Thanks for the additional advice, much appreciated! Another thing I should note is that I really never got around to “automation”, other than some simple experimentation. In fact, the only event that was ever implemented long term was turning off/on outside lights at sun rise/sun set. So, at least from that perspective, there isn’t much loss or rework to do. The number one use case is allowing my wife to turn lights on/off remotely using HA iOS app. I’ve taught her how to do this via VPN to the home, and have also used the Nabu Casa Remote UI option too, which is arguably less secure, but I wanted to support the project. I digress. It sounds like the work in front of me is:

• getting z-way installed
• getting the correct UZB firmware installed
• walking the house and migrating each light switch
• setting up the integration between HA, homebridge, and z-way
• (future) research and make use of the extra razzberry and/or aoetec to create some sort of fault tolerance. (Maybe even mod the razzberry with external antennas).
• (future) figure what to do with the Vera plus...use it as a personal HW hacking project, factory reset and sell on eBay, or donate to someone who is still fighting for that cause.
• (future) pick up a mini-pc to replace rPI’s for a more robust setup. My Plex setup is running off an older i5 NUC, which I’ve considered upgrading, but it would be overkill if repurposed for this task ... I’m going to need something centrally located.

I’m happy to have found this forum, look forward to jumping back in to things, and hopefully I’ll be able to help the next person that gets “stuck” like me.

All the best,
Michael

@cubs2b23 said in (Need Help) Migrate off Vera:

For less complicated reasons I abandoned Vera with about this many devices. It wasn’t awful to start from scratch but I’m not going to lie and say it wasn’t frustrating to have to get to that point. I moved all zwave devices to Zway with only a few hiccups.

Frustrating for sure. So, much so, that I've been avoiding fixing my broken set up for quite a long time .... thanks for sharing your experience!

@rafale77

Thanks a million for the quick reply! I was afraid that a total rebuild might be required. I was hoping to avoid it as I've had to replace a GE/Jasco switch or two, and it's never worked smoothly. But, my fingers are crossed that my troubles were coming from the Vera and not the GE switches. Almost all switches are early generation GE 1272#: paddle switch, dimmer, fan control or add-on/3way. I'll start the process and update this post with my experience. Thanks again!

I forgot to mention, that along with the z-way UZB and razzbery devices, I also have a Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5. I've never used any of those three. I had early intentions of using the Aeotec as backup, but never got around to it. I've got some more research to do, but hopefully I can build something that is resilient out of all these parts.

Current Hardware: Vera Plus, HA in Synology Docker
Firmware: v.7.0.31
Available SW / HW: Multiple RPi's, Z-Way UZB w/lic, Z-Way Razberry board
ZWave Devices: 30-ish early gen GE/Jasco light switches

Issue: I've gotten myself into a spot that I'm not quite sure how to safely get out of, and I'm hoping someone on this forum can help me. I would ultimately like to get to a point where I'm using Home Assistant in Docker on my Synology as my UI for turning on/off lights, but I've read the "Pyramid" post and am open to other options. I can currently ssh to my Vera Plus, but cannot access the web UI (get a 403).

How I Got Here:

1. Back in Feb'19, I followed @rafale77's instructions to take my Vera off the grid. At the time, it looks like I was running version 7.0.26. This worked great.

2. I installed HA in Docker w/socat on my Synology NAS, and things were running perfectly for a long time, but I was forced to upgrade HA in tandem with an upgrade to the iOS app. So, I chose to use a Docker build that already had socat built in.

3. Then, I saw that there was a new version of firmware for Vera, and decided to upgrade to Firmware v.7.0.31 around Apr'20. This was a mistake in a big way, and I sought help on the new version of the Vera forums, which eventually led me here. I also re-ran @rafale77's mod files on the newer firmware version, and I think I shot myself in the foot there. I knew it was gamble, and take full responsibility. I've learned a lot and have benefitted greatly from his work.

4. I tried to run the Nuke Vera script, as that sounded exactly what I needed my Vera to do - take commands from HA and nothing else. This seems to be working, but I'm unable to control my network with HA.

Additional things I've done / tried / worry about:

1. Validated that HA is sending and receiving responses via socat from the Vera in the HA openzwave logs. I see logs that seem to indicate that a message is sent, and a message comes back from the Vera, but lights don't turn on/off. I've clicked the Heal Network, Test, Network, and Soft Reset buttons in the HA UI too.

2. I purchased a razberry. Then, I ordered a UZB, after seeing this post about migrating, assuming that it was best to try to follow that guide verbatim and not have to exclude / include a bunch of devices. I'm leaning towards completely divorcing myself from Vera.

3. I'm not 100% sure I have a valid backup of my zwave config. There are no dongle.dump files in /etc/cmh whch may make sense, as I was using after an external drive w/extroot. I do have some in ./mnt/sda2/etc/cmh/. It looks like I've got extra, actually, as it looks like I probably made backup copies some where along the way.

4. I shutdown the Vera and removed the extroot drive, reversed all of the changes Nuke-Vera made to the init.d start up files, and rebooted. I did this because the migration guide mentions to set the path of the z-way UZB in the UI settings, and I couldn't find how do this over ssh. I also don't know how to backup the zwave config from the CLI and was going to do this via the UI. As mentioned previously, I'm getting a 403 "Access Denied" message. Looking at logs and the config for lighthttpd, I think it is trying to follow some symbolic links that no longer exist, but I'm hoping I can get out of the mess I've made without troubleshooting and solving the HTTPD issues. I think I just need to know how to follow the steps to clone the Vera to the UZB via the CLI?

5. I found a command online method that allows me to view the zwave keys with hexdump. The keys on the device are different than the keys in on the drive that i was using for extroot, and that concerns me a bit.

If you've made this far, thanks for your time! Does anyone know the best way for me to get myself out of the mess I've got myself into?

All the best,
Michael