The "in use by" section of a device page is show the device used by a rule that has never used the device.....don't know how to document this bug.
Does refreshing the device detail page cause it to go away?
Does clicking done in the app it says it's in use by also make it go away, after reloading the device details page?
No, neither caused a change. Odd because the rule improperly shown on the device page never included the device
I've noticed this with RM4 rules. But in the examples I've had the device has been in use by the rule initially and I've removed it later. The "in use by" of the device never catches up with the removal.
The app status page (gear icon top right in the app) does it still show that device as selected?
Did you clone a rule, by chance? Bruce has mentioned that this will cause the "in use by" section to get stuck with the "old" devices from the rule even if you change them out (harmless but not helpful if you're trying to figure something out).
@bertabcd1234 I saw the same thing and was able to find the device under manage or Create Conditions under the Actions part of the rules (at the bottom of the page). Removed the ones I didn't want and it no longer reflects as "in use by" It seems the if conditionals stay even when you delete it from the if then expression. Hope this helps.
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In general, the "in use by" section is not going to be updated when devices are removed from a Rule Machine rule. This is harmless.
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It might be harmless but I have found the "in use by" section very useful in the past (for example when replacing one device with another) and if it's not updated correctly on edits it kind of defeats the object of it IMO.
Noted, and on the list for a future release. If it's super important to you, either don't remove devices from rules or remove the rule.
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app status page attached. I deleted the rule and created it a new and that has cleared the incorrect reference in the device page. I am going to drop this for now, until I have another show up. I swear the device was never used in that rule, but stranger things happen I suppose.
EDIT: " Sorry so late with my response.....had a doctor appointment this morning. I see Bruce's comment so perhaps I'm not losing my mind after all. "
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I am also seeing erroneous "in use by" references in some of my devices. I'm new a user and was populating a number of rules including cloning so not sure I have the sequence to reproduce. However, in one instance I remember I cloned a rule and then had to reverse the switch settings. The remaining erroneous switch is in the application state page indicating "on" when it was replaced by off states. There is also a duplicate entry that seems wrong too.
I find the "in use by" info to be very valuable and desire it to be accurate.
(Unable to include screenshot, as posting tool not letting me.)
I think they are aware of this bug which I believe started when RM4 was introduced.
I agree with you though, I found it very useful when it was accurate but it's a bit of a chocolate teapot at the moment.
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This is what causes that issue (not specific to Rule 4.0 but introduced not long after). The only way to avoid it at the moment is to create new rules rather than cloning (or clone a rule that doesn't use devices yet if possible). This is a known issue--not a problem per se, but definitely not helpful when trying to use the "In Use By" feature.
I don't think it is just cloning that causes the issue. I'm sure one of mine is caused by the rule not updating the in-use list when a device is removed from a rule.
I think you're right about that too, but that hasn't been discussed quite as much. I suspect if you work backwards and remove the device before removing the action, etc., you might be able to work around that one, but I haven't played around with that much.
It is true that removing a device from a rule will often not clear the In-Use setting for the device. It turns out that doing this would actually be quite difficult. You can see the selected devices in the App Status Settings for the rule. If this bothers you the fix is to remove that rule and recreate it without deleting any devices. To avoid it in the first place you would have to diligently deselect any device you don’t want. If you delete an action odds are good that any device in that action is still “in use”.
Perhaps a utility that would wipe all "in use by" entries and then step thru all rules to recreate a fresh table. Would that be possible Bruce?
Anything is "possible". But this is really unlikely to make it onto a priority list of things that need to be done in lieu of all of the other things that need to be done.
