IT Solutions

Good to know. Thank you. Just saw a change to the run timer, followed by a zone turning off, followed by a change to the zone count, followed by and email, followed by a change to the run timer, so right now things are running great.

1. I did not know this, but closing and opening it did clear up those issues. Are there any know cases of the Admin Console being open causing problems with ISY programs running correctly? 2. Thank you for this suggestion. I have done this and did not find anything that should not be there. I have logging setup and have taken off the rule where it only sends every 5 minutes until this problem is found.

@kclenden & @MrBill Thank you for your posts. When I tried to click on Tools in the Admin Console and nothing happened then tried to backup the ISY and it did not work, I closed the admin console and reopened it and it is now working as expected now. I disabled the delay timer and let the system run on just turning on the floor heat when 4 zones were on and it ran fine all night, but this morning the zone counts were not matching what was violated on the ELK, again. We are definitely dealing with multiple problems. It is working now so not much I can do to troubleshoot it. I did manually change a thermostat to change the ELK zone and monitored the traffic from the ELK to the ISY and when I tested it, everything was working correctly. I will test the communication with the ELK again next time the counts are off. Thank you for your help on this.

@MrBill We got burned on a folder rule last month so definitely no folder rules. I checked again after your post and no folder rules. We have 6 programs that check 6 different ELK Zones. They are all the same except for the Zone they check and the integer they change. 1=Violated; 0=Secure. Here is one of them: FH Garage - [ID 000A][Parent 000F] If Elk Zone 'Fl Heat Garage' is Violated And Elk Zone 'Fl Heat Garage' is not Normal Then $I.FH.LLGarage = 1 $S.FH.Zone.Count += 1 Else $I.FH.LLGarage = 0 $S.FH.Zone.Count -= 1 With my understanding of ISY, when the zone becomes violated, the THEN should run, the integer should change to 1 and the zone count should increment by one. At this point, the program should show green on the left since THEN ran last. When the zone is no longer violated (secure), the ELSE should run, the integer should change to 0 and the zone count should go down by one. It works most of the time, but not all the time. We need it to work all the time. We have zones that are violated but showing 0, not 1. The Zone count is frequently off, but it only changes in these programs. We only see two statuses for these zones, Normal or Violated. We are having an issue with another program: Turn ON Floor Heat When Delay is LE Zero - [ID 001E][Parent 0010] If $S.Floor.Heat.Delay <= 0 And Elk Zone 'Outside Temp' 'Temperature' < 55° And $S.FH.Zone.Count > 0 Then Set Elk Output 'Floor Heat Contr' On Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') There is a delay timer that counts down from 50 to zero. When it hits zero the above program should run. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. or maybe it runs, but the ISY does not turn on the ELK output. Other programs are triggered by the ELK output getting turned on, and they don't get triggered. I can add an email to the above program to see if it is running, but the ELK output is not turning on. We get status emails whenever the zone count changes (but not more than once every 5 minutes) so I can see the Delay counter counting down way below zero, the outside temperature is in the 20s or 30s, and the Zone Count is more than zero, but the above program does not run. Any ideas on these? This is getting very frustrating. Thank you.

@MrBillThank you for that information. If I right click on a program that has green on the left and click Run Else, it should run the Else part of the program and turn red, right? I tried that and it does not run the else part of the program (a variable does not change). I also tried right click on a program that has red on the left and Run Then. It did run the then (value changed), but it did not turn green. Is there something one must do to refresh the screen to see the color changes? Thank you.

We know solid green means the program is running. A green arrow means the program has changes that need to be saved. We are not sure what the red and green shades on the left indicate? Thank you.

@wdhille Thank you for that information. I just ordered a Gen5 Siren, exactly what @Bumbershoot has that is working. Hopefully something will work for us. @Bumbershootdo you have metal doors? Metal doors area big problem with these locks.

@Bumbershoot Thank you. I ordered a Aeotec version 6 and version 7 repeater to try. I'll let everyone know how that goes.

@Bumbershoot Would you please share the exact model number of the repeater you are using that works with Schlage locks. Thank you.

