A way to cleanly shutdown Polisy via ISY program?

[johnnyt]

With the upcoming time change this weekend, I'd like to shutdown Polisy cleanly at 1:59 AM using an ISY program. Unless there's a better way, I think I need a way to run "sudo shutdown -h now" remotely. Is there a way to do that, or another alternative?

For completeness of story, I have a Web Switch that's controllable via ISY Network Resource that can run a script to power off outlet for Polisy, wait 2 mins, then power it on again. That's what I would do with my 994i and it always recovered fine, but given the complexity/fragility of things now, I really don't want to power cycle a running Polisy unless I absolutely have to. 

 

[Geddy]

@johnnyt May I ask what's the reason to power it down at that time? 

No clue about being able to have a program to try to power it down. Why not just leave it on like every other night?

[johnnyt]

In >10 yrs of having ISY, time change has never gone well for me (and others too). Not sure why (and not saying it doesn't work for some) but I gave up just letting it happen a couple years ago. A restart after 2:00 AM eliminates all the problems.

[Geddy]

@johnnyt understood. I've suffered similar issues, but never thought that I'd need to turn the device off for the time change. If a reboot is all that might be needed just have your plug reboot it after the time change. Sure it might be better to go through a shutdown process, but unless it's on a UPS it would be just like if the power went off. It should typically recover. Otherwise, just turn it off for the night and back on the next morning.

I know Michel has said he doesn't have time to monitor all the forums these days so if you think this process is necessary it might be worth asking UDI directly in a support ticket to see if possible to complete what you're wanting to do.

https://www.universal-devices.com/my-tickets

[johnnyt]

@Geddy I don't want a 8+ hour outage as my system controls my HVAC and morning alarm clocks but I can live with a 2 min outage in the interest of all my programs continuing to run properly.

Yes, my Polisy is on a UPS, plus I have a generator so technically my Polisy is able to run 24/7/365 except for upgrades and the 2 min outages twice a year for time changes (that I could probably reduce to something like 20 secs if I wanted to).

I actually also would love the ability to cleanly shutdown or restart my Polisy programmatically or by using  REST call for other than time change reasons.

So while it's not clean, yes, I can do a power cycle but is it 100% safe to do that? Unlike with 994i, there's an OS, PG3x, and IoX stuff that has to live through it a "crash". Only one of those has to end up corrupted to cause problems.

 

[johnnyt]

If you didn't believe me, have a look at the posts about DST change issues in IoX 5.7.0 Support today, the day after DST ended. This is from people who bothered to post. Suspect many just rebooted their system and didn't have time to post.

Edited November 5, 2023 by johnnyt

[Geddy]

@johnnyt oh, I believed you all along (I even said "I've suffered similar issues"). I just don't have anything so major that depends on time to do stuff. My HVAC works independent of eisy, but does report state and status, but I don't rely on the eisy to control it. I don't have eisy handle alarm clocks (that's just crazy to consider (IMO)...I use my phone for that or an actual alarm clock - I must be "old school"). 

This time I just have the UI issue showing the sunset/sunrise time off by an hour, but no programs had issues running and nothing went too crazy on my system so it was basically a non-event for me. It wasn't until others were posting that they noticed the times were displayed wrong that I went to see and experienced the same issue. Hope your system survived whatever you attempted!

[johnnyt]

This year for fun I disabled my web switch call and let things go through. The following problems occured:

1. Programs that are counters, i.e. increment a variable every minute, stop running. This time was no different and is a long standing issue. I suspect it affects all programs that are waiting when the time change occurs but I haven't been awake looking at my AC at 2:00:01 to catch that first hand.

2. I don't remember this from years ago when I would let things run through but this time I ended up with no (i.e. blank) "Last Run Time" and "Last Finish Time" for anything before the time change. This despite IoX having been running for well over a month since last reboot and not seeing any evidence of a restart. There should have still been a ton of programs with last run time going back a month+

I'm still looking for a way to remotely shutdown my Polisy safely so if anyone can help with that, it would be greatly appreciated.

[gregkinney]

I've never done it so this is all theoretical, but you could schedule a python script to run that would SSH into the Polisy and execute that command line. This could be done via a PC that is kept on 24/7 or through a Raspberry Pi.

[Ross]

@johnnyt

I have had DST issues in the past, but I didn't this month.  Maybe it's only the "Spring Forward" time that I have issues.

However, I do occasionally  have an issue where my Polisy and ISY stop talking to each other if I have a power outage.

I bought 2 Kasa plugs and plugged the ISY and Polisy into each.  Kasa has a simple app to turn the plugs off/on. 

I was recently in Japan and received an alert that my house had a momentary power outage.  And afterwards, my Polisy wasn't talking to my ISY (I could tell that the weather info wasn't being updated).  I simply opened the Kasa app, turned the Polisy off, waited 1 minute, turned it on - and all was well again.

Just a note that I first turned the ISY off/on, but that didn't change the situation.  So, maybe the Kasa plug only needs to be used on the Polisy.

I believe there is a Kasa node server - so what I did above might be able to be automated through an ISY program.  However, I like the app just in case the ISY needs a hard reboot as well.

Ross

Edited November 26, 2023 by Ross