OMG - Accidentally blew it ALL away!

I’m not a novice at SmartThings - click on my profile. But in trying to get ST to re-recognize my phone as a presence detector, which apparently you cannot do without deleting it and readding, which requires you change EVERY SmartApp setting using it, which is impossible in some cases without deleting routines that otherwise won’t have a presence detector left… (good grief they have terrible usability…)

I deleted everything. Not sure how, but the Location, Hub and everything else are all gone.

What the heck?

I don’t see any way to undo or to backup and restore. That’s a significant hunk of work.

I’ve emailed support also, but their traditional three-month turn-around time doesn’t give me much hope. Am I screwed? Time to switch platforms since this one finally kicked me off anyhow?

1 Like

Oh, and guess what else… if you do blow it all away, you can’t rebuild it either… you need the “welcome code” from the original packaging. I’m not kidding! The hub is trash, unless their support staff can fix that, which I’d doubt.

Don’t doubt that for a second. I’ve contacted support before when I was rebuilding (because I didn’t build the way I should have the first time) and they were super responsive and had no issues getting back to me with my welcome code to use. Quite literally they had me all sorted in less than an hour.

4 Likes

Sorry to hear what happened . If you get it fixed and need to do something like this again here is an option. It sounds like you only have one presence sensor and deleted apps where it was a required field? If so, next time create a virtual presence sensor to fill the space while you fix your phone.

2 Likes

Well, the support team has a history. They don’t even get to work for about three hours, and let’s not forget that I’ve had a Publication Request in “review” for 5 months with no response. They seem to be more miss than hit.
Apparently they told another victim it could be several days.

Thanks, Greg. But that shouldn’t be necessary, nor should deleting the phone from every place it’s in use. What should have been an option is to update the Network ID (or whatever tied the phone to the Device) so that the reset phone could still be referenced in all the same places.

Although that was just an astonishing annoyance. Blowing away the configuration and locking away the functionality of the box due to the one-time “Welcome Code” is a bit more catastrophic.

Yeah I agree, just posting the work around incase it helps someone.

It might have been something to do with recent study that pointed fingers at community apps…Sorry for your bad experience. Hang on in there, I hope your set up is some what salvageable, it could happen to any of us…

1 Like

The “Welcome Code” card clearly says “KEEP THIS CODE” on it… Though an obviously more customer friendly option is for the code to be printed on the Hub itself next to serial number…

Meanwhile, though perhaps more or less common than your scenario, I don’t know if you or most Customers are aware that the upheaval you are experiencing is just half of what you would face if the Hub had a hardware failure and needed a warranty replacement. Not only would you have to reach tech support and wait for the replacement to be delivered, but despite even overnight shipment, there is still no way to migrate or restore the device network and all other device, room, and SmartApp configurations to the replacement Hub!

Actually, Terry, the FAQ states it’s a ONE TIME USE code. So there’s no need to keep it.

3 Likes

It gets worse… I sent them all the relevant data, but SmartThings, whose support is open for 9 hours during the away-at-work business day, insists on a PHOTO of the hub. So I won’t be able to get this back up and running inside 24 hours at any rate.

Support should be able to help you get the account reestablished even though you personally don’t have the welcome code. They’ve done that in the past for people who bought a used hub.

As for everything else, no question, for a cloud-based system it has a surprising lack of restore capability.

4 Likes

Sure – but I’d argue that the writing on the card outweighs a separate FAQ…

Well… actually, there’s not need for an argument; this is a confusing situation that one of our best advocates, @April, can probably find a channel to escalate to! (i.e., please consider the recommendation that the Welcome Code be physically written on the Hub, or, in the short term, suggest that Customers tape a copy directly to the Hub or explain why not do this and to keep the Code safely and accessibly stored regardless).

I totally do that for my trade show stock. I write my welcome codes on the hub all the time. Regardless, the hub is locked until you redeem a code again. Support staff can generate the same original code, or a new code. I’ll let the Out of box - UX team know about this though.

I can tell you, that the code will be uniquely generated on the samsung TV’s.

3 Likes

One thing I want to note though, is I believe the crew at tucson (support) will ask for an image of your hub serial number. This is to prove that it is actually YOUR hub… incase someone pretends they’re you.

Tony, I know you’re in chat with one of our support agents - if you can just send him your hub serial picture, they can reset your code and share with you a new one.

3 Likes

Actually, it’s a one time use code because you only need to put it in once.

I’ve reset my hub a couple of times and I’ve only used the code (that I wrote on the inside of the battery cover).

1 Like

@April Requiring a photo FROM ME, who sent in every spec of data on the hub early this AM, when your support hours are basically the “away from home, can’t take a photo of it” hours, is silly. Jake did, however, bypass that when I asked him to. It’s not all the way up, but it’s less down. :wink:

It will take many hours to rebuild though. Can yesterday’s configuration simply be restored, putting me back in the previous state? (That’s still a bad state, in that the “presence detector” cannot be updated without modifying and removing like eight routines/apps, but at least the Z-Wave pairings would be there.)

1 Like

There is a really simple way to do this without deleting your apps.

Create a virtual presence device. Go through each app and add the virtual ogre as you remove the real one. Then when you fix the real one, just reverse the process.

Your apps stay intact and all is good.

3 Likes

If you ever find out how you did that, please let me know.

2 Likes

I’m pretty sure there is only one way to do it… You click on delete location.

Then you blame ST!

1 Like