Multiple Partitions and Zone Connected to keypads Not showin

[apostolakisl]

I had ioguy's nodelink running great on a pc for many years.  Well, I had an issue with that PC and had to redo it.  I am not able to reinstall nodelink and it doesn't seem like anyone has the answer for how to reinstall nodelink now that ioguy has taken the downloads offline.

Anyway, I had to shorten password to 6 characters and now it connects.

However, I have two partitions setup and a zone connected to a keypad and neither of those are showing up.  I know that they can be controlled/queried because nodelink worked with all of that.  

Does this node not have the capacity to see these things or do I need to do something?

 

EDIT: Also using the command outputs.  but am not have any success.  There is an "activate" but no "deactivate".  I need to be able to turn the toggle the output on and off.

EDIT 2:  OK, it looks like the button "activate output" toggles the output.  But the status always says "active" once you have hit the button the first time and never changes after that.

EDIT 3:  Also, I have noticed that the partition state is not updating to "ready".  For example, I armed the system, it changed to "exit delay", then I disarmed the system, and it continued to say "exit delay".  I then opened a door and it changed to "not ready", I closed the door, and it still says "not ready".

EDIT 4: Also not getting the last arming/disarming user.  I armed then disarmed it from the keypad and it continue to say "0".

@Goose66

Edited Monday at 08:17 PM by apostolakisl

[Goose66]

First, a caveat: I no longer have a DSC alarm panel with an EnvisaLink so I have no way to test changes or updates to this plugin anymore. 

That said, the installation/configuration instructions for the plugin are here: 

https://goose66.github.io/nsdocs/evldsc-pg3.md

Answers to many of these questions may be found there. Spcifically:

1. The EnvisaLink does not provide a way to retrieve the panel configuration. You must configure the number of zones and partitions in the Custom Configuration Parameters, if different from the defaults. You must set the number of zones to include the zone number of the keypad connected zone, even if there are not intervening zones.

2. The command outputs came be configured on your panel to be in toggle mode or on/off mode, depending on your panel series. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, there is no way to retrieve the configuration from the panel. So the plugin only support command outputs came activation, which toggles the command output on and then off based on the configuration of the panel. Once activated, the EnvisaLink will never clear the active status, so if always says active.

3. For partition state and zone statuses, this all worked several years ago, when I was using it, so I can’t really provide any insight on what may be happening without seeing any logs. But I will say it may just work differently from NodeLink, so if you can recreate a set of conditions and generate a log file in “Debug” mode, I can tell you if it is working as designed or not.

4. If the partition state never returns to ready when disarmed, this may be why the last disarming user is not set.

Edited Tuesday at 12:47 AM by Goose66

[apostolakisl]

@Goose66

Thank you for the response.  I missed where it said I had to configure the number of partitions/zones.  I didn't have to do that with nodelink and just assumed it pulled it down.  I added those and it appears to be good.

When I am back onsite I will see about the last user and the status going back to ready.  Currently the system is armed and it says that.  But it says 0 for the last user.

[hart2hart]

I used nodelink and moved to envisalink-DSC a couple years ago. It does update status and last user.

[apostolakisl]

@Goose66

For whatever reason, it has started reporting last user now.  The cleaning crew showed up and their code reported. Perhaps it doesn't report the user until the exit delay is finished.  I armed and disarmed without allowing it to finish the exit delay when testing. I still can't say about reporting "ready".  I also rebooted polisy so maybe that did something.

However, there is one thing that is really important to a bunch of my programs that seems to be missing.  And that is status "disarmed".  Is there any chance this could be added?  I suppose I could go through and put "not armed" and "not exit delay" and not "entry delay" and not so on but that is really sloppy.  Since nodelink had "disarmed" I assume that is something that is reported.

Nodelink also had a heartbeat which was very helpful for me to know if something was going wrong with the system or internet or whatever.

EDIT: Actually, I don't think it would work right using the "not" statements.  I get notifications when the system specifically becomes disarmed from an armed state as well as turning the water on and some other things.  

 

thx

Edited Tuesday at 02:42 AM by apostolakisl

[GTench]

@apostolakisl

Not sure if this will help but this is how I check for armed status:

https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/41305-installed-and-working-but-couple-items/#findComment-367200

 

[apostolakisl]

34 minutes ago, GTench said:

@apostolakisl

Not sure if this will help but this is how I check for armed status:

https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/41305-installed-and-working-but-couple-items/#findComment-367200

 

Thanks for that.  Not sure I want to do this as I am already using pgm outputs for other things.  Since nodelink had right in the node server "disarmed" it seems like that should be something that the pg3 node can do as well.  The disarmed item in nodelink worked perfectly for 12 years now.  I just have a whole bunch of things that triggered on the system becoming disarmed.

