Controller neighbors missing nodes?

[nervling]

Not filing this as a bug, as I don't understand if this is WAI or not (but I don't think it is...). The TLDR is my controller has 3 neighbors (far away) despite ~30+ nodes having the controller listed as a neighbor. Is there a way to force the controller to update which nodes are its neighbors? I've tried calling the MQTT refreshNeighbors API, healing the network, etc, but the controller doesn't seem to update its neighbor list for some reason. I'm running a Aeotec 7 stick, so this could be an issue with the buggy 700 firmware.

A very small snippet of the neighbor list is below. You can see 2, 7, and 8 all include 1, but 1 does not include any of them.

{"1":[39,47,80],"2":[1,5,7,9,10,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,26,27,30,36,40,41,47,48,50,51,52,61,62,64,65,66,69,71,73,75,79,80,83,87],"5":[2,7,8,9,10,11,12,16,17,21,22,25,26,30,32,39,42,43,44,45,47,53,61,62,64,67,71,72,73,74,79],"7":[1,2,5,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,24,26,30,32,39,40,42,43,44,45,48,53,61,64,71,72,73,74,79],"8":[1,5,7,9,10,11,12,13,15,16,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,26,30,32,39,42,43,44,45,47,53,61,71,72,74,79,89]

[robertsLando]

@nervling did you tried to run healthcheck on it? Also check this: https://zwave-js.github.io/zwavejs2mqtt/#/usage/nodes_healthcheck

cc @AlCalzone

[AlCalzone]

I wouldn't be too focused on the neighbor information - if everything works fine. It might also take some time and network heals to "fix" itself.

[nervling]

Yea, it's been like this for awhile and it doesn't work well after ~2 years of being fine. Node show up dead and need to be re-pinged often, including ones right next to the controller. It started when I moved my gen5 into a different server, i migrated to the gen7 thinking the stick was dying but it made things worse potentially if anything.

[AlCalzone]

Ok then it's time to use driver logs to investigate.
Start here, work through the logs and compare with this to identify what is failing how.
If this is actually caused by nodes having an issue, this page has some steps you should try.

If you're unsure with the logs, I can take a look.

[nervling]

I backed up my Gen7 aeotec stick config, restored to a Gen5+, and healed. So far everything (including the neighbor issue) seems to be fixed and working more reliably.

I've read ALOT of complaints online about the 700 series drivers being buggy, so I think that's what was going on here.

[AlCalzone]

Hmm, this might be another case of the Aeotec Gen7 having range issues.

[nervling]

Totally possible. I have 68 devices spread across a two floor 9000 square foot home. I did have devices failing that were within 20 feet of the controller though. Everything immediately went live after a ping. 0 dead devices since switching to gen5+.