Yes, but every time there is a change to programs that run at startup, a reboot should be done to test them. We have a hard rule, "If you haven't tested it; it doesn't work."

@larryllix That is what we do, except we don't clear the counter as that is our confirmation that all 6 ran. The counter clears at reboot.

In my case I need the first 6 programs to run as quickly as possible, then the 7th to run immediately after them, before other values have a chance to change. Thus the count up to 6 and go with #7. I figure the first six are done in around a second. Different needs require different solutions.

Things don't always run exactly in order. For example, see the program below. The first wait 10 seconds was added because another program that turned on the floor heat output to trigger this program also sends an email that includes $I.FH.ON.or.OFF. Sometimes the value in the email would be wrong because the next line in this program would change it before the email was created. The second wait ten seconds was added for the same reason. The Send Notification right before that sends $S.Foor.Heat.Run.Timer and it was sending 0 even though we know it was not 0. Adding the wait allowed the email to get sent with the correct value before resetting it to zero. We also have programs that run on startup that need to run in order. The first 6 need to run (does not matter what order), then after they are done, the 7th needs to run. For the first 6 we add one to a Integer Variable in each program, then trigger the last program to run when the integer changes to 6 so it runs after the first 6 are done. Floor Heat ON/OFF Actions and Timer - [ID 0011][Parent 0015] If Elk Output 'Floor Heat Contr' is On And Elk Output 'Floor Heat Contr' is not Off Then Wait 10 seconds $I.FH.ON.or.OFF = 1 $I.FH.Daily.Cycle.Count += 1 $I.FH.Daily.Cycle.Count Init To $I.FH.Daily.Cycle.Count Send Notification to 'ELk Logs' content 'Floor Heat ON' Wait 10 seconds $S.Floor.Heat.Run.Timer = 0 Wait 40 seconds Repeat Every 1 minute $S.Floor.Heat.Run.Timer += 1 $I.FH.Daily.Run.Time += 1 // // Only Save This Program When it is NOT Running // Else $I.FH.ON.or.OFF = 0 Send Notification to 'ELk Logs' content 'Floor Heat OFF'

LOL! This exactly why we maintain two data centers that we 100% control and have many layered security protocols to keep "the cloud" out. I do not enable remote access on the ISY. If we want to access it remotely, we will control that through my firewall. We also use ELK M1Gs because they are NOT controlled by "the cloud". When customers ask me about "the cloud", I ask them, "You mean like AOL email?" After all, AOL Email is "in the cloud". Cloud services have their uses, but they are not for everyone. If one is looking for security, the cloud is NOT the place to go.

@wdhille After your post, we gave up on using Schlage locks with Z-Wave repeaters. Thank you for convincing us to stop throwing in good money after bad. Are you able to get the two ISYs to work together so you can add programs into one ISY that controls a lock that is talking to the other ISY? Do you have any issues with the two different Z-Wave networks conflicting, or are they too far apart for that? We have 3 Schlage locks and because of metal doors, we would need three ISYs, one for each lock, to be able to control them. Two could be in electronics closets, but the 3rd would need to be in the garage to have line of site to the inside of the lock where the Z-Wave is located. Definitely less than ideal.

@DennisC Delivery speed by email will vary greatly depending on what you are using for the SMTP server, and also your inbound email. If you are going email to text, then a backlog on texts at your cell phone carrier can cause delays. If you are getting notifications in seconds, you are doing very well. One option we are considering is Pushover for "general" notifications, followed by an email with more details. Since either Pushover or email could be down (or delayed) at any point in time, using two different services increases the probability of getting prompt notifications.

@MrBill @DennisC Thank you both for all the help. There is a lot to absorb here. We have Pushover working for simple notifications. Now we need to build the programs to push the details of the alarms. I think notifications by area is the best way to deal with this. We have five areas that can trigger a burglar alarm and about forty sensors total (that are alarm sensors). We have more that are not alarm sensors. Separating by area makes this more manageable. @DennisCWhat are you using for Push Notifications? Thank you.

