Half of 16 zones are suddenly not working

I purchased this 16 zones 2nd generation few days ago and everything was working fine until today. The first 8 zones are no longer working. I checked the voltage on a specific zone (i.e. Zone 4) when ran manually and it shows 24v but it also shows 24v on all 8 zones!
If I manually run zone 9, only zone 9 has 24v. I don’t understand what’s going on. I tried to power down the unit, performed a master reset and nothing seems to work for zone 1-8.

@Tmg33 - Hmmm, interesting. As you’ve already tried a power cycle/reset - ping @mckynzee or @emil to check the power levels that the Rachio unit is reporting out from their side. Or call in to their support number.

@Tmg33, looking at your controller logs, the electrical currents reported for zones 1-8 indicate you might have a cut common wire…

Have you attempted to move zone 1 to the zone 9 terminal? I assume the white wire in the terminal to the left of zone 9 is the common for zones 9-13?

Remember if you move wires, to push IN on the terminal block when removing or inserting the wire (not down).

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@emil Thanks for the prompt response! how would I have a sudden cut common wire overnight - it doesn’t make sense.
Yes the left common on the second bank is for zone 9-13.
I will move zone 6 to zone 13 and see if it works - stand by.

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@emil - I hate to get electrical on you, but if the common wires are dedicated to those zones then moving zone 1 to zone 9 (or 14) won’t work as there still won’t be a complete connection back.

@tmg33 - you could try moving the white wire to the left of zone one to the right of zone 8 to see if it is that terminal. Or you could move the zone 1-8 common wire to the C terminal to the right of zone 16 and then move zone 1 - 3 to zone 14 - 16 to see if it is something on the left terminal block. If none of those work, then it is back to a wiring problem.

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@DLane, touche. You’d need to move both the zone wire and common for a zone from the left side (zones 1-8) to the right side (zones 9-16).

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@emil @DLane ok I removed everything left and right Bank and then moved the left common and zone 6 to the right bank to become zone 9 … and still nothing. If I add other zones from the original left bank to the right - also none of them are working and all of them are showing 24v when only one zone is trigged.

@tmg33 - Sounds like a wiring issue. One last test to confirm. Take the common that was originally on the right side (since you’ve removed everything from that side too), put it in the C terminal that is next to zone 1. Then put the wire that was originally in zone 10 to zone 1 and see if you can run zone 1 manually. If that zone waters, then I think you’ve got a wiring issue.

As to how there could suddenly be a wiring issue over night - rat, squirrel, dog, Verizon (see -> All zones are not activating), …

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@Dlane @Emil Something doesn’t add up. If everything works and suddenly a set of zone no longer work (on the same common wire) - The logic would be the common wire but nothing was touched inside or outside other than very heavy downpour a day before.
I will switch the common wire right bank + zone 9 to the left bank to see if that zone waters. If it waters, the next test will be to put that old Rainbird controller back on and see if the zones that no longer worked with Rachio are working back.
Again it worked for 10+ years without issues with Rainbird then after few days these 6 zones no longer work with Rachio - it doesn’t make sense.
I’ll let you know later on the result of my tests.

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@tmg33 - Since you mentioned it rained, out of curiosity, do you have a rain sensor that is installed inline on the common wire? That was the case for this user -> Manual run after a rain skip and it prevented the zones from running. That is how my and that user’s rain sensor was installed on an old Rainbird controller.

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@emil and @DLane Issue has been resolved. Removed the culprit Rain Sensor and now everything is back to normal!
I’d like to give my thumbs up to the the community / support team for been very responsive :grin: Thank you again.

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:tada:

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