Time based events failing?

bago · February 7, 2016, 1:44am

Event driven automations work.

jt323bd · February 7, 2016, 1:44am

Yep, thats why i’m thinking it.

drake0508 · February 7, 2016, 5:09am

Can anyone using motion sensors to run routines confirm that they are running correctly?

kjdayley · February 7, 2016, 2:23pm

I use IFTTT to turn on a virtual switch that then kicks off my night (and other mode) triggers using a Rule Machine rule. It use it as a backup for then smart things events fail. The IFTTT version works every time.

bago · February 7, 2016, 3:58pm

Motions are sporadic. Do you have any devices that “check in” on a more regular basis (but not too much)?

WA2FAST · February 7, 2016, 4:06pm

Yeah, me too… I spoke too soon… I’m having all kinds of timed events failing again, just as they were before. Constantly refreshing all of my routines is beyond frustrating. As soon as there’s a platform that can do the majority of what I need it to do and have stability, I’m getting off of ST.

bago · February 7, 2016, 4:10pm

Check out this thread. It bypasses ST for scheduling.

External Time Source / Schedule Driver for SmartThings Projects & Stories

There is a mechanism by which you can solidify some of the scheduling issues in SmartThings, the ones involving repeating schedules, such as polling. The mechanism is to give your system an external time source. My setup happens to have an Arduino / ThingShield, for my Lutron integration. It was trivial in the Arduino sketch, and the ThingShield device handler, to put in a once a minute message from the Arduino. This is not clock resolution timing, for sure; but it is heartbeat timing that is rock solid. I would not recommend running something like this faster that once a minute. I have mine set to toggle a virtual switch. I can use that for other purposes, in Rules. You could build this out of any Arduino / ThingShield pair, including Uno, Mega, etc. It costs $80 +/-.

cdikland · February 8, 2016, 3:03pm

Great… Today I decided to use IFTTT as a backup to failed schedules. Seems the ST crew took over the site. Halfway through creating a recipe I get “We apologize but an error…” It never rains but pours

Brian_Murphy · February 8, 2016, 3:27pm

I have taken to adding watchdog timers as backup. An example I have several keen vents adjusting temperature throughout the house and only start evaluating temperature when the heat, cool, or fan is on, when the previous conditions are true the rules are evaluated every minute. The critical event is gathering data from my ecobee thermostats remote sensors, for this sensor data must be reliable and I have written three additional watchdog timers. The first event timer is every minute and a half, the first watchdog is at 4, the second watchdog is at 7 and the third watchdog is at 15 minutes. I have had the first event fail regularly and even the first watchdog fail, however I have not in 2 months lost the entire system with this setup.

Bajanjack · February 8, 2016, 6:06pm

Here’s a response I got back from a smartthings tech- he acknowledged what we all know- the instability of time based events:

Thanks for reaching back out! I’m sorry to hear that your automations are acting up again.

I’ve gone ahead and run the script again for you.

You’re actually able to do this yourself now by logging into https://graph.api.smartthings.com with your SmartThings account. Select My Locations > Select List SmartApps > and then Select Update on the effected SmartApps/Routines.

geeji · February 9, 2016, 5:24am

Just to confirm once more what everybody by now knows : the January platform update did NOT fix the failed periodic SmartApps.

I also got the same suggestion of support to manually re-awaken my SmartApps “by logging into https://graph.api.smartthings.com4 with your SmartThings account. Select My Locations > Select List SmartApps > and then Select Update on the effected SmartApps/Routines.”.
Only problem is that my 2 custom SmartApps don’t even appear in this list !.

One wonders if anybody at SmartApps knows his turf…
This has been going on for more than 1 year…
Being an early adopter is one thing, but by now what SmartThings needs as users are deep rooted masochists !
I cannot even start to imagine what people suffer after investing thousands of dollars into this erratic system, which would be much less irritating if it failed 100% of the time, instead of 10% as currently.

I loved the post from bamarayne : living my life on the edge of total unpredictability.

Time2Ride · February 9, 2016, 1:35pm

Yep, sorry all, I spoke too soon also. I guess I was excited after having a successful 4-5 day run of proper triggering and made a premature post! My system is not triggering on timed events anymore either. Basically, not jumping ship totally but made the realization that I am going to use a stand alone alarm system for security, and to Lutron Caseta for lighting purposes. Using Lutron gives me flexibility that I can always integrate back into ST if/when the platform gets stabilized. I was hoping for a single whole house solution but don’t think the technology is there just yet.

gmctavish · February 9, 2016, 2:54pm

Chiming in again here. I have a very simple setup which is almost entirely Samsung SmartThings based. A V2 hub, and several sensors and outlets. My light switches are GE Zigbee dimmers, and are SmartThings recommended. This is not a fancy or bleeding edge setup - very plain vanilla… and it still doesn’t work.

My time based events are failing all over the place again.

The January update didn’t fix anything. After the January update, I deleted all of my SmartLighting automatons and recreated them. After that, I got about two weeks of relative stability, but then things stopped working again. For the past four days, my lights haven’t turned on at sunset -7, and the log doesn’t even show an attempt at triggering the event.

I’ve gone through and hit “update” on all the installed SmartApps and I hope that fixes things… but I’m losing confidence in this platform. I was given about $750 in SmartThings for christmas… anyone know what the return policy is?

