The limit only applies to a single rule, a single SmartApp. It would be unusual for a single rule to need 4 scheduled events, but not inconceivable. At this point, it’s not even clear if they are enforcing the 4 scheduled event limit.
Modes are the highest level option you have, and really the only global thing that apps can reference. In my setup I have 4 modes: Day, Evening, Night and Away. I use those modes to control lighting levels. Day is set by sunrise (earlier in winter), Evening by sunset, Night by us going to bed, and Away by us leaving. This works very well for its purpose (which in part, is to not have the bathroom lights come on bright in the middle of the night).
Modes can get involved in more than just this.
Back to your question: the limitations described above pretty much tell the case:
Due to limits of the SmartThings platform, it is possible to ask Rule Machine to schedule too many future jobs, and thus fail. The platform only allows 4 jobs to be scheduled at any one time. If you use a Time of Day condition, that schedules two jobs, a Time of Day condition with sunrise / sunset schedules three jobs, a At Certain time trigger based on sunrise or sunset schedules two jobs, and a Days of Week condition or At Certain time with a time each schedules one job. Delay These Actions, Switches to turn on/off after a delay, and Switches to turn on/off after a delay pending cancellation, each require one scheduled job.
It would be more accurate to say that it is possible to ask a Rule to schedule too many future jobs. That description delineates conditions vs. triggers, and what each one does.
Yes, not only in effect, but in reality. This is called a parent-child app. Rule Machine is the parent, and Rule is the child, or rather, all of your Rules are the children. Each Rule is a SmartApp, that happens to have a special relationship with its parent app.
I second that! At first, I built complex rules, trying to put all usecases I could think in one rule. You are better to split rules and think how you can link them in a way you’ll be able to add more without too much changes.
Lost another trigger today. Noticed it when the action occurred w/o the trigger event. I think this ST outage is actually worse than the one last Oct/Nov.
1 Like
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
4031
it seems like i’m constantly getting my rules corrupted - they lose the triggers, i’m guessing this is the same thing everyone else is experiencing?
is this truly a smartthings bug? I don’t remember this ever happening before the GUI was switched around into all these separate pages…can’t you revert to a flatter GUI that would allow us to correct these rules again after they’re corrupted from being triggers to just being rules? i’ve had to re-create rules like 10 times now and this is getting silly, if i could just re-select the trigger actions even that would be a vast improvement over what i’ve been having to do lately, completely deleting and re-creating rules. It’s honestly got me moving most of my rules into smart lighting, at least the ones where it works…just make the GUI always have an option to change the rule type back to a trigger…i wouldn’t be surprised if going back to a flatter GUI “fixes” the bug.
The rule corruption continues… I checked every single one of my rules over the past weekend, and they were 90% good & fixed the few broken ones. Yesterday I found a zombie… NO, I will not contact support - it is a waste of my time.
What make ST great, no, make that the cat’s ass, or if you prefer, the dog’s bollocks, is RM. RM however becomes useless when the ST back end doesn’t function, and I, for one, am sadly thinking about jumping ship. In my book, reliability trumps features. Compared to the capital outlay for things, a new controller will be a minimal expenditure. And yes, I am sure I will run into constraints on other platforms as well, but it will not be reliability.
This just happened to me this morning…I found it strange that my goodnight routine ran right after my good morning routine this morning, so I take a look at the goodnight rule and all the conditions and actions are gone
I was thinking the same thing… I know that the app was redesigned for good reasons, but I would really like the option to change between triggers, conditions, etc and it would make fixing the headless stuff, much, much easier… I also know that the platform issues have been quite frustrating to many, not the least of which, Bruce, so, I’d understand if there was hesitation to do anything to create work-arounds for the platform issues…
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
4036
How exactly do you program around a completely random anomaly caused by the system backend? I’ve lost parts of triggers, conditional triggers, and rules. Different parts of each at different times. Yesterday I lost all of the actions on an actions only rule. Ask that was there was the title. You’d think I’d of been able to rebuild that one, but nope. Had to delete and start over.
The UI for rule machine has nothing to do with this problem.
Something had occurred at the server side that is causing this. Probably another one of those unidentified root problems.
I’m certainly not the authority and Bruce would need to set us straight, but I believe that the UI is trimmed down based on the type of rule that you initially select… that trimming get further trimmed when state gets corrupted by the platform issues, so we can’t go edit or re-initialize the parts that are corrupt… so, I suspect there would be a way to disable the trimming of the UI so that it would expose triggers, conditions, actions, etc, at all times (not trimmed), that might give us a chance to go fix stuff that ST broke… but, I could be wrong about how the UI is programmed, and Bruce would need to weigh in… just looking for options in our state of desperation…
They are not looking to prevent the issue, but rather a way that Rule Machine can help users fix their rules rather than remove and re-create… that’s how I read it…
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
4040
I understand what they are saying, which is why I was asking for suggestions on how and why.
The ui was changed because it had become to large and cumbersome to the point that it was actually showslowing down the program itself.
But yes, if Bruce wants to weigh in on this, I’m sure he will.
But I do not see a point in changing a perfectly good functioning program because the servers are afu. That like changing your wind Dierks erupted when you run out gas and then wondering why you can see where you’re not going.
@bamarayne is right; I will not make changes to RM due to ST’s failure and corruption of their database. @bgadam is correct in his assessment of how the UI works, but for one small detail: the values that are becoming corrupted are so essential to the correct functioning of RM, that removing a corrupted rule IS THE ONLY WAY to proceed. “Repairing” a corrupted rule would be very likely to blow up on you in unforeseeable ways, even if it were possible.
If ST does not address this database corruption issue soon, I will be left with no choice but to withdraw Rule Machine. My concern is that they have not even admitted to there being a problem, let alone talking about fixing it. And here all of you are with broken automations. Not good.
Even though you think it is a waste of time, please write to support to complain about data corruption happening to your account. Yesterday, somebody had all of their rooms vanish. Guess where they went?
Thanks Bruce, you can bet I am going to write to support about the dbs (and I don’t mean not database system) going on with ST. Honestly, if you were to withdraw the RM app, I would withdraw from ST all together and go to another platform.
Thanks for this wonderful app!
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
4043
Trouble ticket # for the automation corruption.[SmartThings Support] Support request #207529: SmartThings Android Support
Trouble ticket # for the zigbee drop off issues.[SmartThings Support] Support request #207531: SmartThings Android Support
These are new submissions just made. Please feel free to reference them.
