ST presence sensors fail when used with ActionTiles or WebCore

It was so far out of left field when I saw it in the post that I totally dismissed it and didn’t even bother mentioning it back to the OP.

However, what we do know from this is that the SmartThings Support staff are most likely not being drug screened prior to their employment. :grin:

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That’s why I asked the above question :grin:.

IMHO It would be utter nonsense to blame any issues on these smartapps unless the problem only occurs when using them.

OP might consider editing the topic title. From what he has described, the presence sensors fail, period.

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I’d edit the title if it weren’t true. I’ve been a heavy user with ST (over 150 devices and multiple outside integrations) for several years. This is not my first rodeo, and usually I’m able to fix these issues on my own. This one is weird, which is why I posted for help.

To reiterate, in case I was unclear (or you just decided you must know better): the presence sensor can be reset manually, and if it’s not being used by anything but ST it will work fine. However, when it’s integrated into ActionTiles or WebCoRE, it fails.

Questions?

I merely asked for a clarification.

It sounded like based on your response the issue is not specific to actiontiles or webcore. Then @WB70 brought up a few other reasonable considerations, like the type of battery and device health.

Perhaps I misunderstood all along.

Either way, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to attack those that are trying to help.

Have a nice night.

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I agree. Just as there’s no reason to make assumptions. And for clarification, there was nothing in your post that was attempting to be helpful. Re-read it.

I avoid disputing a Customer’s observations, because if that’s what they have observed, I can’t assert that you haven’t without calling them a liar.

I can only assume that the Customer doesn’t have (or isn’t reporting) the complete picture; … Or that the Customer is making assumptions and jumping to conclusions…

… or … it is always possible that the SmartThings platform actually has an anomaly that even us, with many years of experience more than SmartThings Support, cannot believe is possible. This could be due to some weird confluence of code or corruption in the Customer’s SmartThings configuration / records, or… neutrinos.


The first step is to Contact SmartThings Support and possibly the Support teams of ActionTiles and/or WebCoRE. But SmartThings Support should never blame an issue on ActionTiles that doesn’t have much more… evidence. Please encourage them to contact Support@ActionTiles.com in order to coordinate our research.

The next step is to expand your observations. ActionTiles and WebCoRE are just SmartApps. There are dozens of other SmartApps that use Presence Sensors. Test some more of them, please?

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Anything and everything is possible with ST.

From my perspective and troubleshooting, I always like to work from one end of the spectrum to the other. From issues that others have had with Arrival Sensors in the past, my approach is by weeding out one issue at a time and starting with the batteries and making sure that the functionality and failure of these devices doesn’t stem from not usibg Panasonic.

It’s definitely possble that this could be one of those anomalies, but wanted to rule out everything and else before heading in that direction.

And guys - we are all trying to help each other and sometimes verbiage isn’t always understood the same way by each individual (I know I’m guilty of it sometimes as well), so no hating on each other :slight_smile:

As for the battery change, @Rigging65 are both Arrival sensors still functioning?

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But you haven’t described anything that seems to be related to actiontiles or webcore (until you apparently got upset and did also mention that the presence sensor only fails while it available as a device to webcore and/or actiontiles).

So I was suggesting that the title of this thread be edited to reflect the fact that this issue doesn’t seem to be related to those smartapps. A more accurate title may help others having a similar issue.

Obviously you disagree, but I’m still not clear why. And apparently others are struggling to understand the relationship of the misbehaving presence sensor to actiontiles/webcore too.

Totally agree, no hate coming from me. I did not get a chance to turn off notifications from this thread before seeing the last few replies, but I will now so everyone else can move on.

Mark totally meant well. I know how helpful he has been in the community and meant nothing negative, that much I know.

He was looking for more clarity and granularity to specifically where the functionality was/is failing,

  • Inside ST mobile application - fails to report visually as present / not present
  • When in ActionTiles it reports incorrectly
  • Any Pistons failing when triggering off Present / Not Present
  • Showng inactive or offline in IDE.

There’s so many places that things can appear to go wrong. I think that’s really what he was trying to decipher in assisting you. :slight_smile:

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So, I only have one Gen 2 presence sensor. The other one went away when I assumed it was bad. The Gen 1 sensor continues to work just fine in all respects.

I changed out the battery with a Panasonic as suggested. I’ve also removed the sensor from all apps (did this a while back, so that’s not new). The Gen 2 sensor seems to work fine as long as it’s not running within anything but ST. As I had t running (just on ST), I added it back into ActionTiles, and it began to fail again…both in ST and AT.

