Scenes not working

@vlad - although I am not certain on the exact date my scenes stopped working, I am no longer able to create, edit or delete scenes in the classic app. After migrating to v3 hub I created a number of scenes that worked perfectly - better than v2 where I had to hit the scene button multiple times to get it to fully work. Then, at some point it started giving me the “Something’s wrong” error when trying to load the devices. My theory was that some device I recently added (I was rebuilding my home system after tearing down v2) is breaking it but having just read about recent changes I have to wonder if the issue was introduced with those changes.

Please DM your username and I can take a look. Or contact support and send me the ticket number. It’s unlikely that what are seeing is related. The changes were with the auth side of things and they have been reverted.

@Zmarc @aruffell

@vlad, this issue still exists on my hub. I have a bedtime scene comprising 70 zwave devices. Is there a limit on the number of devices that can be included in a scene?
The scene fails when activated from the scene tab or through a routine. However, when I hit the “test scene” button, it functions properly.

To answer your question, there isn’t a limit on number of devices available for a scene at this time as we want users to be able to create scenes like “turn off everything”.

So for some background info -

One of the requests from our product team was to check the health status of a device when executing a scene, if the device is offline then the user should see on their phone that some devices may have failed to execute. Because of this request, we can no longer “fire and forget” the commands to the devices (command API is asynchronous - we don’t know if the device received/executed the command) , we now have to retrieve the health status of each device as well and return a list of the states to the client as part of execution to construct the list of “failed” commands. The unfortunate side effect of this (one of the main reasons I tried to resist implementation of this feature) is that execution time can be significantly longer and trigger a timeout in the client because of the increased number of calls and having to wait for them to complete. This is why you’re seeing failures (test scene works a bit differently but similar issues can occur there as well).

So that’s the issue you’re likely seeing - now how we’re going to tackle it…
I’ve talked to the team responsible for the service that provides the health status of devices and they have started working on providing a more optimal way of getting the device status for a large number of devices that doesn’t increase with the number of devices we’re requesting status for. Once this new code is made available to us, our team can then switch over, which should make the number of devices in a scene irrelevant and you’ll stop seeing errors.

I should also mention that if the devices do change their state to the setting in the scene then the above is likely what you’re seeing. If you’re getting an error and the devices don’t change state, then please submit a support ticket as its likely a different issue.

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Vlad, thanks for the response. The scene is not executing and the devices don’t adjust to the scene levels. Fortunately, I am able to accomplish what I need through a routine, but it won’t be long before I need to create a scene with 60+ devices, so it would be nice to get to the bottom of this issue.

Thanks,

SK

There isn’t a limit, please trigger the error, create a support ticket and dm me your username, time of the error and scene name.

@vlad - For several weeks now I have been unable to create scenes as while loading devices it gives the something is wrong error. Is this issue related? Is there a fix on the horizon?

I seem to be having the sample problem. I can’t add or edit any of my scenes.

I get: “Unable to load available devices. Please reload or try again later.”

How many devices do you have? I was told that I was suffering from a timeout due to the number of devices. The number ST mentioned included both physical, C2C and virtual devices (>200). I am able to create scenes in the new app but most of my devices do not work there so I cannot create any useful scenes… and if you create a basic one and try to edit it in the older app, it gives an error.

More than 200, but it had worked when setting up multiple scenes. I haven’t needed to edit any of the scenes for a while and now can’t. I’m using the classic app.

Mine stopped working when I tore down my v2 hub and configured my v3 hub. The more devices I added the harder things got (issues). While scenes initially were working, they stopped at some point. I suspected a device with a bad DTH was causing trouble since scenes try to list all possible devices as a first step but ST said it was the number of devices… Maybe I should go back to check all suspect devices…

Scenes have always been a problem with my SmartThings Hub. I have about a dozen configured. As noted above, when I go to the Scenes edit, they work perfectly. No errors. However, when called from a routine, they have become less and less reliable. Six months ago they worked about 80% of the time when called from a routine. The last month the 80% has dropped to 0%. Again, they all work perfectly from the Scenes edit page. However, from the routines set-up page, they always fail, even though the ONLY thing the routine does is call the scene.

