"Hmmm, <device> is not responding." every other command

[sdcrane]

I started getting "device is not responding" about every other command -- only for my ISY devices, not other devices from other systems.

I have been troubleshooting this and cannot figure it out.

Since I had never upgraded to the V3 skill (but never had a problem), I did that, but now after Forgetting All Devices, Enabling/Linking the Skill (successfully), and then Discovering Devices, ALL MY ISY DEVICES ARE DUPLICATED.  They are in my list TWICE -- once with proper case for the "spoken" name with the ISY Address, and once in all lower-case, and just saying the name of the ISY device and "(device)".

Worst of all, I am still getting "Hmmm, <device> is not responding" about half the time -- this did not fix my problem.

Is Alexa "finding" an unknown device -- half the time?  Should I "forget" half of them??  Why is it doing this?

I obviously only have the devices entered ONCE into the isy portal...

Please help -- what am I doing wrong?

See my attachments.

Stuart

[ulrick65]

I have been having the similar "Device Not Responding" for the past week or so...I am trying to figure out if it is Alexa or something else (i have a post here about it)...maybe it is something with Alexa service.

Anyway, I upgraded to V3 a while back and i had the same issue as you.  I thought I had done everything right...but I got duplicates.  I went through the whole process as documented here again and it worked fine.  Are you sure that when you disconncted the old skill, you disabled both the original and V2 (if they both exist?) I don't remember exactly, but it seemed like there was two skills before V3 and I had to disable them both.  Then go into the Alexa App and forget all devices.  I think I also did a "refresh devices" to see what would happen and of course got none.

For some reason, it sounds like Alexa kept your old ones.  All of spoken words would be forced to lowercase in the Portal.  The names that Alexa shows are all working with proper case format for me.  For example Guest Bathroom Vanity is the name in Alexa, but the spoken is guest bathroom vanity.

I would go through it all again and see how it goes.

Thanks.

[sdcrane]

Eric,

Thanks for the info.  It seems like I still have the V2 skill enabled/installed in my Alexa account, however it's NOT listed ANYWHERE in my Alexa "app" -- it's not in my list of the Smart Home Skills, and nowhere in my entire list of skills either -- it's like it doesn't exist, yet it's still enabled on my account!

But, even when I manually "forget", individually, the old (duplicate) devices that are discovered after Discovering Devices, and I only have ONE INSTANCE of each device in my list of smart home devices, I am STILL getting "Device is not Responding" about half the time.  And if I ever do a discover devices again, they'll all come back in. 

I think the fact that I still have V2 "enabled" is what is causing the error.  I need to disable it somehow, but can't figure it out.

Thanks again -- will keep you posted.

Stuart

[sdcrane]

I found the V2 skill, disabled it, got just V3 enabled, and now I no longer have duplicate devices.  Yah.

However, I am STILL getting "device not responding" all the time.

So I'm back to Square 1 -- I have no idea how to fix these errors -- seem to get them 2 out of every 3 commands -- Alexa keeps saying "Hmmm, <device> is not responding".  But I will ask again and it will work fine.  What is the difference?

Help!

 

[garybixler]

I too have started to get the "device not responding" message. Also some slow downs of routines . I notified Amazon about the issue. In the past I was getting sporadic long delays in responses or no responses to routines I had set up. Mostly voice responses.  Now like then I told them that their servers for my area are under powered.  I see we are all from the same general area. I could be wrong about this but in the past the problem cleared shortly after my issue was escalated up to their engineering staff.

Gary

[larryllix]

27 minutes ago, garybixler said:

I too have started to get the "device not responding" message. Also some slow downs of routines . I notified Amazon about the issue. In the past I was getting sporadic long delays in responses or no responses to routines I had set up. Mostly voice responses.  Now like then I told them that their servers for my area are under powered.  I see we are all from the same general area. I could be wrong about this but in the past the problem cleared shortly after my issue was escalated up to their engineering staff.

Gary

My motion sensor (ISY Portal variable pseudo MSes) routines stopped working a few weeks ago. I notified amazon support describing the testing was good to their device status in the app, and how the routine worked fine when tested from the app. I got back a nonsense response about how they need to test these devices right from the ISY program blah, blah, blah.

It seems after weeks of my routines not working, somebody reset something, and my routines suddenly started working again, but amazon support would not admit that. Feedback was mixed thanking them for resetting the routine programs but  telling them to actually read what I posted instead of wasting everybody's time.