I appreciate this is odd, but I feel like I explained this pretty clearly a couple of times now. I also feel like I’m getting pushback because no one can believe what’s happening, so clearly I must be failing to explain things completely. I also try to take a granular, stepped approach every time ST fails…as has been necessary over the years with this system. I’m not blaming anyone, but a little more reading of the entire post would seem to clarify that, rather than just making assumptions.

I appreciate the constructive questions and ideas pushing this forward. Thank you.

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Perfect. Thanks for the clarification.

So do me a favor. Since you have removed it from everything. Do not add it back in as a tile in ActionTiles, and do not add it into any Piston in WebCoRE for now.

I misunderstood and thought you still had the orignal gen 2 along with the new one.

So with the Panasonic battery being added, leave ST alone with this. Allow this to be the base layer testing. No other elements introduced, period.

Then, after a sufficient period of testing (battery only) and you have no failures with it, then test the next thing and add it back in as a Tile in ActionTiles and allow that to commence a period of testing. ActionTiles should have no bearing on anything as all it is, is a reflection of what exists in Things, nothing more than that (but as Terry stated, there could be an anomaly). But in order to rule things out, it needs to be done one test at a time. If you modify 2 or 3 things at one time, it’s impossibe to find a root cause for these unique ST issues. :slight_smile:

If it does fail again, immediately goto IDE and edit the Arrival sensor and screenshot everything about its current state.

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Sure thing. I’m willing to try anything. I understand the part about ActionTiles just reflecting what’s being shown in ST. That’s partially why I’m frustrated with ST’s support.

FWIW, I’ve done what you’re suggesting before (I’m happy to do it again), and the sensor worked fine until it was added back into ActionTiles.

I’m wondering if the device handler may be the issue? Maybe the new handler is requesting too much info or something and the integrations to other apps heightens that until is crashes? Just reaching for anything here…

We’ll see how the ST only goes…

Unless there is a revision within the gen 2 itself, I have been using mine for over a year as I said before. It exists in ActionTiles on several panels of mine. I have it in a couple of Pistons and Routines as well and I have never had an issue besides the occasional time it notifies me that it’s not present while it is sitting in the ignition of my vehicle in the garage. This happens maybe once every couple of months and I chalk that up to interference Zigbee / Wifi.

My device handler (Type) is is “Arrival Sensor”.

Here is a little.more info on mine:

Another thought is it could be an issue with your Zigbee mesh and once it goes out to lunch, it never reports back. One step at a time :slight_smile:

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“Arrival Sensor” or “Arrival Sensor HA”? Mine loaded the HA version automatically. My wife’s gen1 uses the non-HA handler. I’ve tried switching the gen 2 back to the non-HA version, but it didn’t seem to help. To be fair, this was quite a while ago, and the other apps were still running…

This one. I purchased my Arrival Sensor in October of 2016 from Best Buy.

FYI on the “Arrival Sensor HA” one:

I’m on a V1 hub, so I wouldn’t think the local-run issues would matter?

v1 versus v2. Another variant in the whole equation :slight_smile:

Sure I do!

Since my post on 11/18, I replaced 18 batteries for roughly an equivalent number of sensors (got rid of ST motion sensors but the GE I have is not any better)…
What I tried since few month is to use the genuine Panasonic from Mouser rather than Amazon.
Was it you who share that source for Panasonic? Well… So far 8 batteries among the new 18 are now from Mousers.
I systematically log my battery replacement in an excel worksheet so I can now compute easily things between 2 dates or for a given sensor.

And BTW, I also invested in a zigbee mesh analyser and that helped me clearing the famous argument “you don’t have enough repeaters”: Obviously that’s not the reason…

Cheers!

Annnnnd…we’re back to the presence sensor not working again. It’s not being used by any apps whatsoever. I was away for three days and now I get back and it’s still stuck as ‘away’. Sigh…

I have currently an issue with the Multipurpose sensor as tile/accelerate its not updating on action tiles but updating correctly the status on ST app. I have config the Multipurpose sensor as tile/accelerate garage door. on action titles only update when the sensor is being moved ( in motion ) but it goes back to INACTIVE once the sensor is standing still. it dose not recognize the tilt. ST app shows status correctly if its tilted it shows as ACTIVE and if its vertical it shows INACTIVE.