It appears that SmartThings understands why this is happening. Any chance of getting it fixed? The 0% success rate with scenes will force me to migrate to another IOT system if this can’t be addressed.

I have a similar problem that started recently. When ever I try to save a scene I get an error saying “Network Error”. I can create new scenes or edit old scenes but when I try to save them, same error message. Also if I try to edit an old scene and get my usual “Network Error” the old scene will never work again. If I use the classic version to edit a scene that has been used by the new version, even though it cannot be saved, I get any error saying it cannot access the scene because it was created by the new version.

I reported the problem to the SmartThings people and got a bunch of question from them but no answers. They havent got a freaking clue. This all stared several weeks ago, probably do to a bad update. ST people will never admit they screwed up so looks like we just have to wait for another update. Hopefully it will fix the problem and not just create more.

I also have a ton of devices and haven’t been able to create scenes for months in the classic app. (Hanging up when loading devices).
Much to my surprise today it started working again - pulling up my list of about 200 devices, letting me pick, create, etc. Something got fixed.

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I am not certain it is related however I suspect that some device I created introduced an issue that would prevent items from loading in the Things screen of the old app and once that device got excluded things started working again. In other words, there is a possibility that what fixed it is something you did when working on your devices. I only have a hunch based on what I observed. I really doubt ST is doing any work at all on the old app as the direction is to move to the new one but it might be possible that “server side” changes were made that fixed your issue.

Either way, I would delete all the scenes in the old app, and create them again in the new app. You will be able to run them from both but only edit them from the new app. Since ST fixed a few C2C timing related issues, my scenes work perfectly and creating them in the new app, I believe, takes advantage of new scene code (based on what I understood from messages from ST)

I haven’t started using the new app yet :slight_smile: but if I’m forced to switch over to new - at that point I’ll recreate. (My few scenes are very simple - haven’t had any issues except not being to edit them/ create new ones in last few months).

Thinking back - I can’t think of any device I’ve deleted in the last few months except a few Hue bulbs connected through Hue, which would surprise me (I still have a lot of them connected that way).

My hunch is also that it was something server side.

i’ve been getting a different error message, but same symptoms, for months. i recreated all my scenes in new app after updating from v2 to v3. they create and run fine. but i get a “network error” every time i edit and try to save an existing scene. i just turned off “device health” in the old app, thinking it might help (based on the explanation above), but no dice. i do, however, get the error immediately after clicking save instead of after a few second lag when device health is on.

curiously, sometimes the edit i make to the scene does actually get saved even though it gives me the same error as always. but this is inconsistent - sometimes it saves, sometimes it doesn’t.

i don’t have to edit my scenes often hence why i’ve lived with this for four or five months. i figured it’d sort itself out but apparently not, and it’s getting irritating now.

any ideas?

i should add - i have a fair number of devices but nothing insane - 75 or so i think.

also, i’ve noticed that if i delete all devices from a scene, it saves with no issue, and the. it usually lets me go back and edit and actually save one time. but after that, back to the same story. it seems to be that no matter how many devices i have in a scene that i’m trying to edit–if it’s more than 0, i get the error. if it’s zero, i can add all of my devices and it saves fine. it’s weird.

i’m still experiencing what i think is a closely related issue - scenes can’t be edited once created. if i delete all the devices in the scene, i can then add them back and make whatever changes along the way. but if i try to just edit without wiping it first - i get a network error when i try to save. pushing the test button also results in an error. i can, however, still invoke by just pushing the scene button in the app, i think (i never do that tho). And it certainly still works when i invoke the scene from alexa.

I am trying to setup scenes (home, night, away)) with multiple thermostats in each scene. I can add one thermostat, but I get “network error” when I try to add a second thermostat to the scene. This house has 8 thermostats, so need to be able to group them in scenes .