Either I don’t fully understand the issues with the scheduler, or I haven’t tried to make use of it as much as most people. The only event I have that runs at a scheduled time is a “Good Morning” routine that sets status to Home or Away depending on whether anyone is present. It turns of some lights in case they were left on. Everything else that happens is triggered by people coming or going, or motion, or someone taking action (tell Alexa to turn on Night mode). I do have lights come on at sunset-ish, but that’s controlled by LIFX which is totally rock solid.
All that being said, are there other things that are controlled by the Scheduler that I’m just not noticing? I do have some slowness in some Rules but I don’t think that is related to the scheduler, is it?
Hey @Mr_Lucky, after hitting Update and going back to recheck the SmartApp “Schedulled Jobs” try hitting “Refresh” at the top (Top - Right side of the pop-up window). Sometimes the Browser/Session is not refreshed and it’s still showing old data. Sometimes I have to close the browser and reopen to show the current data. For me Update always work
It is the same scenario for me. I rarely use timed events, basically just good morning and good night. Everything else i trigger off real time events like doors opening/closing, motion being detected, saying something to alexa, etc. So like you I do not have as many frustrations as others seem to experience with timed events.
However, I did notice that my good morning event did not fire the other day so had to reset it on that smart apps page to get it going again. IMO if this is ever going to be a platform for users that don’t have the ability or desire to tweak something on a daily basis all events need to be 100% reliable and guaranteed to be delivered. I mean come on, why hasn’t the smart things team written a program to sweep the database looking for missed events like that and auto firing them? That seems like a pretty easy program to write.
OK, I will chalk it up to my own way of thinking through these things, or my personal living environment that has insulated me from most of this. I do agree with @joe64 that these things should be reliable, and doesn’t seem like it should cause this much ongoing frustration.
I try to use event based automation as much as possible because it’s somewhat reliable, but I have an app that limits the frequency that my sump pump runs and another app that polls a device and alerts me if my power or internet goes out. With the recent scheduling problems they kept stopping and I was having to press that Update button every couple of hours.
For what its worth like you, I have not really experienced any issues outside of once during the height of the recent troubles. My lights and switches all seem to do what I want them to do when I want them to do it. Even the sunset and sunrise ones. Most everything for us is triggered by actions though. Maybe we aren’t doing it right or need more stuff. I just haven’t found a way to schedule my goodnight/good morning routines that works better than a trigger action of some sort. Hopefully ST is listening, regardless of how we are doing it, it is clear that a chunk of their user pop is suffering.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
49
I’d say the system overall is stable. It has bugs, that’s for sure. And they are always breaking crap!
I haven’t had a lot of trouble with tired events failing either. But I do not use SHM routines for my stuff. I only use rule machine for that.
And this is saying a lot cause I’m that guy that once it’s is working I’ll tinker with it just to see what else I can make it do.
Mine too, but what I am doing to ensure continuity of scheduled events is insanely amusing once all set and done.
In my case, Routine turns 3 lights switches at sunset, if that fails Rule turns on the switches if they are not already on, if that fails, IFTTT turns on those switches and if that fails then Rule turns on the switches if lux level is less than 40. It’s funny now, but wasn’t when were failing. Oh and the other day I had to manually push the routine because all failed!!! But thanks to SharpTools, that meant just pulling the phone out of my pocket and pushing a widget.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
51
@slagle, @jodyalbritton…Nice to see logs enabled for the Sunrise/Sunset functions…That’s just awesome. We can actually share this …for the “update” new feature
BTW: Reinitializing from the app worked; the “update” link, didn’t …
This morning I ‘updated’ all my smartapp instances, and I think every single one of them broke completely. I have now tried to upgrade Rule Machine to the latest version, to no avail.
If I have to rebuild my automations from scratch for the 10th time, I’m going to really lose it.
I just opened up the Rule for my bedroom lighting. It was showing the evaluation as true, despite not performing any actions. On top of that, my home was in the wrong mode, (also stopped working after ‘updating.’)
Though as I was typing this, I went in through my phone and clicked through a few automations and hit Done, and instantly the lights came on in my room. I guess I’ll have to go through all of them.
You can automate that process if you like, using Rule Machine. HaHa, not kidding.
There is an action Update Rules available. Just set that up to update any rules that ever need to be updated (many don’t), and trigger it with anything handy – I’m using a button on a Minimote, using held instead of pushed – triggers my rule like this.
My temptation would be to trigger the update of all rules every time motion is detected in my home… to keep this stuff from unscheduling all the dang time.
That’s a bit excessive, and could cause it’s own failures. One wants to tread lightly, just enough for things to work that tend to break. I don’t know what the right size bandaid is, because that is all this is. SmartThings needs to fix their scheduling failure, it’s huge and horrible, and renders the entire system well below 1 9s.
Thank you for the info, Bruce. In the back of my mind, all I can think of is how my brother or my parents would ever be able to use this system without my help… reading through the forums, submitting trouble tickets, etc. Most people wouldn’t ever think to do any of that, and would just assume it’s broken and unplug it all. It only takes a light not working a few key moments for an entire system to get scrapped by people who don’t find this ‘fun.’