I tried "not armed away", but that didn't work because it didn't trigger on disarming, it triggered on entry delay.  And putting two lines in there for "not armed away" and "not entry delay" doesn't work because many of my programs also run an else clause which would falsely trigger.

I guess I may be able to make a state variable and use that to track disarmed vs armed status and use that to trigger the programs.  But I would really prefer "disarmed" like nodelink.

[apostolakisl]

@Goose66

 

Still having issues with system status not updating. System was armed, my staff came in at 7:09 and it updated to entry delay. They disarmed but that did not register in the node. Logged into envisalink and it showed system ready. Restarted the node but it still shows entry delay. Not sure how the node is supposed to get updated but it sometimes fails. I never experienced that with nodelink so I don't think it has anything to do with envisalink or my panel. 

Using a variable to track armed states I seem to have worked out "disarmed" as a trigger, but only if the node accurately tracks system state. 

The water supply turns on when the system disarms via isy. This did not happen. The node showed the zone that tracks valve status as closed. I manually triggered the cmd output that opens the valve and the node registered the zone change. But still it shows entry delay. 

Edit. Just now another person entered the office and the node switched to not ready but never switched to ready after the door closed. Envisalink shows ready. So it seems like perhaps the node is not recognizing ready. 

OF NOTE: In that partition, I have several zones that are not alarm zones.  Not sure if that would have anything to do with it.  But of course DSC is programmed to know those are not alarm zones so it shows "ready" despite those zones being open.  I kind of doubt this has anything to do with it since those zones were violated while the node said "entry delay" but envisalink showed "ready".

Also of note: partition 2 does report "ready".  To the best of my knowledge, partition 1 has never reported "ready".

Edited Wednesday at 03:08 PM by apostolakisl

[Goose66]

As to NodeLink "reading" the number of zones and partitions configured, this is not a feature of the TPI (API) presented by the EnvisaLink, so don't know how it was doing that.

Similarly, a status of "Disarm" vs. "Ready/Not Ready" is simply a difference in the way the EnvisaLink-DSC plugin is designed vs. NodeLink. The EnvisaLink sends a "partition disarmed" command but that's generally immediately followed by a "partition ready" or "partition not-ready" command. Perhaps NodeLink handled these states separately.

The Plugin does send a heartbeat every few minutes. From the document linked above:

Quote

5. The plugin sends an AWAKE command (heartbeat) to the Alarm Panel node every four minutes (when the keepalive is received from the alarm panel). You can check for this in a program on the ISY to monitor the connection. There is also an "Alarm Panel Connected" driver value that reflects whether the connection to the EnvisaLink/alarm panel is active, but this may not get updated if the plugin fails.

Don't know about "non-Alarm Zones" - never experienced or tested that. Perhaps you should try specifically bypassing these. I will try and take a look at the log files tonight to figure out why the partition never goes to "Ready".

[apostolakisl]

1 hour ago, Goose66 said:

As to NodeLink "reading" the number of zones and partitions configured, this is not a feature of the TPI (API) presented by the EnvisaLink, so don't know how it was doing that.

Similarly, a status of "Disarm" vs. "Ready/Not Ready" is simply a difference in the way the EnvisaLink-DSC plugin is designed vs. NodeLink. The EnvisaLink sends a "partition disarmed" command but that's generally immediately followed by a "partition ready" or "partition not-ready" command. Perhaps NodeLink handled these states separately.

The Plugin does send a heartbeat every few minutes. From the document linked above:

Don't know about "non-Alarm Zones" - never experienced or tested that. Perhaps you should try specifically bypassing these. I will try and take a look at the log files tonight to figure out why the partition never goes to "Ready".

It would be real nice if the "disarmed" output from envisalink was run through even if it is immediately followed by a status such as ready or not ready.  I have it working by using a variable.

But the main issue and I sent you a PM, is that the "ready" state is never happening on partition 1.  It always shows whatever immediately proceeded the ready state.

Regarding heartbeat.  I am accostomed to that showing as alternating 1 and -1 and use a program that runs continuously in with a wait that gets reset by the value changing.  How is this working?  I see "panel connected" in the programming, is that just always 1 when connected and not really a "heartbeat" in the sense of a "beat" between 1 and -1?