I have a Rule that I wrote that used to use a virtual device, VD DateTime Parser, which is driven by a 3rd party driver called "Date & Time Parser" by jshimota.
I no longer use the VD in the rule. However, it is still present in the Settings for the device AND when I clone the rule (I have 34 instances of it, one per dimmer unit), I am asked to select a device for the VD (even though it doesn't get used at all in the Rule). This is a minor annoyance, but easily ignored.
My questions: is there a downside to have a Rule with a phantom device, and (regardless of downside or not), is there a way to remove the reference in the Settings?
Sure, just go back to where it was selected in the first place -- a device selector -- and deselect it. It is harmless. Or, recreate the rule, which usually takes less time than posting here.
Can you please clarify that comment? What "device selector" would I deselect? I had used the VD to set the value of a variable, but don't use the VD in any way anymore, so I don't quite know how to deselect it.
This particular rule is tedious to recreate (see below). While I could select and copy each action (being careful NOT to select actions out of order -- which I've complained about before), the triggers and variables can't be copied (to my knowledge).
The same one you used to select in the first place. But, that may not be possible depending on what you've done to the rule.
You can copy all of the actions to the action clipboard in one step, in order. Once on the action clipboard, you can publish that and import it into a different rule.
What? You can copy actions to the action clipboard in any order you want: in order, not in order, it's entirely up to you to decide the order. It shows you the actions on the clipboard. You can copy all actions in a single step, once having selected them.
The order of SELECTION of actions to copy is critical. Example rule, with the two actions selected in top to bottom order, then copied to the clipboard:
So, in a LONG list of actions, if an exact copy is desired, care must be taken to select each action in strict top to bottom order, or the copied actions will be out of order. The actual copying step is of course only a single click, but the selection is critical. That's the issue I've complained about previously -- why would someone want to copy actions to the clipboard in an order other than as shown in the rule? It really wreaks havoc on variable assignments and conditionals.
Ok, I just ran a test. The problem I highlighted occurs if the individual checkboxes to the left of actions are used to select and then copy.
If the "fast" selection list activated by the icon at the top of the checkboxes is used, then the order of selection indeed does not matter -- all selected actions are copied in the order shown in the rule.
Silly question, but did you make sure that you also removed any conditions in the manage conditions table that referenced the device? I think I had this issue before where I removed the device from actions, but it was still in the conditions table causing it to be linked to the device if I viewed it in the devices tab
Thanks for the suggestion, but sadly that was not the problem -- none of my conditions references the phantom device.
HOWEVER, I did solve the problem: I deleted the virtual device entirely (after making sure I had a backup) and then re-created it for 2 different rules that set a hub variable to my local GMT timezone offset. The 34 instances of my "problematic" rule no longer reference the VD.
