This is a fairly new, annoying behavior. The automation used to get turned off/disabled if you deleted a device that was used in the IF side. That seems like a much better alternative.
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Yeah especially if you smoke your hubā¦ 
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Since it took over 5 minutes for the automation to go away, Iām guessing thereās a āgarbage collectionā pass happening in the background. The software developer in me really wants to do another test, where Iād try updating an Automation to replace the missing device in the 5 minute window, and then see if it still goes away. But Iām not going to bother.
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I think youāre right on the money John. Someone needs to go shoot that garbage collection process in the headā¦
Iād also accept e-write it to have a 30-day, hell even a 14-day timeout. mark the automation red, warn the user itāll go away in XXX days. thatās fine.
This explains why one of my automation was deleted without warning. I like the idea of notifying the user if you delete this device it will break your automation. Then mark it red and let the user go in and modify it or delete it. If they donāt then after x days then let the garble collector do itās job.
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This happened to me as well; I deleted a device that was used in a more than a few automations (a fan controller I was fiddling with DTH mods for) and every single one of my automations that used it vanished.
The new app threatened me with deleting an automation, but luckily all that happened is that my changes werenāt saved. I was attempting to add my TVs to an automation and apparently the app really didnāt like that.
In addition to the error in the screenshot there was also a ānetwork or server errorā that briefly popped up but went away before I could screenshot it.
Or, since the automation already has a button to disable it, just use that instead of deleting it
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Also have had my Goodnight and Away automations delete on their own multiple timesā¦I too noticed a pattern of it happening after I deleted a device. Super aggravating since automations using lots of devices are not the quickest to re-create in the new app. I had tried using scenes (like a routine in Classic) instead of putting all the devices in the automation but I canāt seem to get scenes to consistently work for me in the new app. Booā¦
I just deleted two ālinked Servicesā (Google Assistant and Honeywell TCC) that I believe were put in place during the migration from Classic. Both services stopped working. Two separate āIām backā Automations were auto-deleted in the process. This is probably the 3rd time automations have delated on me. 3 year of loving smartthings, now 1 year of just constant issues.
I sense others are frustrated with this āNEWā SmartThings.
Anyone else here had enough??
Look here:
Iāve had this same issue! But I even tried to reproduce it and I couldnāt with test devices. But I know for a fact it happened twice.
Is there a solution to this yet? Automations with single device is automatically deleted when I had to re-add devices (due to DTH updates). Like someone already mentioned, is it possible to just allow user to Disable the automation, re-add device, then Enable automation again?
If a device is deleted it is also used from Routines and Scenes. If that leaves the Routine without any conditions, or without any actions, or both, then the Routine is deleted. Similarly empty Scenes are deleted. I believe that, at the very least, there should be a notification that a Routine or Scene has been edited or deleted, so you can do something about it, and ideally they should be disabled rather than deleted. Having a Routine still running without one of its conditions could do more harm than deleting it.
I have also found that when STHM is uninstalled the same thing happens with the Security Mode in Routines, even though there seems no reason why it should. I havenāt checked to see if that still happens if there are other apps subscribing to the Security Mode, or if any devices use the Security System capability (which has its commands called when the Security Mode changes).
All that said, I accept this as a limitation of Routines, which seem to be trying their best to avoid doing harm when used by naĆÆve users, and accordingly I choose not to use them except for a very limited range of tasks.
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Try what I was able to reproduce. Create a device location (room), such as test. Put device in that room and create automation with a device from another room. Delete the single device, room, automation, and scenes disappear.
I completely agree with this. We should be notified with list of all Automations where device is used.
My workaround are virtual devices. I always have virtual device in Automations when I am deleting devices or changing from Groovy DTH to Edge drivers. That way I donāt loose any Automations.
Just have a couple Dummy virtual devices with different capabilities to use just for this purpose.
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This is clearly a system designed and implemented by people who donāt actually use it.
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