If you are having trouble communicating with a device and you are trying to troubleshoot, it’s a good idea to run a stress test. This is a great way to be able to remotely troubleshoot devices.
Your network will become slow and potentially unstable during this test. Perform it at a quiet time to prevent issues with people trying to control devices!
DO NOT perform this test if a device is currently pairing or was paired within the last 2 minutes as it will cause problems with the communication process.
- Click on the settings arrow of the device.
- Select Advanced
- Click on Commands, then select Stress Test
- You will get a confirmation, Command Executed Successfully
- Click OK
- Scroll to the top of the page to see the results of the stress test in the status window
Can't see the blue bar? Go to Users & Account Info then Notifications and ensure the Notification Bar option is enabled.
What do these results mean?
This test helps you identify where a fault lies with the communications for a device. The list of potential outcomes below helps you pick the next troubleshooting step to resolve the issue.
- All test runs: 10 sent, 10 ok, average under 500ms
- Your device is communicating with the mesh correctly. If you are experiencing problems with this device it indicates a software or configuration error that is preventing messages being handled correctly on either end. Confirm your parameter configuration is not the cause (input type, etc.)
- 10 sent, 7 ok, 10 sent, 8 ok, 10 sent, 10 ok, average under 1000ms
- If you notice that each test run of 10 pings gets progressively better then it indicates the device is having trouble forming strong and reliable routes to the rest of the network. This can mean the device is at the edge of the reliable range of the network or that it is suffering from an "hourglass" effect on the network.
- The hourglass effect is the term used with wireless networks to describe a situation where one part of the network is completely reliant on just one or two routing devices to get traffic between devices and the gateway. This can happen when gateways are not well positioned, or when environmental interference forced radio traffic into a less optimal route. Adding additional devices or relocating the gateway will often help resolve this issue.
- Consistently low ok rates, long average time
- Your device is likely at the extreme end of radio reception and is either not receiving radio messages at all or receiving corrupted messages that it can't respond to. The same recommendations as above will help resolve this situation.
- No responses to any test run
- Your device is either offline, completely out of range, or did not pair correctly causing it to miss out on the encryption information for the network. This device should be excluded from the network and then paired back in. In most cases, it will need additional routing devices or a relocated gateway to work reliably in future.