Android 2.1.0 - Release Notes - Commentary

Looks don’t concern me, but stability does. Still crashing frequently when doing anything in the app. Worse yet it slows the phone until I force stop the SmartThings app…

Not sure why you would expect such support for custom device types and smart apps. Too many have unrealistic expectations.

So here is the thing, us developers aren’t asking them to support our device types or our SmartApps. We are asking them to support their published APIs and specifications. If we program against those APIs we expect things to work as documented. When they don’t work the way they are supposed to then we expect to be able to report it and have it addressed.

And it really seems like it would be in their own interest to look into issues with their APIs since they use these same APIs for their own DTH and SmartApps. Many of the custom app developers tend to be ahead of the official apps in using new features (such as the multiAttributeTiles as one example), so we find issues earlier in the process. If they fix those problems based on our reports then things will work much more smoothly for the masses once those features are incorporated.

But I can also empathize with the support team here since there are likely plenty of cases where it wasn’t a platform issue and was simply an error on the programmers part. So hopefully there is some kind of middle ground here where these forums are used to discuss, triage and isolate an actual error. But once that has been done, then I’d like to see a way to open an official support ticket so we know that it is being tracked towards resolution (even if that resolution is a long ways away due to other priorities, etc).

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OMG, my phone has been running like crap lately. I never made the connection. I am going to have to try uninstalling ST for a while and see if that fixes it. Given all the other issues in the Android ST app it would not surprise me. This is interesting. I would report back with my findings but this thread will be locked for some strange reason in 16 hours so that is unlikely.

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So the new app version looks really nice. It’s been cleaned up and things are a whole lot more intuitive. I like it.

Home automation is really kind of self explanatory, but let’s talk about the automation part. Automation means that something has been designed and implemented that removes the human element. It means that I can walk into a room and the lights come on. It means that at a certain time, like sunset, my porch lights come on, and then go off after a set amount of time. It means that I do not have to do anything at all, and the process still happens.

SmartThings is a Home Automation system. At least that is my understanding of it. The only way to interact with the system, from a user stand point, is via the smart phone application.

Going into a room or going to the Things list, finding the device and pressing the button on my phone is a great and wonderful bit of technology. But, tell me this. What is the difference in doing it that way and just walking over and flipping the actual light switch?

Honestly, there isn’t one. There is no automation there. I, the human, have to flip the switch. Are we understanding this automation part?? ST engineers, ST developers, programmers, guy in that building making stuff??? Are we on the same page here?

Maybe I should open my phone app and go to the smartapp that allows us to be on the same page…

but…

oh…

wait…

“Failure to Load SmartApps”

What in the holy living hell is that crap??? How is anyone supposed to automate a system when we can’t even open the damn part of the app that automates the system??? I can look at my light switch on my phone. I can look at the damn thing on the wall too!!! But that’s not the point now is it?

App crashes. Failure to load smartapps. Freezes. System resource hog. What the hell? I wrote apps in college that have never ever a single time crashed! And I was paying for the privilege to write them. You guys are doing this for a living!!! WTF???

What part of fix the damn app aren’t you listening too?

The president of the company likes to get in front of the camera and talk about how wonderful the system is and how there are over 20000 developers in the community and a whole bunch of other steaming BS!!!

Here’s a crazy idea! LISTEN TO THE DAMN COMMUNITY!!!

Yes, it is made up of a small part of the overall users of the system. But guess what!!! that small part is the part that runs the system to its full potential! They are the ones finding the bugs and making the work arounds and making things work.

All while you sit there in your palace making updates that look pretty but break more stuff.

Have you ever driven a Ferarri??? How about one that has a 1 cylinder engine in it?

That’s what we have here. Except the real engine is in the trunk, in a box not running because the maintenance guy is too worried about the ergonomics on the damn glove compartment!!!

I know you guys know math right! How about this little thing called STATISTICS??? Heard of that? Statistically at least some of you have.

Well, by using that system and understanding that you have the perfect statistical data group begging you for attention you could literally have the best damn system that exist! You could be rolling in dough!

But are you using it? NOPE! It sure doesn’t seem that way!

But hey, I"m sure those of you that haven’t heard of statistics haven’t heard of this thing called competition either.

Statistically, the way you are continuing to ignore your customer base and the way you are continuing to roll out crappier and crappier updates AND with the (insert sarcasm here) Outstanding customer service you guys don’t stand a snow balls chance in hell of surviving. You know why? The consumer. The consumer will drop you like a hot rock as soon as someone comes along with something better. Don’t believe me? Try statistics… it actually works!

So, what should your priorities be?

#1 - fix scheduler. What good is automation if it never runs
#1 - fix the app from crashing and freezing. What good is the only point of interaction if it doesn’t work
#1 - fix the “error loading smartapps” problem. Again, what good is automation if the “Consumer” can’t use it?

