Hunter Douglas shade plugin BETA version 1.13.0

[sjenkins]

Basically rewrote the whole thing as the Python was pretty ugly & while I'm no expert I have come a ways in my journey.

Also, stole shamelessly off a few other more gifted plugin makers.  Thanks to all who make their work public.  @Jimbo.Automates I'm looking at you.

The end result is much more pythonic and readable ; hopefully easier to maintain.  It is MUCH more responsive and less likely to crash ; with the old version did on a regular basis for me.

Saying all that the feature list is very short & really only for the G3 folks.  

1. Small thing, added a node count to the controller node, does not include the controller.  Saw others with it and can be useful as a sanity check.
2. Motion for shades & Active for scenes should be good for use in scenes as controllers and in programs.  In addition the shade actions should work in programs for control in addition to status.
3. The event engine works much more quickly and reliably now, to the point I now pre-populate POLLING with 60s short and 600s long cycle.  The 60s is for G2 updates and does nothing for G3 except restart the event engine if it ever crashes (doesn't seem to anymore).  While the 600s is only for G3 polling and does nothing for G2.  G3 almost doesn't need the polling anymore.  YMMV.
4. G3 scene activation I found was not always being updated by the PowerView gateway.  The app would read correctly but when you went for the active list, it was out of date.  Now I use the active scene event, but I set the active scene by calculating where the shades are.  I also trigger calculations when the shades start or stop movement.  Seems to work MUCH better.  Sorry G2, there is no way to get the underlying shade data for a scene.  I tried.
5. Cleaned up the logs ALOT.  INFO level is more sane now.  Please send me DEBUG level if you have issues.

I have tested a fair bit but I have 15 shades and about the same number of scenes, ONLY G3.  I am most fearful that I broke something for G2.  So I am really really sorry G2 but I gave you little and may have broke something.  I will leave it in BETA as long as it takes, but I will need some of you to test it.

One last note.  With the move to EISY-UI, there is some behaviour that I am seeing across plugins.  Once you update this plugin, you may need to run an ISY update / reboot.  You should NOT need to delete and re-install (that will cause you to have to resave all your programs, yuck!!).  If you don't update/reboot and you log-in locally, all is well.  But the portal login may give you a lot of blank bits.  They will update as scenes are activated or shades change but a update / reboot makes everything better.  Or at least that is what I found.

You can load the beta in a slot you have production, and move back to production.  Most likely (!!) without breaking anything.  I have done this a few times.  I actually have my programs which schedules triggering of scenes to three different plugin slots (where I keep my production, beta, and local versions).  I only run one at a time but it allows me to test back and forth quickly.

Please give feedback!!

 

[sjenkins]

Pretty quiet group out there ; I am specifically looking for at least ONE Gen2 user to tell me the commands and updates still work before I go into production.

[GTench]

@sjenkins  is 1.13.0 in the plugin store? Just wondering how to get at it

Gary

[sjenkins]

5 hours ago, GTench said:

@sjenkins  is 1.13.0 in the plugin store? Just wondering how to get at it

Gary

Should be in the non-production store. 
 

[GTench]

Thanks... found it. Can I have both the production and nonproduction versions installed at the same time but in different slots?

[sjenkins]

6 hours ago, GTench said:

Thanks... found it. Can I have both the production and nonproduction versions installed at the same time but in different slots?

Yes you can,

I actually have production, beta, & development local on mine. I don’t tend to run them at the same time as sometimes the gateway gets grumpy. But nothing will blow up. 
 

you also can install the beta on top of the production, and then go back to production without your programs getting messed up. I do this sometimes too in my testing cycle. The poly platform is very flexible this way. 
 

[GTench]

@sjenkinsthanks, good information to know. I will install and test G2

[GTench]

@sjenkinsInstalled and configured it but it is only showing 1 node in PG3 even after a couple of restarts. The production version shows 17 nodes. I have not checked in the AC yet

[sjenkins]

@GTench,

Found a late dumb error in Discovery.

Did a quick fix for G3, but give me the night & I will fix it properly.

 

 

Edited September 14 by sjenkins

[sjenkins]

@GTench,

Sorry for the delay, fixed.

The bug was in the discover routine which you have to do a clean install to find & have certain shades.

I made a change before my last clean install test.  My bad.

Should be good to delete, re-install and check out.

btw: :  to all testers, please tell me if you are G3 or G2 when you give feedback.

Thanks again to all!!

 

Edited September 15 by sjenkins

[GTench]

@sjenkins Did a delete and reinstall but still not seeing shades. Version is still 1.13.0. Is this still the previous one?

[sjenkins]

5 hours ago, GTench said:

@sjenkins Did a delete and reinstall but still not seeing shades. Version is still 1.13.0. Is this still the previous one?

@GTench,

No I just now did a clean non-production install & all was well

I have to ask, you updated the config with your gateway IP, right?

assuming so, send me your debug logs please

 

[GTench]

Yes. I copied the one used in the production version

 

 

 

It says log file too large. Here is a snipit

[GTench]

@sjenkinsAlso...I cannot open my programs in the AC. It gets to creating widgets for scenes and freezes. I had to delete the non production version in order to access my programs. Is the large log file possibly causing this?