Lgkahn · February 9, 2016, 3:40pm

yes I have lights failing to go on or off. both sunrise sunset and scheduled… but only some of them. also routines failing again to do certain things, and I just rebuilt the routines and some of the smart light 2 days ago… I give up… this pos… im not even bothering to do new tickets. they will just tell me to rebuild stuff…

cdikland · February 9, 2016, 3:50pm

I wrote a simple Smartapp, added some virtual switches and have IFTTT turn on/off my switches on the same schedule. If one fails, hopefully the other will cover I am currently doing the same for my routines.

bobfather · February 9, 2016, 5:00pm

I broke down and set up an EventGhost install on my always-on HTPC that would fire time-based events. It was dead simple, and there’s a neat SmartApp here that allows two-way communication between ST and EventGhost.

github.com

aderusha/SmartThings/blob/master/Send-Events-to-EventGhost.groovy

/**
 *	Send Events to EventGhost
 *	
 *	Send SmartThings events to EventGhost
 *	
 *	https://github.com/aderusha/SmartThings/blob/master/Send-Events-to-EventGhost.groovy
 *	Copyright 2015 aderusha
 *	Version 1.0.0 - 2015-09-13 - Initial release
 *	Version 1.1.0 - 2015-09-15 - Changed handling of binary(ish) vs non-binary values to allow sending
 *	                             value data to EG to be handled via Python and eg.event.payload[]
 *	Version 1.2.0 - 2016-04-18 - Added support for individual button values
 *	
 *	This SmartApp will send selected events to an EventGhost server running the Webserver plugin.
 *	EventGhost is a Windows application used for event automation, find out more here: http://www.eventghost.org/
 *	How to setup the EventGhost Webserver plugin: http://www.eventghost.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Webserver
 *	
 *	TODO:
 *	- Currently doesn't support user authentication or SSL.  EG Webserver authentication must be disabled by leaving
 *	  the username/password field in the plugin configuration blank
 *	- Figure out how to monitor Sonos "musicPlayer" events

This file has been truncated. show original

tgauchat · February 9, 2016, 5:46pm

May I suggest making and moving this to an entirely new Topic?

It will be linked to this existing “Time based events failing” topic if you use the “+ Reply as linked Topic” button.

bobfather · February 9, 2016, 5:53pm

Did it. I may also revise the first post of that topic later to include a real tutorial for people, if I’m feeling saucy later.

gmctavish · February 9, 2016, 8:37pm

I sent an email to smartthings support and I got a fairly prompt reply. I’ll give kudos where kudos are due - I was impressed with the speed and thoroughness of the reply. Unfortunately the reply only provides a workaround, and not an “in-platform” solution. They are suggesting using IFTTT instead of smartthings automation, which is essentially saying the “smart” part of our “smart platform” is broken. Anyway, I’m impressed by the speed, the tone, and the assurance that people are working on a solution. Fingers crossed… and for those interested, here is the workaround I was provided:

Thanks for writing in. My deepest apologies for the continued trouble with scheduled events. I’m sorry if the manual updates did not help. Reliability is our top priority right now, and I can assure you that our teams are working around the clock to get this nuisance straightened out. But in the meantime, you can consider using IFTTT to schedule your automations. To do this, we will need a virtual switch, a SmartLights automation, and an IFTTT recipe:
To make the virtual switch

Log into https://graph.api.smartthings.com/
Click “My Devices”
Click “+New Device”
Name Device
Assign a “Device Network ID” (this can be anything random such as 6345)
Using the drop down menu, change “Type” to “Momentary Button Tile”
Click "Create"
To create the Smart Lights automation
Tap
Tap “SmartApps”
Tap “SmartThings Recommends”
Tap “SmartLights”
Tap “New Lighting Automation”
Tap “Which lights…” and select the light(s) and/or switch(es) you wish to control
Tap “Done”
Tap “What do you want to do” and select “Turn On” (or ‘Turn on and set level’ if using a dimming device in which you wish to turn on to a setting less than 100%)
Tap “Select Trigger” and select “Switch”
Tap “Which Switch” and select the switch you wish to use to control the other lights/switches
Make sure to set “Turn off as well” to “OFF”
Configure any optional settings as well such as mode, time, or days
Tap “Next”
Switch “Edit automation name” if you wish to name the automation something specific (optional)
Tap "Done"
To create the IFTTT recipe
Visit ifttt,com (register for an account if you haven’t already)
Click “Channels” and click on SmartThings
Click “Connect” and input your SmartThings credentials
Select the appropriate Location and check the devices you wish to use with IFTTT (the virtual switch you just created must be checked)
Head back into channels and click on Date & Time (Click connect and select your time zone)
Click on My recipes and click “Create a Recipe”
IF THIS > Date & Time > Every Day at (or ever day of the week at) > Set Time and days
THEN THAT > SmartThings > Switch On > The virtual switch you created
I know, it looks like a ton of steps, but it actually only takes a few minutes…even less once everything in IFTTT is setup. With this set up, when the schedule time arrives, IFTTT will turn on the virtual switch which, in turn, triggers the Smart Lights automation. If you would like an automation to turn the lights off, you can follow the same exact steps above except in the lighting automation have the lights turn off when the virtual switch turns on (make sure the “also turn on” is set to off).
Again, we are very sorry for the inconvenience. I’ve tagged you to be notified with any updates regarding the resolution of these scheduling issues, as well. We greatly appreciate your patience with us through these times and if there is anything else we can assist with, please let us know.

geko · February 9, 2016, 10:00pm

Wow! That sounds like Waterloo! Compete and unconditional capitulation.

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Time based events failing?

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