How to receive errors and alerts via email? (email notification is already set up)

[palacekeeper]

I have the email notification feature already set up and working, and the test messages come through fine. What I'd like to do next is to have the system send me emails whenever there is an error or alert that warrants attention.

Is there an easy way to do this? Maybe select level of severity as to which types of alerts to receive via email?

Thanks!

[MrBill]

1 hour ago, palacekeeper said:

I have the email notification feature already set up and working, and the test messages come through fine. What I'd like to do next is to have the system send me emails whenever there is an error or alert that warrants attention.

Is there an easy way to do this? Maybe select level of severity as to which types of alerts to receive via email?

Thanks!

Unfortunately, you will need to create programs that send "notifications"  There is no "error level" logic that you are looking for.   Even if there were, that would only be able to tell you about device issues, for which there are few.  The Notifications feature is so that you can decide which automations notify you about what.

[palacekeeper]

Okay thanks Mr. Bill. I mainly want to know if devices aren't responding so I set up a program for that. Thanks for the tip.

[palacekeeper]

Another quick question on this. Where do I look up the error codes? For example, I got both error 0 and error 1 for a device, but I don't know what the actual alert means. Often in the computer world, error code 0 = no error, but that wouldn't make sense here because my program was set to alert if a device was unresponsive. So basically, I got errors 0 and 1 both assumedly because the device was unresponsive - but the device seemed to be working fine. Any ideas? Thanks!

Test Error Notifications

 

ERR 0 received at 2021/11/07 11:18:04 PM.

 

----------------------------------------

 

     At: 2021/11/07 11:18:04 PM

Program: Test Error Notifications

 Device: Screened Porch Railing Lights (ZW002_1)

  Value: 0

 

[MrBill]

17 hours ago, palacekeeper said:

Another quick question on this. Where do I look up the error codes? For example, I got both error 0 and error 1 for a device, but I don't know what the actual alert means. Often in the computer world, error code 0 = no error, but that wouldn't make sense here because my program was set to alert if a device was unresponsive. So basically, I got errors 0 and 1 both assumedly because the device was unresponsive - but the device seemed to be working fine. Any ideas? Thanks!

Test Error Notifications

 

ERR 0 received at 2021/11/07 11:18:04 PM.

 

----------------------------------------

 

     At: 2021/11/07 11:18:04 PM

Program: Test Error Notifications

 Device: Screened Porch Railing Lights (ZW002_1)

  Value: 0

 

Please post your program, its hard to guess.   (right click the program name, copy to clipboard, paste)

If this is indeed a z-wave device returning 0 or 1 you'd need to check the devices  documentation for the meaning.

[larryllix]

14 minutes ago, palacekeeper said:

Okay thanks. Here is the program:

<?xml version="1.0" ?><triggers><d2d><trigger><id>3</id><name>Test Error Notifications</name><snipped>

 

 

To post a program, right click on it's name in the program tree (list) on the left of the admin console. Select "copy to clipboard" and then paste same into your post.

[palacekeeper]

5 minutes ago, larryllix said:

To post a program, right click on it's name in the program tree (list) on the left of the admin console. Select "copy to clipboard" and then paste same into your post.

My bad. I picked export to clipboard by mistake! Basically I just have it polling all devices once per day to see if they are not responding. There is probably a more efficient way to do this, but I was just trying to quickly test out the functionality. Here is the correct info, thx:

 

Test Error Notifications - [ID 0003][Parent 0001]

If
        Time is Sunset  + 10 minutes
    And 'Back Yard Flood Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Bar Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Basement Door Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Cat Box Floor Lamp' Responding is False
     Or 'Cat Room Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Climacell Weather' NodeServer Online is False
     Or 'Curio Cabinet' Responding is False
     Or 'Family Room Floor Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Family Room Large Table Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Family Room Small Table Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Fireplace Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Fish Tank' Responding is False
     Or 'Foyer Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Foyer Outlet' Responding is False
     Or 'Front Lamp Post' Responding is False
     Or 'Gallery Small Table Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Gallery Table Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Globe' Responding is False
     Or 'Guest Room Table Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Hutch Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Kitchen Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Landscape Lights Left - Front' Responding is False
     Or 'Landscape Lights Patio - Back' Responding is False
     Or 'Landscape Lights Right Side' Responding is False
     Or 'Laundry Rm Undercabinet Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Living Room Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Master Bedroom Desk Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Master Bedroom Hall Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Master Bedroom Table Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Media Room Back Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Media Room Floor Lamp' Responding is False
     Or 'Media Room Front Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Orchid Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Party Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Pinball Machine' Responding is False
     Or 'Porch Heater' Responding is False
     Or 'Rec Room Floor Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Rec Room Small Table Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Screened Porch Flood Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Screened Porch Railing Lights' Responding is False
     Or 'Screened Porch Wall Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Second Guest Room Small Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Server Rack Floor Lamp' Responding is False
     Or 'Upstairs Hallway Table Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Water Fountain' Responding is False
 
Then
        Send Notification to 'Jim Ratsch'
 
Else
   - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')
 

[MrBill]

You need parentheses... your AND and OR's or not being combined as you expect.