 

[sdcrane]

Gary and Larry,

Thanks -- that all makes sense, because there's nothing I can find that is an issue on my end.  Everything works fine within the ISY / ISY portal, etc. -- so it's gotta be something on the Amazon/Alexa side that is out of my control to fix.

So far today I have not gotten any "Device is not responding." error messages -- so hopefully it's resolved!

Stuart

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello all,

There seems to be a bug with the latest forced upgrade of our infrastructure by Amazon. We have identified some the issues and added workarounds. Please do keep us posted with your expectations.

With kind regards,

Michel

[jca001]

Quote

My motion sensor (ISY Portal variable pseudo MSes) routines stopped working a few weeks ago. I notified amazon support describing the testing was good to their device status in the app, and how the routine worked fine when tested from the app. I got back a nonsense response about how they need to test these devices right from the ISY program blah, blah, blah.

It seems after weeks of my routines not working, somebody reset something, and my routines suddenly started working again, but amazon support would not admit that. Feedback was mixed thanking them for resetting the routine programs but  telling them to actually read what I posted instead of wasting everybody's time.

I also have (ISY Portal variable pseudo MS) and several weeks ago they just stopped working. I waited a week to see if they would fix them self (Amazon identify something in general and fix it). But that did not happen and I contacted Amazon Support and have done so each week since. I get the same thing from them (be assured our technical staff is working on your problem and we will contact you when they have a fix). All that really happens is they say my MS must not be working correctly. Then I explain again that looking on the iPhone Amazon Alexa App it shows motion detected for the MS, but the routine still does not run. So that indicates to me that the ISY Portal and Amazon are communicating with each other. I can also manually cause the routine to play from the iPhone Amazon Alexa App and it does what it is supposed to. So that indicates to me there is nothing wrong with the routine.

 

So I will be contacting them again tomorrow to get an update, which I am sure it will be the same.

[larryllix]

Good help must be hard to find that can create a searchable database to read off a monitor. They are all busy typing in smart-*** answers to silly questions coming through Alexa

[ulrick65]

23 hours ago, sdcrane said:

I found the V2 skill, disabled it, got just V3 enabled, and now I no longer have duplicate devices.  Yah.

However, I am STILL getting "device not responding" all the time.

So I'm back to Square 1 -- I have no idea how to fix these errors -- seem to get them 2 out of every 3 commands -- Alexa keeps saying "Hmmm, <device> is not responding".  But I will ask again and it will work fine.  What is the difference?

Help!

 

I am curious, it wasn't showing up in "your skills" right?  So when you say "found it" that means you searched for it and then when you clicked on it it showed as being installed right?  Seems to me that is what I had too.

Glad you got it sorted.  Now we will see if the work arounds Michael mentioned above fix the issue with the device not responding problem.  I have not seen it happen today yet.

[sdcrane]

Yes, good question, and I should clarify ...  First, correct, it (ISY V2 Skill) was NOT showing up ANYWHERE in My Skills or Smart Home Skills or ANYWHERE in the Alexa "app" (web or phone app) -- so at some point later, on a WHIM, I GOOGLED "ISY skill", and it came up as a Google result for the listing on amazon.com!   I clicked the search result link and it was the Amazon.com shopping item (under "Skills") when you use the Amazon shopping store. 

And sure enough, that ISY V2 Skill WAS ENABLED for my account (of course I use the same account for my Amazon shopping as my Alexa stuff -- which was crucial for me to see that it was enabled for my account, and for me to disable it).

So then it was just a matter of clicking the "Disable Skill" button, then forgetting all devices, then doing a discover devices, and after that my duplicate devices under "Smart Home" in the Alexa "app" were gone -- I just have the new "V3" device listings, with the new Proper Case format, Device ID Address, etc.

And YES, the "Device Not Responding" is NOT HAPPENING anymore! -- at least not a single one today -- and I got it hundreds of times yesterday (we use Alexa to control stuff in our house a LOT).

Thanks!!

 

[ulrick65]

Interesting...that probably should get looked at from @Michel Kohanim or someone.  I am guessing that skill is old and for whatever reason not showing up in Alexa Skills anymore...so for anyone else still running it, they will be hard pressed to update to V3 correctly, since it doesn't show up anywhere.  Like I said, when I upgraded (a while ago) I had the same problem, but I am pretty sure that I was able to search for ISY in the overall skills and it showed up there as ENABLED but not in "My Skills" as you said as well.

Now it appears it doesn't even show up in the list at all (I just searched for it and its not there of course).

Good find...if anyone else is still using the V2 skill this will be a good thread to help them out.

