Sorry, but there was an unexpected error

Hey guys!

Hope your 4th was a real “bang”! HAHA get it?

So, I have made support aware of this. Please submit a ticket with support. This helps us track the issue. I will be watching this one.

P.S. I have been stalking this thread for what I am dubbing the “Red bar error” and am also tracking a ticket internally. Not sure if these two are related yet, but will update you guys when I have some shareable information.

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@slagle tickets opened, buddy! New symptom. Empty things screen at times…

For me it’s very expected now. I see it just about everything I do.
Open app -> Sorry… … continue…
Tap Things => Sorry… …continue …
Press + to add device -> Sorry … continue …
Configure Device -> Sorry

Put phone down in frustration :frowning:

Is clearing data and cache supposed to help with this issue ?
Perhaps just delete and re-install app ?

The irony is I am going on an extended out of country trip end of this month and rather than let ST do its work, will have to unplug it and let the native apps do its work. I don’t want to loose control nearly 8000 miles away from home. :frowning:

All done here… problem persists.

I can add another complaint to this stream of grievances: excessive battery drain.
Smart Things is #1 battery hog on iPhone 6 at 27% today, although I’ve never opened the app since this morning. My battery went down from 86% to 36% in a matter of hours. :frowning:

I’m afraid I agree. This particular thread started 8 days ago… 13 days based on a related thread merged into this one. Far too long for a frequently fatal crashing error, right?!

I congratulate and appreciate @slagle’s participation here and don’t wish rough first days at the office … but I really hope he’s taking a “Customer perspective” on this… Any chance we can get stats from Tech Support – Is this something that “average” (i.e., non-Community) folks are calling in? Or are Developer’s more likely to experience it? or some other quirk?

We’re experiencing this in the front-end, but because it occurs on both iOS and Android, I suppose it is a back-end server / cloud issue. I am suggesting that a bit more transparency here would buy a few more days of patience from some of us. Thanks?

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Well, if you’re asking for a pretty basic end-user… I can say that I’m not experiencing it. I have a couple custom SmartApps running. I’ve hit that error once (sometime in the past two months), but it’s not something I’m seeing very often at all.

I lurk around here, contribute ideas/research when I can. I can read the code and dabble, but I feel much more like an end-user than a developer. (In other words, you guys have skills that make me feel kinda dumb sometimes.)

Though, honestly, it may be my setup. I have less than 20 devices, and I don’t really have any major automations set up. Lights come on when I come home, go off when I leave, sensors tell me when doors open in certain modes, A/C manages mode based on temp, and a Minimote to flip lights, with a motion sensor set up to turn on lights in one room. Pretty basic stuff, but aside from some latency with the app I haven’t really seen any of the major issues you guys are describing.

I just haven’t chimed in for fear of jinxing my good luck. I also haven’t added a device/ made any changes to any code or SmartApp in three or four months, if that helps troubleshooting at all.

Again, just tossing in my experience since you were asking about basic users… Hope that helps!

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Yeah, I’ve only seen the error once or twice. I have less than 30 devices and only use the app once or twice a day. And I’m usually home, so the geopresence is on wifi and doesn’t have to recalculate, just in case that’s a factor.

I have 28 devices, many of which I virtual child buttons for real devices so even fewer physical devices. I have very little automation. Mostly alerts and I will open the app to take action.

I sometimes see very few errors and sometimes everything I touch fails. There is no consistency or ability to recreate with certain steps. This makes me think the issue is on the server side as well.

Right now I am paging through the app with no errors. I am sure they will return later in the day…

I have an open ticket with ST support but nobody has replied. I had one reply right after posting the support request and no further contact. This is what was said.

I am sorry to hear you are experiencing this errors. We are aware of this but I’ve forwarded your experience to our developers. We have been investigating the instability and errors and made the decision to update status.smartthings.com. The unexpected errors typically aren’t prevented actions/operations but if you encounter a situation where that is not the case, please let us know as we are actively looking into individual instances. They are extremely annoying though and a poor reflection on SmartThings. I also agree about the need for more testing so I appreciate you voicing that concern as I will also add your support of that and hopefully we can get a change.

Again, I apologize for the state of SmartThings as of late but appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to improve. Let me know if I can help you any further.

It is frustrating that they reply right away with such an apologetic response but then never follow up.

@April is it possible for you to get the low down on what is happening with this issue ?

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I just received and installed my SmartThings devices and mobile app yesterday, and within the first few minutes I began randomly receiving this message when doing certain clicks. After I click the back button and do the same action it seems to work fine, but a few minutes later I’ll receive it again while doing something else. I only have three devices connected. My phone is an android HTC One M8. It doesn’t seem to break anything, more of an annoyance than anything, but it does happen quite often.

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I think this is why ST doesn’t take it seriously. But try developing a device type or smart app with this error happening every time you publish the code and try to test it. The issue doesn’t “break” anything unless you consider reliability to be a feature which is 100% broken.

I also have alerts that are never working anymore. I have a power monitor on my Wine Cooler which is supposed to alert me if it is accidentally turned off. This failed to report yesterday. I have alerts that tell me when my rooms are getting too hot and the alert in the main living area is supposed to turn the AC on when it gets too hot. Not working. I am just thankful I have to door locks, I don’t trust ST for security.

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Agreed Ron. As I said I just started yesterday, so I don’t have much yet. Would definitely feel the same way if I was in your position.

Sorry that you hit this error so soon. Out of curiosity what devices do you have. I am thinking you probably have the smallest install of those of us with the issue. Perhaps we can isolate “The” device causing this if there is one. I actually think the issue is a race condition on the server-to-app communication because I seem to see it more often when on a slow connection but it couldn’t hurt to see what you have.

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Hey guys! Just want to let you know I’m still here.

This issue is a top priority for the community team. We realize this is a huge sore spot for the community and aren’t taking it lightly over here.

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Thank you Tim. I too have been experiencing that message (just now actually going into a group of devices).

I have a SmartPower outlet, a SmartSense Open/Closed sensor, (and my phone of course). I connected the outlet first, and almost positive I begin receiving the error before the open/closed sensor was connected. I may have even been seeing the error before connecting the outlet, but I can’t remember for sure. I now seem to get the error about once every 4 or so clicks.

Alright, small update.

Support is able to help in some of these cases. Please make sure to submit a support ticket for this issue. If you have already submitted a support ticket for this specific issue please send me a PM with the ticket #.

@slagle I opened a ticket, #110969

can you provide any details as to what those cases are? Anything in common? Is there at least a working theory as to what the problem is/are?

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