[sjenkins]

@GTench ,

looks it didn’t detect g2 properly; It got there & is saying the sse server is not right.  Yours doesn’t have one.

can you do a restart of the plugin and give me the logs from the beginning until that message starts.  I don't need it all just that.

I added something to drop out of the sse client if it sees that too.  I will look at the detection routine again.  
 

thanks for testing.  This is the g2 stuff I couldn’t test myself. 

 

Edited September 16 by sjenkins

[sjenkins]

@GTench,

Made a change which should protect G2 from starting the sse client.

Please reinstall.

 

[GTench]

@sjenkinsOK. Here is the log file. Thanks again for creating the plugin. The production version has been running flawlessly. I find it much more convenient to use it than to use the cell phone app

HunterDouglas_9-16-2025_102529_AM.zip

[sjenkins]

@GTench, 

Good to go, as I was concerned about, during my refactoring I replaced 'id' with '_id' for G2 scenes.

That's all it takes.  Someday I will generate tests with my programs ; never really took hold for me.  Would help in places like this, where I don't have the hardware to test.

Please install in a fresh slot and give it a go.

thanks again.

PS: also, made a change to fix the noisy start-up before you put in your config gateway

Edited September 16 by sjenkins
PS

[GTench]

@sjenkinsOK I see 17 nodes loading into PG3 same as in the production version but if I open the AC I see this

The top one is from the beta version. The last entry there should be "Living Room - Open Shades Half Way". Looks like you are truncating the beginning of the string instead of the end of the string?

Also, I cannot get programs to open properly with both plugin versions installed. It mostly loads but then locks up or is too busy to respond and I have to kill the task

[sjenkins]

@GTench,

I was using a new name checking function (which I "stole") from another plugin.

Their reasonable choice (which I agreed with) was to cut from the left as that data is not as likely "unique", its the name of the room. You are less likely to end of up with a number of shade/scene names the same.  As you do in the production version.

I changed it back for now, but I am leaning to keep truncating from the left.  Let me know how you think about it.  Personally, I have just shortened my names a bit.

As far as having more than one plugin running at the same time.  The issue may be they are polling from the same gateway.  On G3 I normally don't run them at the same time but what I find is the gateway crashes not the ISY.  I just checked HTOP with three running and found it was ok ; but that is G3. 

Can you stop each of the plugins, and run one at a time?  Let me know if you see a performance difference with production only, beta only, both.

If you only see the performance drop on the beta, please send me debug logs.

thx

 

Edited September 16 by sjenkins

[GTench]

@sjenkinsI don't have a preference as to how the name is formed. Whatever you decide is fine by me.

Some observations:

having both node server versions installed and just stopping stopping either one by itself still results in a AC lockup/freeze at "creating widgets for scenes" 

when the beta version is running, it shows as connected in the AC and disconnected in the AC after it is stopped

when the production version is running, it shows as true in the AC and also shows as true in the AC after it is stopped

[sjenkins]

the connected / disconnected is a feature of udi by adding:

self.poly.addNode(self, conn_status='ST')

Allows easy tracking.  Not sure when that was added by the UDI boys ; I just added it to this.

NOTE:  So this means you can use the STATUS of ST to check for connected status.  But in addition, this plugin (and many others) use the CONTROL of ST to check for heartbeat.  Basically a program which checks in the IF section of a program for ON or OFF of the CONTROL, using the THEN to wait for a period of time, say an hour until setting an error ( I push a message using network to my phone).   As the heartbeat goes back and forth the wait is reset and the error message is only set when it stops oscillating.  I talk about this in the instructions but the status part is new. 

 

The creating widgets for scenes does not make sense to me.  So if both are stopped does it work ok?

I have not experienced that & not sure how it could effect that.

Can you please send me the debug files of both the plugin and the main log of PG3.

Might be best to DM them to me.  If too big I can give you my email there.  thanks.

Edited September 18 by sjenkins
add heartbeat comment

[GTench]

@sjenkinsHere are the log files. I reinstalled the beta plugin, then stopped both the production and nonproduction versions in PG3. I then opened the AC but when I go to the programs tab I get the same freeze/lockup issue with create widgets for scenes. I am guessing that I might not have the issue if only the beta version is installed but I am a bit reluctant to try as it will likely create issues with my existing programs 

HunterDouglas_9-18-2025_102658_AM.zip pg3_9-18-2025_102839_AM.zip system_9-18-2025_102926_AM.zip

[sjenkins]

@GTench,

Thank you for the logs, I looked at them & in general they look good with no obvious errors.

Can you verify you are using a shortPoll of 60 and longPoll of 600?

 

Any chance of a race in your programs?  Have you changed any recently?

 

 

Edited September 18 by sjenkins

[GTench]

@sjenkinsI am using 5 and 60 for the production version and 10 and 120 for the beta version (that is what was defaulted to at installation). I tried 5 and 60 with the beta version but still the same results

No change to the hunter douglas programs; minor tweaks to a few lighting and sprinkler programs. All programs seem to be running correctly.