@Michel Kohanim Yes, I understand that, but if a single event means Programs A & B need to run, and we need A to run before B, then we need a way to control that. @DennisCI think this will work, thank you. In traditional programming, Program 2 would be referred to as a subroutine, but since it does not return back to program 1 when completed, it is more similar to a GOTO statement in Basic. Wow, that brings back some really old memories.

@DennisC Arm and disarm are straight forward to deal with as they are each a single event. We want a push notification for a Burglar Alarm with what zone triggered the alarm, then another push notification for each zone tripped while in alarm state so we know exactly where they are in the building as they move through the building. This is not to straight forward. Since you have an ELK and know ISY better than us, maybe we can work on this together.

@DennisC Thank you for the link. What I am seeing here references execution within a program. Since there does not appear to be away to have and If Then If in a single program, we need to use multiple programs. For this we need to make sure they execute in the correct order. If Program #2 starts before Program #1 is completed, the values Program #2 is using may not be correct. Does this make sense?

@DennisC Thank you for the ideas. Only reporting the one zone that was violated would require a different push notification for each zone. That is a lot of Network Resources to setup. Reporting every zone in every push notification would be a lot to read to find the zone that was violated. The best solution we have come up with is to monitor and repot by area. We have four different areas and each zone is assigned to the area. When an alarm triggers in an area we report all zones in that area. There are still timing issues we need to deal with. For example, the first zone that is violated triggers the alarm. When it triggers, the information we receive from the Elk is no different than when it triggers when the system is not armed, so we can't trigger an action just on that. By the time the Burglar Alarm notification is sent, we process that, and the push notification is sent, the zone that triggered the the alarm may or may not still be violated. If it is a motion detector, that will depend on the latch time on the detector and if the person is still trigger it. if it is a door, that will depend on if they closed the door after entering or not. On a door entry, there is likely an entry delay before the alarm triggers. Lots of different issues to deal with. We are hoping someone has already done this in ISY and can share their solution. Thank you for your thoughts on this.

Good Morning Forum Members, I have been programming computers for almost 50 years (I started in grade school), and have worked with a variety of different languages from Basic to Machine Code. ISY is not like anything I have worked with in the past. I showed it to a friend that does imbedded work it wasn't like anything he had worked with either. ISY is very powerful, but takes some getting used to. In a traditional programming language what ISY calls a "Program" would be called a statement. Statements in a program run in the order they appear in the program (this is very over simplified). I am working on adding programs to ISY to track the high and low temperature for the day by poling the outside temperature probe every XX minutes, then updating the high and low for the day (if needed). To do this, I need to make sure the poling of the outside temperature happens right before the updates to the high and low. One way to do this would be to have the program that poles for the temperature set a state variable to 1 at the end of the program, then have the next program trigger on the state variable being 1, then it would change it to 2, then the next program triggers on 2, etc., Is there a better way to do this? Thank you.

@MrBill Thanks for the idea and example. We do that with temperatures and the floor heat zones, but there are about 40 zones for doors, windows, motion detectors, etc. That would be a lot to look through to find the one that matters.

Thanks @MrBill We have used those, but we would have to pole each zone to check status. We tripped the alarm and the ISY got: Motion Violated Motion Open Burglar Alarm (with Area) Motion Normal Motion Short Area Disarmed (entered code to turn off the alarm) We need to know what zone tripped the alarm, but that happens BEFORE the alarm notification is sent. Then we would want to know each zone that trips after the alarm so we know where they are in the building. When I trip the same motion detector and the area is not armed, we get the same Violated, Open, Normal, Short so we can't trigger off just that. Plus there are a lot of zones, so we would need a different program and different Network Resource configuration for each zone. Hopefully someone with an ELK and an ISY has this figured out.

Thank You @MrBill We have alarms coming from an ELK. We have a rule that starts with Elk Area 'Garage' 'Alarm State' is Burglar Alarm Then Resource 'Burglar Alarm'. How do we get the information of what Zone triggered the Alarm? We can get the zone status, zone name, etc. for each zone, but we need to know what zone triggered the alarm without creating a whole bunch of programs to check each zone.