Yeah, they are all #1. Why? because without those three things, there isn’t a single problem that exist in the consumer based organization that matters.

Have a good night. I’m going back to watching my phone freeze and refuse to load anything.

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New scheduler is currently being tested and everything I have seen shows great promise. If you would like to test the new scheduler, ping @slagle.

I would be glad to help you troubleshoot your crashes here or via PM if you prefer. I looked in the support system and noticed that you have an existing open ticket regarding this type of crash “Unable to open SmartApps”.

Troubleshooting is simple, it’s not my devices. I’m using these devices; two Samsung note 4, one Samsung S5 active, one IPhone 4c (all at&t), and one Samsung S5 rugged on the Sprint network. Ask of them up to date.

The iPhone is the only one that doesn’t crash, but it does give the failure to load apps error, along with the other four.

Also, I’m not the only user with these exact symptoms.

The failure to load apps buff was there before the latest update. The update introduced the bug again, but more mature.

Do you remember the pretty red banner that cane up on every screen? When that went away it was replaced with the freezing and crashing. That also got worse with the last update.

It’s simple, there are bugs in the system. I know this. You know this. Everybody knows this.

So instead of trying to troubleshoot MY problem, how about just fixing THE problem.

As for the scheduler. I honestly can’t wait. I have Stewart signed up for the beta. I’ll ping @slagle right here… I would love to be on the scheduler beta. I believe my system would be perfect for it.

Yes, I went on a rant. I don’t do that often. But when I’m completely unable to access and modify my system because of a stupid buff that has been reported to you hundreds of times, if not more, for months at least. And, there have been multiple updates with the bug still there… I see a huge problem.

The vast majority of the users in this group could be called power users. Hell, you started here too! We are the ones that put the system through the paces. We find the bugs. We explore the bugs. We troubleshoot them and offer fixes! And we have 1/100th of the data you have.

But the community is ignored. The bugs remain and multiply. And refrigerators can now turn off the lights, along with the tv.

I love this platform. I embrace and I have changed my home around it. I will gladly pay for the service, once it’s reliable.

But if another service comes asking that she’s what you do and does it right… This forum will disappear over night.

Thanks for the offer to help. I appreciate it. Please help by ensuring the right people know we are fed up. Please help by getting the system fixed.

The majority of customers are not getting that error message. Helping you to fix the issue might nail down what is causing it for others as well. When I say troubleshoot, I don’t just mean the devices. I am more interested in things like custom smartapps that could be throwing an error when loading the smartapps list. If everyone were seeing the same error, it would be pretty easy to spot that in the crash logs or other server error messages. But again, these errors are being thrown for a small number of customers and finding the exact combination of conditions required to trigger the error might require some amount of troubleshooting.

I’m sending you a pm.

@slagle, add me to the beta list. Also, I’ve noticed a slight difference lately in how the scheduler fails. It used to be, we’d go into the IDE and find the date scheduled in the past. Pressing Done in the affected smartapp or the more recently added Update in the IDE would resolve it for awhile. Now however, the scheduled time shown in the IDE (My Locations > List SmartApss) remains as scheduled, but failure occurs because Job History shows it took too long to execute. It stays correctly scheduled however!

Also, @jody.albritton: did you catch the update I made to to my reply about affected devices in the thread about the freezing issue? Just want to make sure everyone has as much info available as possible.

@slagle, I would love to give the new scheduler a whirl.

Jody and I did some troubleshooting last night and something interesting was discovered. I’m not going to say anything here just yet. But we should see something soon about what the problem is.

I’m going to let @jody.albritton talk about it.

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I’m having the same issue on Android, all versions (4.4, 5.1…) connected to several different networks (home, work, 4G) and at different times (last night, this morning).
When selecting SmartApps on the ST App it times out and gives you a message “Error Loading SmartApps”. If you leave the ST App on that screen after a while it could show or not the SmartApps.

Edit - There are no errors being logged (looking in the IDE, live logging and Hub Event list)

I was just informed by the service desk that this issue is caused by the same account being used on multiple devices. I informed service desk to move the ticket over to the android mobile team as this is most certainly not the root cause of this problem…

What? Can’t use an account on more than one device? Surely not the case…

That makes no sense at all. All of my devices are different accounts linked to my one original account. Each family member received Ann invite and created a unique account. Problems are common across the board.

Yea, we all know the issue isn’t related to accounts, I just wanted to let everyone know so you didn’t get your ticket closed due to service desk misunderstanding the issue. I believe they think this is the same problem as the “unexpected error” problem, which it is not.

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please don’t quote me out of context, it appears that I’m agreeing with service desk on this issue, which I am not…

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