Alexa Routines stopped working

[jca001]

I have Insteon Motion Sensors at my front and side doors. When motion is detected an ISY program runs and sets a state variable and waits for 15 minutes. The state variable is set in the ISY Portal so Alexa sees it as a Motion Sensor. When set to 1, Alexa announces there has been motion at the front and/or side door on several echos. This has been working for many months, until last Saturday. The wife really likes this, especially when she is in the basement and may not hear the door bell.

If I access the Alexa App on my smart phone it shows the motion sensor device as active, but the Alexa Routine does not run, no announcement. I even tried just making it only turn on a light in case there was a problem with making announcements. The light did not turn on, again like the routine did not run at all.

I reported this to Alexa Support and naturally they had me cycle (unplug and plug in) each of the echos, delete the Alexa Routines and create them again. All of which I had already done before contacting them. They have escalated the problem to development, that was 2 days ago, but it still has not been fixed.

So is anybody else using Alexa Routines and are they having problems?

Note: I have another Alexa Routine that is voice activated and it works. It seems to only be the one that are activated by motion sensors. I also have several lights and fans controlled by voice that works, so I know Alexa is able to communicate through the ISY Portal to my ISY.

 

[bmercier]

I have Insteon Motion Sensors at my front and side doors. When motion is detected an ISY program runs and sets a state variable and waits for 15 minutes. The state variable is set in the ISY Portal so Alexa sees it as a Motion Sensor. When set to 1, Alexa announces there has been motion at the front and/or side door on several echos. This has been working for many months, until last Saturday. The wife really likes this, especially when she is in the basement and may not hear the door bell.
If I access the Alexa App on my smart phone it shows the motion sensor device as active, but the Alexa Routine does not run, no announcement. I even tried just making it only turn on a light in case there was a problem with making announcements. The light did not turn on, again like the routine did not run at all.
I reported this to Alexa Support and naturally they had me cycle (unplug and plug in) each of the echos, delete the Alexa Routines and create them again. All of which I had already done before contacting them. They have escalated the problem to development, that was 2 days ago, but it still has not been fixed.
So is anybody else using Alexa Routines and are they having problems?
Note: I have another Alexa Routine that is voice activated and it works. It seems to only be the one that are activated by motion sensors. I also have several lights and fans controlled by voice that works, so I know Alexa is able to communicate through the ISY Portal to my ISY.
 

Try to delete the routine and create a new routine using the same ‘virtual’ motion sensor.

Benoit


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jca001]

Quote

I reported this to Alexa Support and naturally they had me cycle (unplug and plug in) each of the echos, delete the Alexa Routines and create them again. All of which I had already done before contacting them.

The above was in my original post.

And I did it again while talking to them on Chat.

I have even done it again since then and still have the problem.

I really think the problem is on their end and is why I was asking if other have had the same problem so they can report the problem too. Thinking the more that report it the more likely somebody will take a closer look at something that is common and not just with my account.

As I said looking at the smartphone App I can see when the virtual motion sensor indicate there is motion, but the routine does not run.

[auger66]

I have a variable to control an Alexa routine. It still works; however, . . .

It has always had variable timing on the execution. It can be anywhere from 1 second, 3-6 seconds, or occasionally not at all.

It's not the ISY. The variable changes instantaneously. 

[jca001]

5 minutes ago, auger66 said:

I have a variable to control an Alexa routine. It still works; however, . . .

It has always had variable timing on the execution. It can be anywhere from 1 second, 3-6 seconds, or occasionally not at all.

It's not the ISY. The variable changes instantaneously. 

Are you using the ISY Portal and have the variable there defined as a Motion Sensor?

As I said I can see the Motion Sensor status change on the smartphone App, maybe in 1 - 2 seconds, but the routine does not seem to run.

I wish there was more status information about the routine, like it is running (in case you have a wait), the last time it ran if it is not currently active, the number of time it has run.

[auger66]

1 hour ago, jca001 said:

Are you using the ISY Portal and have the variable there defined as a Motion Sensor?

Yes

 

[TexMike]

FYI, my experience posted in Alexa routine FAQ. I had to use a different account.

On 7/8/2019 at 3:31 PM, TexMike said:

I set up several Alexa speak routines and all were working fine for months until recently when I noticed I wasn't getting announcements. Started trouble shooting - When I change my Alexa speak variable in ISY the corresponding motion detector shows motion so ISY to Alexa communication is working and I can use Alexa spokens to change ISY devices. When I manually execute routines in the Alexa app the Echo announcements work. So I scratched my head for a while and on a whim I disabled a routine and reenabled it and it started working. I had to do this to all my Alexa speak routines although they were showing enabled. Any one else encounter this?

Update: Worked for a while and now stopped again and nothing I try works, tried disabling/enabling ISY skill which seemed like a stretch because Alexa motion detectors are seeing motion when I change ISY variable. Seems routines are not running when motion status changes because I have a test routine when I say this, Alexa says that and it works fine. Ideas?

Update2: Thought I would take Alexa speak out of the picture, so created a routine to turn on a light based on virtual motion detector and again virtual motion detector shows motion, but light doesn't turn on. Manually running the routine turns light on. I realize this is not an ISY problem since the portal is doing its job and turning on motion. Any ideas from the community? Since this thread hasn't seen activity in a while, tagging @bmercier 

Update3: In case anyone cares or encounters the same problem. Tried Amazon support since that is where the problem occurs, said they turned it over to development, but no solution yet. I decided to try my wife's Alexa account since she also has access to the ISY portal skill and it worked fine in her account. So for now I recreated my 20 or so Alexa speak routines in her account and Alexa is chatty again. 

Mike

 

[jca001]

15 hours ago, auger66 said:

Yes

 

Mine is setup for (Detect:1) because when the ISY is reboot the variable will default to 0 unless you have an init value defined.

 

[jca001]

@TexMike

I did a lot of Googling and came across several post about this type of problem and some had (Amazon Personal) stating it was reported to development and then later stating it was resolved, but nothing about what the real problem and solution was. And follow up post stating the OP was still having the problem, and then nothing. Most were last year or earlier this year, but nothing for the last week or so.

Your solution was to use a different account, so that sounds like it may be something specific to an account and not an over all problem affecting everybody.

So I wonder if it related to an option that accidentally got changed or defaulted after some update and need to be changed, some count of something being done, etc?

Did you get any response from others in the other forum stating they were having the same type of problem?

Since this was back in July, have you tried setting up things in your account again to see if something changed?

 

[TexMike]

It's been a while since I tried it in my account, so I just did and it still doesn't work. I didn't get any feedback in the other forum. Amazon support said they captured logs and turned over to development, I followed up a couple of times with no result and then lost interest because I found the workaround by using a different account. The only thing I can think of is the problem started around the time that I got a Ring doorbell. Before I figured out that I could simply use the Ring Alexa skill to announce motion and ring, I was using an Alexa speak routine. During testing I'm sure I caused a lot of activity in a short amount of time. Perhaps that caused the problem, just a guess. If an account gets disabled because of excessive activity it seems that would have been easy for Amazon support to see and reset, but maybe I'm giving Amazon support too much credit:-)

@jca001 thanks for the interest.

Mike