Baychattan Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I have 11 locos which have HM7000 sound decoders. When my layout is operating all are normally powered, but the ones not running are in sidings (separate power district). I have other non-HM7000 locos.Four of the HM7000 locos are now giving me grief, in that that the bluetooth part is not working. When I start up the HM-DCC app, 7 locos are found, with the first marked as 'host' with a little blue 'H' next to its blue Bluetooth symbol. The four troublesome locos have red Bluetooth symbols, and don't respond to any commands (motion, lights or sound) from the app.The HM-DCC is running on an Apple iPad mini 6, iPadOS 17.2 (ie latest). The decoders are all up to date with the latest bluetooth firmware.If I put any of the four locos on my programming track, and write 0 into CV12 (ie control handed to DCC not bluetooth), when back on the main track they operate normally from my Elite DCC controller, including lights and sound.The 11 HM7000 locos are listed in the app in the order that they were installed. The first loco listed is a 'good' one, the second and third are troublesome ones. If I start up the layout (or just restart the HM-DCC app) with the first, 'good', loco off the track (ie unpowered), the app 'finds' the second ('troublesome') loco, and it gets a blue 'H' and a blue Bluetooth symbol. But none of the other locos are 'found' by the app and stay with red bluetooth symbols. So the 'troublesome' locos are not forming a mesh with anything else. And, the loco will not respond to commands from the app, ie no movement, lights or sound. But the app is resetting CV12 to 2, so the loco needs another trip to the programming track before it will run from the Elite controller again.What are peoples' thoughts? Send the decoders back as faulty? (one is in a sound-fitted 9F). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Hornby interim advice is to rebuild the mesh by unlinking and deleting ALL decoders then rescanning them back in again. A pest to be sure but the problem is under their investigation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete aka Spanner Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I'm having the same issues..I only have three locos, the latest one was fitted with it's decoder today.Yesterday I had absolutely no issues, neither of the locos had little blue "H" and both responded perfectly to commands from my android tablet..Today I received a new decoder from Hornby, exactly the same as fitted to my existing locos (HM7000-8TXS) I fitted it to my 08 shunter and sat it on the track all alone to do the downloads/updates etc. All went well, everything worked as it should so off I went to put the body back on... returned to the track and put all three locos on to have a play.. that didn't go well. my existing locos connected but the 08 wouldn't, I thought I'd pinched a wire or something but no, all looked good. I tried it on it's own, still would have no of it.. Anyway to cut a long story short.. It would appear that I now have a "Host" loco which can be the 08 if it's on the track alone, If I add another loco (my 55) whilst the 08 is host then the 55 doesn't connect until I restart the app but then the 55 becomes host and the 08 won't connect.... If I then add my 47 it connects straight away.I just cannot get all three to connect at the same time.. very very annoying and puzzling..Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete aka Spanner Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Thanks RAF I'll give it a go.. at least I only have three to do.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 @peterNot having an H at all seems very odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baychattan Posted January 4 Author Share Posted January 4 Hornby interim advice is to rebuild the mesh by unlinking and deleting ALL decoders then rescanning them back in again. A pest to be sure but the problem is under their investigation. Doing that with 11 decoders is going to take best part of a day by the time that several decoders have needed their sound files loaded more than once to make them ‘stick’. And the issue could repeat. For many months my decoders were ‘H’ free, the ‘H’ only appeared when decoders started dropping out of the mesh. At a guess the HM-DCC app is supposed to be the host. Now, when the ‘host’ loco (only) is powered down the whole mesh collapses and all locos lose connection to the HM-DCC app. Methinks I will leave the ‘malignant’ decoders set to DCC operation, and change over the others as and when their bluetooth ‘fails’. Much easier. I will leave rebuilding the system until Hornby have fixed the problem. If any of the decoders get near to a year old before the fix appears then that decoder will be returned as defective - defective firmware is still defective goods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 There is no need to reload any or all of your sound profiles. All you have to do is disconnect all the decoders from the app, power cycle everything, then reconnect them again. The whole process for 11 decoders should take 20-30 minutes tops.You misunderstand how the mesh works...A mesh must comprise more than one node. You cannot have a single node mesh.Each decoder is part of the mesh as a mobile node and one of them takes host to organise the mesh, i.e. the one with the strongest signal. If any decoder drops out of mesh the mesh finds it as soon as possible and helps it back into mesh.If the host drops out of mesh say by moving out of range or into a dead spot, the mobile node with the next strongest signal takes over.The app takes no active part in hosting. If anyone has not had an H showing then likely they are running in Legacy (BLE) mode as opposed to Standard (Mesh) mode.To improve mesh reliability static nodes will take priority as host over mobile nodes, e.g. HM6010 acc decoder or HM7040 dongle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daedalus Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 The Host is what is normally termed a Proxy Node that allows a Bluetooth LE device to "talk" to the Mesh. Bluetooth LE is incompatible with Bluetooth Mesh they are different protocols. The Mesh is not set in stone and manufacturers can modify it to meet their needs.It normally allows as many Proxy Nodes as you wish but I think Hornby have used Groups so when multiple users are using the layout each can have their own Proxy Node and control their own Group in the Mesh. This does not prevent all nodes relaying packets to all other nodes. Mesh uses packet flooding of the whole Network.It would help if Hornby at least outlined how they have implemented the mesh.I don't think the App bothers checking the signal strength it just "works through" its list of nodes till it finds a Proxy node to be the Host. All Hornby encoders can be a Proxy Node which is not always the case in Meshes. Light bulbs can be a node in a Mesh and only have to process on/off which could be used to control a point motor, which hopefully will be implemented in the furure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 @Baychattan or anyone else who is unable to resolve their problem by following the regular troubleshooter guide.Hornby suggest you contact them by email at HM.customercare@hornby.com or customercare@hornby.com for direct help with your problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baychattan Posted January 7 Author Share Posted January 7 There is no need to reload any or all of your sound profiles. All you have to do is disconnect all the decoders from the app, power cycle everything, then reconnect them again. I have done this, and all the locos are now behaving (at least for the moment). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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