find Routed error then do this and this..."

This world would be too nice if it was like that..

So what else reamins.,..digging and diging further in documents, and try to figure out why things dont work, what is causing these errors...etc

Anyway i am really thankfull for your help..

[Neo Andersson 67]

Peter, sorry for beeing an absolute noob, but i really can't figure out what device is making the trouble.

As you wrote 11,26 or 15...does this mean, 11,26 or 15 are the IDs of the device in Fibaro system? In this case i am in even deeper water, becuase ID 11 and ID 15 don't exist in my Fibaro system and ID 26 is a fully functioning switch module.

So i am still lost here

[petergebruers 1,250]

28 minutes ago, Neo Andersson said:

does this mean, 11,26 or 15 are the IDs of the device in Fibaro system?

No, in Zniffer, those numbers are NodeIDs

 

HC3 -> Config (cog wheel) -> 5. Devices -> pick a Z-Wave device -> Look for "node endpoint" on the "general" tab. For example:

 

Node.Endpoint 11.0

 

The part before the dot is the NodeID. In this case, 11 is what you will see in Zniffer

 

Try this script to list NodeIDs.

 

Please login or register to see this attachment.

Edited May 23, 2022 by petergebruers

[Neo Andersson 67]

Ahhhh, okay..now clear thanks