Alexa Helper App disappeared?

So, I am (was) using Alexa Helper to link my Garage door opener to Echo. Everything was working great… until today.

I would tell Alexa to open or close the garage door. She would say OK and the door just kept being a door instead of big open hole.

Well, I went to check it out and realized that my Alexa Helper App was completely gone.

Has anyone else seen this app go poof?

I’ve still got mine, are you using IOS, Android, or Windows?

I’m using android…

OK, I’m on IOS. Have to wait for someone with Android to Check.

@MichaelS

Thanks. I reinstalled it and it’s working fine now… but it was definitely gone.

Report it to support, it could be another poltergeist issue.

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. I did hear back from support today about my ticket… they checked my system and it all seemed fine… not sure, but the reboot seemed to have fixed it. I’ve had no problems up to this since the reboot.

It is now reported…

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I had a similar issue with another custom app that I had made for myself. I was 1000% sure that I had it installed and was trying to find it to open and check the settings. But it was gone! May be its an issue thats impacting users platform wide, but in a limited fashion?

SmartThings uses a massive distributed NoSQL database. I’m from the era in which database replication was very very very hard. I presume it is still not child’s-play, but it is a very commonly solved configuration (Facebook, Google, Amazon).

I don’t know how much of a role AWS (Amazon Web Services) plays in syncing the database, or if SmartThings is impacted by tuning or performance issues.

At worse, I’d expect “eventual consistency” … in other words, disappeared stuff should reappear after some period of time, unless it occurs across/during a maintenance window.

I don’t know, but this randomness is crazy. I’m just very glad that I am not experiencing the problems to the degree that others are.

What I have learned through all of this, especially with the disappearing app…
…I have now begun a spreadsheet that lasts our each so I have installed, what devices are included, and what the specifics are.

This will make life a lot easier when I decide to do those treat it apart/put it together again things when I’m bored… Or when the maintenance team performs the next update.

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I’m on Android and I still have it.

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Hi, I have the same issue but unable to resolve as the app has gone yet in play store it says, open app…(android user) huh? Now its back on, after 24 hours of not connecting i find this forum and then as if alexa heard me, it became responsive :woman_shrugging:t2: