Hub not performing i'm back

this has to be something simple…

Since yesterday my hub is not performing the im back action, dont know why. I have it configured to peroform the im back as soon as someone arrives (just me and the wife), it should unlock the door and thats it.

I have already deleted it, recreated it, took one fo the presences sensors off it, add it back, changed the minimum away time and for the life of me, it is just not working.

Im far from an expert but i turned on the logs on the ide when arriving at home and it caught my attention that for the “Someone Arrives” log i got the following

db2edbf7-9681-45ed-b240-ed4f31096300 9:34:26 PM: debug Not taking action because Home is disabled for Someone Arrives
db2edbf7-9681-45ed-b240-ed4f31096300 9:34:26 PM: debug evt.name: present

Does anyone can shine some light here? It sounds akward that Home is disabled for someone arrives

That looks like a mode issue. The “I’m Back” is set to not run if your mode is “Home”, which makes sense since you’re already home. Is the mode ever changing to something other than “Home”?

Thing is that one of the use cases could be if my wife is home and i am not (mode is still home) then i come back home and im back shoud be triggered even that the mode is still home because i arrived

Mode is changing to away when everyone leaves (wife and myself) that is working fine so far.

Did you make any changes? Did your set up work before yesterday? It sounds to me like you checked “Home” under the “don’t automatically do this if…” when you set up your “I’m back” phrase.

not that i remember…

I dont have anything under to “don’t automatically do this if one of this modes”

Just for testing purposes i created another mode that is called “At Home” and the behavior and logs show exactly the same.
db2edbf7-9681-45ed-b240-ed4f31096300 11:36:26 AM: debug Not taking action because At Home is disabled for Someone Arrives
db2edbf7-9681-45ed-b240-ed4f31096300 11:36:26 AM: debug evt.name: not present

So it seems that the only way in which “Someone Arrives” can be executed is when the mode is “Away”

Any hint if this can be changed so that “Someone Arrives” is carried out while the mode is anything else different than “Away”?

I suggest working with support on this. They are great at troubleshooting things like this. Try to chat with someone.

I’m having this exact same issue. Please keep this thread updated because I wan’t to do the same function. The wife is home so mode stays in “home” but when I come home I’d like the home actions to trigger.

Conceptually, this just isn’t what mode does. Your wife arrives home and the house changes to the mode “home” then you’re coming home won’t do anything because it is already in “home” mode.

There are several different ways to handle this. one uses multiple modes, and the other uses logic based on multiple presence sensors.

Several people have done similar use cases already, things where the house does different things if no one is home and person A or B arrives, if person A is home and then person B arrives, if person a leaves and person B stays, etc.

The point is it definitely can be done, but not with a single mode change from away to home.

So the first step is to more specifically define the use cases that you want to have. What do you want to have happen if you arrive and your wife is already home that is different from her being home by herself?

This may be something as simple as having more than one hello home action. One hello home action would do nothing but change the mode to home when either of you arrive. Another hello home action would not do a mode change, but would do other things because one of you arrived. By separating these into two different hello home actions, the one based on presence without a mode change will still trigger even if someone else already got home.

But it all comes down to the details.

JD, he did say that all he wants is to unlock the door when someone arrives, which should definitely work if the home is in “home” mode. The problem is, that he has an exclusion somewhere and is not in the ‘I’m back’ phrase, based on the screenshot.

That is correct, just want to unlock a door (for now, may be adding more actions in the future) when either myself or my wife arrives regardless if the mode is home, away, night or any other.

Thing is that for this to happen i need the action “someone arrives” to trigger when someone arrives and for some reason, it is only able to trigger when the mode is away. I want it to do it

I hear you, and I am telling you that it’s possible because is working for me. If my car arrives (triggered by the presence sensor) it opens the garage door regardless of the mode my home is in. That’s why I suggested to chat with support, because they can take a look at your set up on the back end.

yes, i emailed support yesterday. They said they were going to take a look at my account from the backend

still waiting for them to comeback with an answer

Did you take in consideration the amount of time you were gone? The default is 10 min. So if the presence is not gone for more than 10 minutes, the action will not trigger…Alternatively, you may reduce the 10 minutes default for testing purposes, at least. (brainstorming here)

Can you post a screenshot of the hello home action?

If the hello home action does a mode change, then it doesn’t run if the house is already in that mode. It doesn’t matter what else the hello home action is supposed to do, it doesn’t do anything if it has a mode change and the house is already in that mode.

That’s why I said he might end up needing two different hello home actions.

If the current hello home action triggers when either spouse arrives, and if the current hello home action triggers when either spouse arrives, unlocks the door, and changes the mode to home, then if the mode is already in home it will not unlock the door.

It’s just how hello home actions work.

If that is the situation, you fix it by making two separate hello home actions

One hello home action changes the mode to home when either spouse arrives. And that’s all it does. So if it doesn’t run when the second spouse arrives home on the first spouse already is home, it doesn’t make any difference.

A different hello home action unlocks the door when either spouse arrives. And that’s all it does. It does not change the mode.

The set up with two hello home actions will work to unlock the door even if one of the spouses has already come home and mode changed already.

But if you combine those into one hello home action, it will only unlock the door when the first spouse comes home because since the mode is already in home it completely ignores everything when the second spouse arrives.

I hope that’s clear. There’s nothing in the documentation I know that tells you that that’s what happens. (The hello home action doesn’t run at all if it includes a mode change and The house is already in that particular mode.)

But it is what happens. There’s been a lot of discussion in the forums, especially around motion detectors “that don’t work”. The motion detectors do work, but the entire hello home action gets ignored because there’s a mode change and House is already in that mode.

Not sure if that’s what’s going on here, but that would be my first guess for something to look at.

note: beginning with the V2 version of the mobile app, “hello home actions” are now called “routines”. The same logic applies though: if the routine changes a mode, then that routine will not run at all if that mode is already in effect.

Thank you so much!! I never knew the changing of the mode would stop it from firing again. That’s done strange logic. I figured it would still dumb all the other tasks. I’m finding that with the new app, I actually end up with MORE smartapps than with the old method. I really liked the dashboard approach. If the lighting module for that would have also done Hue colors, it would have been perfect. Bring back the dashboard, and combine the Smart lights functionality. Like a sub-set of each switch perhaps.

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I want to thank you for posting this very helpful and clear explanation. There is no way I would have figured out my problem (which was essentially the same as the OP) otherwise. Many thanks for your help - I’m going to eliminate the mode change from the routine for my arrival and also from the routine for my wife’s arrival and create a separate routine that will change mode to home when either of us arrives - based on what you’ve posted here I think that will solve my problem.

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I’m facing the same issue, this is a recent change. Till now everytime I’d come home the garage door would open (even if my spouse if at home). Now it doesn’t. Infact I get this message in live logging:

Not taking action because Home is disabled for Someone Arrives

Edit: No changes have been made to the app and no mode filters have been applied either.

Anyone else seeing this issue of recent?

You know I think this change was possibly made by the ST engineers. They thought that if the hub is in home mode then there’s no need to execute Someone Arrives since the hub is in home mode.

@tslagle13 @jody.albritton - could you guys take a look and comment on this?

Okay confirmed, most definitely a bug here @jody.albritton @tslagle13

I’ve configured I’m Back routine to do this if “Someone arrives”:

  1. Change Mode to Home
  2. Open the Garage Door
  3. Turn off some switches

Now if the Hub is in mode “Home” then I get the following message when someone arrives:

Not taking action because Home is disabled for Someone Arrives

And the garage door is not opened nor is the switch turned off!

If I remove the 1st action (i.e. change mode to Home), everything works perfectly!

So the issue is if the routine is asked to change to mode Home and it’s already in Home mode none of the actions are executed.