Basic Rules Stopped Running

🛎️ Get Help
1

I have a problem that other people seem to have had in the past, but their solutions do not seem to apply to me.

The fundamental problem seems simple: All my basic rules are not running anymore. I have nothing fancy set up. Just stuff like "15 minutes after sunset, turn these lights on" or "at 11pm, turn these lights off".

I see that other people said they saw scheduled tasks stuck in the hub logs, and to look for scheduleError entries. But I can't find any of those. So I do not even know how to continue diagnosing this.

Any help and pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Markus

Platform Version: 2.4.3.171
Hardware Version: C-7

2

I would try a soft reset as a first step to resolve (reboot with advanced -> database restore)

Then if that doesn’t work, go in one of the rules that would run next and click done - see if this helps.

1 Like
3

I agree with Sebastien as a starting point, and given that this is a C7, is there a specific amount of uptime that occurs before this happens? - If these rules stop, after 3-4 weeks of running, it may be a slow memory leak.. - You may want to setup a Hub Information Driver (V3) and corresponding device, to monitor the hubs memory. Once memory seems to get under the 100-150M free range, than bad things start to happen.

Not saying that's the case here, but if you uptime is multiple weeks, before this issue occurs, then monitoring free RAM is likely worth the effort to setup.

1 Like
4

Good moring,

Can you set the logging options on the rule to include events, triggers, and actions. Afterwards run the rule and provide the contents of the log. Screenshot will work for now so that we can see those contents.

Thanks,
Don

1 Like
5

Sorry to mention I will be out for a couple of hours but will definitely follow up when I get back.

6

Just to provide and update and more information on the situation:

I got some stuff working again, and I think I know what the problem was. I am a bit befuddled as to why the cause would result in complete malfunction of any rules running, but that seems to be the case.

After trying to observe the logs for a few days, and fiddling with different things, I noticed something seemingly unrelated by accident: One of my switches had just disappeared off my list of devices. I have a motion sensor in my walk-in closet, and when that activates, it turns on the switch that controls the closet light. I have that that running for at least 3 or 4 years, I think. But when I walked into my closet, I noticed it didn't turn on (I had been gone from the home for a few months, so I am not sure how long that has not been working, but I am certain it worked before). I pulled up the Hubitat app to see if I could manually toggle the switch from there, and discovered - to my absolute amazement - that the switch just wasn't in the list anymore.

I have no idea why that happened. I know nobody was even logged into Hubitat for months, because I am the only one with access, and I wasn't around. Nothing else changed in my system either. I could even see this happening if I was to add other devices or messed with my setup in some other way. But that wasn't the case, since I wasn't even home.

Also, the switch itself worked perfectly fine. (I have had quite a number of problems with switches going bad and just turning on and off continuously, which is just awesome if you are gone for a few weeks. But in this case, the switch was fine).

I re-included the device in my setup just by adding a new Z-Wave device, as if the switch was brand new. I then went into my Basic Rules to find the one reacting to the motion sensor. I had to re-select the now re-added switch. And bam! Things started working again.

So, it's all a bit strange. I think all my other rules now also work. But I am not 100% sure they just automatically started working again when I re-added the switch, or whether it has anything to do with me fiddling with all kinds of things over the last few days in an attempt to get things working again. (Including removing and re-adding devices on other rules that didn't work anymore).

There are some things that make me scratch my head there:

  • How can the switch just disappear off the list and then be fair game to be added again (so it wasn't tied to anything anymore)?
  • Why does this take down ALL rules I set up. That is just wild. You have one failed device and all of your rules stop working?!?
  • Why is this so hard to find? Seems there should be some more obvious way to find problems like this.
  • I can't find anything unusual in that rule's log. But it is hard to see what is going on there, because the "Show more" link at the bottom of the log doesn't seem to do anything.

Anyway: Thought this might be of interest to people. It didn't have anything to do with rebooting the hub or anything like that. Just a device that had apparently disappeared.

Thanks everyone who tried to help though! Appreciated.

Markus

7

Paste a screen shot of your list of Z-Wave devices from the Z-Wave Details page. Your symptoms are consistent with Z-Wave ghost devices (a device that did not complete its setup and has no associated Hubitat device). These ghost devices frequently cause lots of issues.

1 Like
8

image
image1920×1805 235 KB

image
image1673×1639 314 KB

Here is that screenshot. I do not think I have any ghost devices, but that may be now that I fiddled it, and they may have been there before. Only odd thing I see in here is devices that can't seem to route, but I think that is just some devices I have that are too far away at the moment.

Markus

9

The ones without blue links to Hubitat devices are likely ghosts. Here is a guide to their removal:

1 Like