Understanding the creation and deletion of User Created Apps

SmartApps & Automations
1

I am reaching out looking for feedback from some more experienced code slingers.

I want to preface that I am no expert but I think I have a pretty good basic understanding of installing apps to control things.

First, I understand that the app is create through the IDE
Second, I understand that once it is published it is made available to the mobile app, in this case Android
Third, I use the mobile app to install the published app in order to connect it to various devices.
I have been told there can be multiple copies of the same published app running at any given time.

If I am incorrect on any of the above details feel free to correct me.

Assuming that the above is true, if I want to delete that same published app it requires that I search every device looking for any occurrence of that published app and uninstall it. In other words the published app cannot be attached to any device.

Next, using the android app I must go into the MyApp area and uninstall it from there.
Finally, I log into the IDE and delete the app from there.

Am I correct on this long laborious process? Feel free to correct me on this.

Now to the real reason I am posting this; for the second time in the past six months, I have been unable to uninstall and delete a self published app. I follow the above steps by first uninstalling the app from all the devices. Then when I go to Android MyApps, for the next phase of de-installation, and select uninstall it looks like it goes through the motions of removing the app except when it completes, the app is still there. The Android app gives no indication of any error. It simply won’t uninstall. This prevents me from deleting the app in the IDE because it is still installed on the mobile app.

Finally I must contact support to clean up the mess. Twice now they tell me there are multiple occurrences of the app installed and that is why I cannot delete it.

Question: If I am following this rube Goldberg procedure correctly and I cannot see any instance of the app being installed anywhere, how can it be that it is still installed? Support doesn’t really explain any further other than what I outlined here.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong that I cannot delete apps that I no longer need or want?

2

First of all, the SmartApp is not really on your phone, it is in the cloud. The mobile app on your phone is really only a portal showing you what is installed in your account on the cloud.

In your case, I would recommend going into the IDE and selecting your location. Near the bottom there is a link to list your installed smartapps. When you bring up that list you can hover over each and see just which devices it is associated with.

2 Likes
3

Thank you. I realize that I am approaching this more as a end user and from that prospective was using the mobile app. I understand that it is ALL in the cloud but was told by support to use my mobile app to uninstall the apps. With that being said, I thank you for the tip on where to look on the IDE for installed apps. I had not seen that before. It is too bad that support has cleared everything out before knowing that.

4

Following your advice I am looking at all the smartapps installed through the IDE.
What I am noticing is the same apps installed multiple times.
When I hover over the duplicates I can see information such as the sensor and switches controlled by the sensors.

What seems odd is there are several others with duplicate names that has no information at all.
No settings, event subscriptions, no application state, no job history.

These blank duplicates have the same exact name as others that have fully populated information.

5

If you don’t manually rename the app in the settings it will always have the same name.

If you click the “EDIT” link near the top right of the window you can then uninstall them.

6

I don’t rename app for that very reason. I want to know the name of the original app.
THANK YOU FOR THE TIP!
I had no idea that the edit link all the way at the top (scrolled off the screen) could allow me to uninstall them. Why can’t the just have that option on all the time? Oh well!

I still am looking for an explanation of why I have installed apps that don’t seem to be connected to anything. Where do they come from?

But at least I know how to get rid of them now.

7

Twilight Zone?

http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/dntknw.gif

8

LOL! That’s what I wanna know!

9

You may never know. It’s more likely than not the additional instantiations of those apps came from a server side glitch. Like I said, twilight zone.