CoRE SmartApp Changes - 1/5/17

This afternoon we’ll be updating the SmartThings Cloud Platform to enhance database permissions protocols and system reliability. This update includes additional code that is available to SmartApps. During our testing, we have found that recent versions of CoRE no longer continued to function when this update was applied because the additional code caused the CoRE SmartApp to exceed a size threshold in Groovy, which in turn generated the error: General error during class generation: Class file too large!

Although it is not officially supported, we know CoRE is a fan favorite. Over the past week, we worked with the CoRE development team to ensure that this update will not break existing CoRE installations. To accomplish this - we took the following steps:

  1. Pre-released platform changes that included a small subset of code from the CoRE SmartApp.
  2. Coordinated with the CoRE team to remove extra code and leverage platform utility instead. These changes are captured in the following Pull Request: https://github.com/ady624/CoRE/pull/63

These steps have reduced the code size of CoRE to allow us to push the platform update. To prevent this from happening again the following steps are being taken:

  1. SmartThings will implement reasonable size limits to SmartApps; this will enable our engineering team to continue to make enhancements to base SmartApp functionality. Details around these limits will be published at a later date.
  2. The CoRE team is refactoring code and moving much of the logic from Groovy to Javascript and HTML.

Will I need to update my CoRE install or how do I know if I’m affected?

No, we’ll be sending out to emails to everyone that would be affected (only 15% of core users are affected) and are going to update their CoRE SmartApp for them to make sure they won’t run into any issues when the next platform deploy goes out.

Other Platform Updates (to name a few)

  • Fix blank images coming back from various Marketplace links.
  • Improved performance when loading products via Marketplace to avoid excessive spinner from the mobile app.
  • Make the mobile app more resilient during traffic spikes.

Special thanks to @ady624 for working with us on this!!

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Wow thank you for being proactive here and ensuring that CoRE users aren’t left behind. I am very pleased to see the proper precautions taken here. Good luck with the deployment this afternoon! Really hopeful that we will soon see CoRE officially supported :slight_smile:

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Great to see that you still care about us in the community ! There were clearly some lessons learnt from the Rule Machine days !! :grinning:

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Gotta say, you guys working with the community makes me smile. Behavior like this makes me glad I picked the SmartThings platform!

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This is a huge positive and a totally different approach than in the past (i.e: RuleMachine) would break due to platform upgrades. @bravenel would be proud. On that note, will this improve the mobile app performance of CoRE? It’s painfully slow going into pistons, creating one one’s.

Also, the platform has been extremely reliable for me the past couple of months and I would imagine with the holidays, you guys had even more customers on it. Great job ST staff!

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can’t give this enough :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart:

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This is nice to see. Thumbs up to the Smartthings team!!!

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There are some reasons for this. Ady is working that into his new version of CoRE i believe.

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It’s encouraging and uncommon to see this sort of support, proactively. Seriously, thanks.

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A++ guys, real nice proactive work, especially on a 3rd party SmartApp. Color me impressed.

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Amazing proactive communications.

Good job.

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Just got the email:

Hello SmartThings / CoRE User,

We will be updating the SmartThings Cloud Platform this afternoon to enhance database permission protocols and system reliability; due to the enhancements in this update, certain CoRE SmartApp installations will need to be updated as well. SmartThings has worked with the CoRE development team, to ensure that this process is as smooth as possible without any interruptions of service.

We have identified that your installation of CoRE may be affected by these cloud changes. To ensure a smooth transition, SmartThings will automatically update your instance of CoRE to the latest version before the SmartThings cloud update is performed. If you would prefer to perform the update yourself - you can find the latest CoRE SmartApp code here: GitHub - ady624/CoRE: CoRE - Community's own Rule Engine

In the unlikely situation that your CoRE dashboard does not appear after the SmartThings update is performed, please navigate to your CoRE SmartApp on your Mobile Device, select Settings and perform the ‘Rebuild All Pistons’ function.

For more details - please see the following announcement in our community:

CoRE SmartApp Changes - 1/5/17

Thank you,
The SmartThings Team

Think I’m going to pop some corn and wait to see what happens. :corn:

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Absolutely love seeing this type of coordination/cooperation to provide a great experience to customers! This is the kind of action that intensifies my loyalty and support of this platform, and recommendations to others to adopt/use it.

Well done, SmartThings and CoRE teams.

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I just got the email too. Glad to see this cooperation!

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Very happy to see the collaboration!! When are these changes supposed to go into effect? Did I just miss that in the post?

Related note, I’m set to receive first post for everything in announcements buy it’s never worked. Same setup I have e on deals and works great. Tips on why it might not be working?

BIG THANK YOU to SmartThings and especially @rappleg who did the hard work on CoRE. It’s a pleasure dealing with ST these days :smiley: And yes, CoRE is changing, it will become web based and support all the requests users have. Duplicate, Backup/Restore, Share… more details coming soon on a forum near you :smiley:

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The updates have already gone out (a couple of hours ago) - currently monitoring CoRE executions for any errors that pop up. For full disclosure there were a couple of versions that were affected that weren’t in the original list but we have applied the updates to those as well (and sent out additional communications to the affected users). Things are running smoothly at this point but we will continue to monitor in case sparsely running versions pop up and update those accordingly.

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Funny (not) that @bravenel was crucified for pulling Rule Machine after ST broke it and blamed him for it. How times have changed? Hmmm…

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I am speechless! Great team work and involvement and coordination…Kudos to @ady624 for continued efforts to make SmartThings more amazing and also kudos for ST staff for caring!

Now I need to go dig out my email from trash…oops

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