Also a time isn't really needed, because when "responding" is a status and the change from true to false will trigger the program.   To test that I Created this program:

AAAAtest - [ID 01D0][Parent 0001]

If
        'LR Lamp 1#' Responding is False
 
Then
        Set 'LR Lamp 2#' On
 
Else
        Set 'LR Lamp 2#' Off

Then I made the device for lamp 1 unavailable.

then I issued query to lamp 1.

At the end of the errors the red ! point appeared in the device tree and Lamp 2 turned on.

If the desire is to ONLY notify at a specific time, the IF body would need to look like this:

AAAAtest - [ID 01D0][Parent 0001]

If
        Time is  9:40:00AM
    And (
             'LR Lamp 1#' Responding is False
          Or 'LR Lamp 2#' Responding is False
          Or 'LR Lamp 3#' Responding is False
        )

--

another thought is that the information regarding the error code is stale... it's whatever the ISY last knew, if the device isn't communicating the ISY can't update the error code from what is stored in the device, what you're seeing is whatever the ISY last received when the device last communicated.

 

[palacekeeper]

Okay thanks for the tips. My goal is just to be made aware of when a device is having trouble communicating, so in a way, the error codes are not that critical. As long as I only get alerts for devices that are having issues, I at least know to go check on that device.

Thanks for the detailed information!

[Geddy]

1 hour ago, palacekeeper said:

My goal is just to be made aware of when a device is having trouble communicating

Are you having an issue with a lot of communication problems? if so, are they Insteon, Z-Wave, or other devices? 

I guess the question really is why go through this much trouble rather than see why there's a communication issue? You shouldn't have problems once things are up and running. If you have a lot of communication issues then you should spend the time and effort finding what's causing that rather than just having a program tell you there's an error.

 

As @MrBill pointed out early on:

On 11/7/2021 at 2:05 PM, MrBill said:

The Notifications feature is so that you can decide which automations notify you about what.

It's taken me a while to figure out that notifications are more meaningful for when things don't happen that are supposed to happen or critical warnings. 

If you're checking for these devices to be "false" it could create a lot of traffic back and forth and you might end up getting bad notifications just because of the amount of communication going to each device.

 

[MrBill]

30 minutes ago, Geddy said:

If you're checking for these devices to be "false" it could create a lot of traffic back and forth and you might end up getting bad notifications just because of the amount of communication going to each device.

It doesn't work that way.  

When a device times out and gets a red ! in front of it's devices name, responding changes to false.  responding is true if there is no red ! in front of the devices name.   The IF statement that OP wrote does not cause communication.

[palacekeeper]

Just to clarify a couple things:

1. I used the admin console to create the program, by adding the devices and and/or statements. I'm not sure why adding it that way would leave out parentheses.

2. Earlier on I did have a few problematic devices or communication issues. Turns out that 2 devices were faulty. On one the z-wave functionality failed altogether. On the other it just didn't work well in a particular location. 

3. My whole goal is just to ensure that the environment is optimized and to monitor it for any issues that may come up or need attention - before a device totally fails if possible. For example, I had a device work for weeks before it failed, but there were communication errors that led up to it, such as lack of replies when being queried. With monitoring, I might have had earlier notice and/or more detailed error info about the issue.

4. I was hoping to have a way to ensure that the mesh is/was optimized - especially after making changes. The update neighbors command runs, but I have no way to tell if it did anything, apparently. I'd like a way to re-run or recalculate the entire mesh, but it doesn't sound like that exists as far as running that command manually. 

5. Since there is no way to optimize the mesh manually, and we just have to trust that all the automagic device communications and mesh calculations are optimized, I thought it would be nice to be notified about errors. And for bonus points, be able to translate those errors into something meaningful. But again, it sounds like it's not quite that simple. 

Bottom line - I've been using Z-wave for quite a while, but not the ISY, so I'm still learning about what it's capable of and where it lacks. I'm not a programmer but it seems to have a lot of functionality building if/then and/or etc. in the console, so I've been using that with a good amount of success so far.

Thanks for all the input - just wanted to provide some more context on what I'm trying to accomplish.

[MrBill]

14 minutes ago, palacekeeper said:

1. I used the admin console to create the program, by adding the devices and and/or statements. I'm not sure why adding it that way would leave out parentheses.

The admin console never adds parenthesis on its own.  You must add them manually by using the buttons I displayed in a screen shot then move them using the line up and down buttons into place.

You have two options:  1) to receive notifications of device errors in real time as they happen just drop the first line from your if statement like this:

If

          'Back Yard Flood Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Bar Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Basement Door Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Cat Box Floor Lamp' Responding is False
          -----Snipped for brevity-----
         

The status of the "Responding" flag changing will trigger an event that makes the IF run.

Or 2) if, on the other hand, you only want the notifications to arrive once a day at sunset +10 min, then you need to press the AND (..) parenthesis button and move the lines that appear into place so that it looks like this:

If
        Time is Sunset  + 10 minutes
    And (
          'Back Yard Flood Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Bar Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Basement Door Light' Responding is False
     Or 'Cat Box Floor Lamp' Responding is False
          -----Snipped for brevity-----
        )

 

I can't provide much feedback on z-wave procedures because I don't use Z-wave, others will also have to provide that feedback...  also this @lilyoyo1 post: