If they are getting out of synch, that indicates to me that the SmartThings platform is dropping device state updates, which is a serious reliability issue. So yes, if they are out of synch that would cause your trigger to fail.
If this is happening to you regularly, or especially if you can intentionally recreate it, it would be really good to get some driver logs to provide the support team. DM me and I can help diagnose this further.
Ruh-roh. . .this sounds a lot like what I just posted about. My post wasn’t about the virtual devices, but sounds like the same root cause.
Yup. I’ve witness this a few times over the passed couple weeks in realtime watching driver logs. The event gets emitted to SmartThings without error, but it seems not to get propagated to the cloud servers, and so it’s like it didn’t even happen. I’ve observed this mostly on in scenarios when a device is first created and the driver is initializing the capability states. (Causing the ‘not all fields initialized’ message in the device the controls screen). But lately is seems to also be happening at other random times.
I’ve been noticing issues too, starting around September 28th.
I use ConstantGraph to do some basic charting and Dashboard for my devices and it has been reporting this:
Speak of the devil, I just noticed it on the Alexa virtual driver. Switch and contact got reversed. Toggling the switch brought them back in sync. Phew, was worried once out of sync you just had to “luck out” till another was lost and brought them back in sync.
I certainly should not have to be doing this in a driver, but I’m thinking about confirming the state change took effect. That certainly could be done, but because of the realtime nature of these events, I don’t think it would be a wise thing to try to implement. Another event could come in between the action and the confirmation, which would invalid the confirmation. So the result could just be more problemos…
I have to think this will get fixed at the source pretty quickly. It’s a really big problem and seems to be growing, at least in my ecosystem, so hopefully they are working on it.
I don’t have CLI, but seems like enough people have now posted about this issue being present.
I can’t reliably reproduce the issue. but I suspect because I have so many switches that toggle on and off to record states in my home that it just happens eventually on a daily basis.
A post was merged into an existing topic: Lost events?
It is good to confirm in this thread that it is not just this driver that is an issue. But any further discussion on the problem needs to go into the thread which is talking about the platform wide issue. So I have moved your post there.
@JDRoberts, Well thanks, I guess.
My post was an attempt to help keep @TAustin from undertaking unnecessary work to modify his Virtual Device driver when the issues are obviously system-wide. Hopefully tagging him above will accomplish that, and I will attempt to stay in line in the future.
Just added this to my Smartthings format and added a virtual thermostat, how do I designate the temperature sensor and output device for the thermostat?
Just an update for others, I created a rule in Sharptools to write the temperature from my sensor into the virtual thermostat and it’s working great! Then I created an automation that turns on a smart plug if the virtual calls for heat.
How did you do that with SharpTools? Did you use variables? Please post a screen shot of you SharpTools rule.
Newbie question, but after setting up multiple virtual devices (alexa switches) and then going to Alexa app to set up routines for them, all of the devices are present, but every one of them says “Device is unresponsive. If it’s no longer in use, tap “Edit” to remove from Alexa app”
Any reason why that would be? All the non virtual devices are working correctly.
Do the devices appear to be working as expected within SmartThings?
Not sure which way you need to trigger, but if you need Alexa to act on a trigger from SmartThings, be sure to create the separate contact device by enabling that option in the Alexa switch device Settings.
I am trying to use Smartthings to control a simple Amazon Basics switch. In Smarthings, the virtual device can turn on and off, but of course, it doesn’t actually do anything. When using the Alexa app to view the virtual device, it appears there, but has the “Device is unresponsive. If it’s no longer in use, tap “Edit” banner on the details page for the virtual device. Changing the status in Smartthings does NOT change the status in Alexa.
Is that helpful?
Also, I did enable the contact switch. That contact switch also says server unresponsive when within Alexa App.
And thanks once again for all you do for the community