[Michel Kohanim]

@ulrick65,

Apologies for the inconvenience. We added Spanish and Portuguese support for our Skill and it kept failing. It should be back online very shortly.

With kind regards,
Michel

[ulrick65]

32 minutes ago, Michel Kohanim said:

@ulrick65,

Apologies for the inconvenience. We added Spanish and Portuguese support for our Skill and it kept failing. It should be back online very shortly.

With kind regards,
Michel

 

Thanks Michel.  I assume you are referring to the current issue we had over the past week (which seems to be fixed now...at least for me, I have not had any issues in 2 days).

The reason I tagged you in my previous post was in regard to this post from @sdcrane about the V2 skill not being able to be turned off because he couldn't find it.  I thought you should look into that in case others have not upgraded to V3 yet, it will cause them the same issue he had (and he was lucky to find a work around).

 

16 hours ago, sdcrane said:

Yes, good question, and I should clarify ...  First, correct, it (ISY V2 Skill) was NOT showing up ANYWHERE in My Skills or Smart Home Skills or ANYWHERE in the Alexa "app" (web or phone app) -- so at some point later, on a WHIM, I GOOGLED "ISY skill", and it came up as a Google result for the listing on amazon.com!   I clicked the search result link and it was the Amazon.com shopping item (under "Skills") when you use the Amazon shopping store. 

And sure enough, that ISY V2 Skill WAS ENABLED for my account (of course I use the same account for my Amazon shopping as my Alexa stuff -- which was crucial for me to see that it was enabled for my account, and for me to disable it).

So then it was just a matter of clicking the "Disable Skill" button, then forgetting all devices, then doing a discover devices, and after that my duplicate devices under "Smart Home" in the Alexa "app" were gone -- I just have the new "V3" device listings, with the new Proper Case format, Device ID Address, etc.

And YES, the "Device Not Responding" is NOT HAPPENING anymore! -- at least not a single one today -- and I got it hundreds of times yesterday (we use Alexa to control stuff in our house a LOT).

Thanks!!

 

Thanks.

[sdcrane]

Yeah -- seems like a tweak is needed, to this:

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY_Portal_Amazon_Echo_Integration_V3#Instructions_for_Existing_Users 

Where it tells you to disable the V2 Skill (and original ISY skill), you might want to mention that the V2 (and original) ISY skill may not show up in the user's Alexa "app" (web or phone), and to find it here instead:

https://www.amazon.com/ISY-Optimized-Smart-Home-V2/dp/B01FGS66D0

That is the only way I was able to find it and disable it.

Once I found that, everything in that "Migrating to V3 - Instructions for Existing Users" Wiki document worked as described.

Stuart

 

[Michel Kohanim]

@sdcrane,

Those are instructions for "migration" to v3. It assumes that V2 is already installed and in the app.

With kind regards,
Michel

[sdcrane]

Yes, exactly @michel, I was "migrating" from V2 to V3 (to attempt to fix the "Device Not Responding" error), and the instructions in the Wiki say to find the V2 skill in your Alexa "app" ... however, the V2 skill is NOT listed there (see my previous posts about this issue -- I spent half a day trying to "migrate" from V2 to V3 because of this problem).

So, we were suggesting that you change the Wiki instructions to add the fact that the V2 skill may not show up in your Alexa "app", so you can find it at this link instead:

https://www.amazon.com/ISY-Optimized-Smart-Home-V2/dp/B01FGS66D0

Let me know if you need further clarification on this issue.  If this information had been in the Wiki, it would have saved me many hours of troubleshooting, duplicated devices, and plenty of frustration.

Thanks!

Stuart
 

[bmercier]

3 hours ago, sdcrane said:

Yes, exactly @michel, I was "migrating" from V2 to V3 (to attempt to fix the "Device Not Responding" error), and the instructions in the Wiki say to find the V2 skill in your Alexa "app" ... however, the V2 skill is NOT listed there (see my previous posts about this issue -- I spent half a day trying to "migrate" from V2 to V3 because of this problem).

So, we were suggesting that you change the Wiki instructions to add the fact that the V2 skill may not show up in your Alexa "app", so you can find it at this link instead:

https://www.amazon.com/ISY-Optimized-Smart-Home-V2/dp/B01FGS66D0

Let me know if you need further clarification on this issue.  If this information had been in the Wiki, it would have saved me many hours of troubleshooting, duplicated devices, and plenty of frustration.

Thanks!

Stuart
 

Thanks for the suggestion, instructions updated.

Benoit