This is a variation on some issues that I've already seen posted, but most of the related topics devolved into other discussions and so haven't answered my own question yet.
I have a pretty simple Rule Machine rule: if the office "is occupied" (a virtual switch set by a motion sensor) AND the office temperature is < 72º (checked by the same sensor), then turn on the spaceheater.
I frequently -- at least once a day -- walk into my office after a prolonged absence, and the temperature is typically about 68º if I haven't been in there, so the rule's temperature condition is almost always satisfied. I can see the motion sensor flicker to acknowledge my presence.
But the spaceheater doesn't turn on, and in the App List, "(Restricted)" still appears next to my "Extra Warmth" app.
If I click to edit the app, the title changes from "(Restricted)" to "[True]". But still no spaceheater.
When I click "Done" at the bottom of the app configuration page, I hear the "tick" of my spaceheater turning on.
So my question is this: Why isn't the rule being executed on the "Office Occupied" state change? Should it not be re-evaluating the rule when the motion sensor senses me and sets "Office Occupied" to true? Why do I have to re-edit the rule in order to force reevaluation?
Screenshots of the rule below, and a log from a few days ago that shows a time when, despite both conditions showing up as "true," the RM rule didn't actually kick in for a minute and 30 seconds!
Happy to provide any additional information as needed!
If you haven't already, I would try deleting it and recreating it. Then see if it works, or still exhibits the same behavior.
In the past 4 days I have had 3 different RM things that didn't work when I thought they should, that worked perfectly the second time I created them - even though I created it EXACTLY the same as the first time (I took screenshots before/after and compared - they were identical). No idea why.
A regular rule should be true or false in the list and only show restricted if you have something in restrictions that is affecting it. Expand Restrictions in the rule and make sure nothing is there.
How are you turning the virtual switch on or off? Are you sure that the device Spaceheater can be turned on and off from HE? If the rule never switches to false, the true action will never happen again because the actions only take place when the rule swaps from true to false. You have rule logging enabled...can you show more of the events from the events page? Are you seeing the rule go false?
If you've removed and re-added devices, that problem won't show up in RM until you actually go into the rule and go DEEP into where you choose the devices. I had the same thing happen and as it turns out, the device was actually gone from the app but it didn't show that until I drilled all the way down into the checklist for the devices. So, if you're removing/re-adding devices take a screenshot of the rules you'll have to go back into whether or not they "look" right.
If you read carefully, you'll see that forcing RM to reevaluate the rules is successfully triggering the spaceheater.
The "Office Occupied" switch is set by a Motion Lighting routine, and that works.
And, in many circumstances, the rule works as expected. But here's a more elaborate example from my logs. You can see that, at 12:22, I triggered "Office Occupied" AND the "Extra Warmth" app even acknowledged that the temperature was within conditions, but still didn't trigger the spaceheater.
It wasn't until 3 minutes later that it decides that "Extra Warmth is now True" and that was after I re-edit the rule and clicked "Done."
app:662018-12-09 12:25:22.735 pm infoExtra warmth is now True app:662018-12-09 12:25:22.668 pm info --> Office Occupied on [true] app:662018-12-09 12:25:22.652 pm info --> Temperature of Office Sensor < 72.0 [true] dev:1072018-12-09 12:25:12.688 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive dev:1072018-12-09 12:25:12.647 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive app:662018-12-09 12:25:11.453 pm info --> Office Occupied on [true] app:662018-12-09 12:25:11.441 pm info --> Temperature of Office Sensor < 72.0 [true] dev:1072018-12-09 12:25:01.040 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:25:01.040 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active app:92018-12-09 12:25:00.062 pm debugInitializing dev:972018-12-09 12:24:53.310 pm infoOffice Occupied was turned on dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:53.168 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:53.143 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:24.781 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:24.756 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive dev:342018-12-09 12:24:20.783 pm infoLaundry Motion Sensor is inactive dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:13.013 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:13.001 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:972018-12-09 12:24:05.408 pm infoOffice Occupied was turned on dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:05.279 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:24:05.256 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active app:92018-12-09 12:24:00.041 pm debugInitializing dev:662018-12-09 12:23:43.758 pm infoBedroom Light energyDuration is 57.76 Days dev:12018-12-09 12:23:24.464 pm infoThird floor sensor: motion is active dev:12018-12-09 12:23:24.437 pm infoThird floor sensor: motion is active app:92018-12-09 12:23:00.040 pm debugInitializing dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:36.968 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:36.898 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive dev:422018-12-09 12:22:36.873 pm infoOffice Camera voltage is 124.342 V dev:3532018-12-09 12:22:27.153 pm infoST motion sensor is inactive dev:972018-12-09 12:22:25.424 pm infoOffice Occupied was turned on dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:25.175 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:25.145 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:16.658 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:16.631 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is inactive dev:182018-12-09 12:22:04.026 pm infoOffice 4 was turned on dev:172018-12-09 12:22:04.001 pm infoOffice 3 was turned on dev:162018-12-09 12:22:03.973 pm infoOffice 2 was turned on app:662018-12-09 12:22:03.939 pm info --> Office Occupied on [true] dev:152018-12-09 12:22:03.930 pm infoOffice 1 was turned on app:662018-12-09 12:22:03.894 pm info --> Temperature of Office Sensor < 72.0 [true] dev:242018-12-09 12:22:03.868 pm infoGroup Office was turned on app:662018-12-09 12:22:03.194 pm infoExtra warmth: Office Occupied switch on dev:972018-12-09 12:22:03.060 pm infoOffice Occupied was turned on dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:02.952 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active dev:1072018-12-09 12:22:02.929 pm infoOffice Sensor: motion is active
Yes, because forcing to re-evaluate is the same as forcing the rule to execute again. I don't ever see Office Occupied Turning off. I also don't see the rule ever going False. So, why do you expect the actions for True to happen again without a force re-evaluation or the rule changing from False to True? Is the rule ever truing the spaceheater off? because it looks to me like the rule has always been true.
You are asking the question....rather than argue with people helping you why don't you try and read what they are saying and digest it rather than assume they are wrong? If you don't give complete information, then how is anyone supposed to help you?
I certainly wasn't trying to argue, just making the point that I had already made it clear that the spaceheater could be turned on and off from HE. I apologize for sounding argumentative.
But I think you're on to something with the Office Occupied never going false. At least that may be related, but I'm not sure exactly how, and this makes it more confusing. I don't see any log entries indicating that Office Occupied is ever switched off, but tons indicating that it's turning on.
There are absolutely times when "Extra Warmth" is false, and I always assumed that it was because the room had been unoccupied for awhile, but now I suspect that it's because eventually it warms up to 72º and that's the only thing that triggers it to turn off.
It is also partly confusing that HE logs "Office Occupied was turned on" in the logs, although it was (I now believe) already turned on, and therefore RM was not triggered. I assumed that, because the event was logged, it was a state change and would therefore triggered a rule evaluation. Maybe it would be nice if the log entry said "Office Occupied was turned on (no state change)" or something in such cases.
So now the question is: why isn't Office Occupied ever turning off?
Here's a detail screenshot from my "Office is occupied" Motion Lighting app. The full rule is basically supposed to be:
When motion is sensed:
Turn on the lights
Turn off the lights after a mode-based delay
Turn on the "Office Occupied" switch
Turn off the "Office Occupied" switch after a mode-based delay
Are 4 and 5 properly represented by the screenshot?
First, "Office Occupied" does eventually get set to false, and so does "Extra Warmth." Sometimes.
Here are today's entries in the log for the Office Occupied device:
switch
on
Office Occupied was turned on
DEVICE
2018-12-10 05:49:58.905 PM EST
switch
off
Office Occupied was turned off
DEVICE
2018-12-10 11:26:01.131 AM EST
switch
on
Office Occupied was turned on
DEVICE
2018-12-10 08:58:11.938 AM EST
switch
on
Office Occupied was turned on
DEVICE
2018-12-10 08:58:11.935 AM EST
switch
off
Office Occupied was turned off
DEVICE
2018-12-10 07:20:01.243 AM EST
switch
on
Office Occupied was turned on
DEVICE
2018-12-10 06:24:50.074 AM EST
When I arrived home and entered my office at 5:49pm, the lights turned on, the Office Occupied switch turned on, but the spaceheater didn't turn on. Again. This is exactly the scenario that prompted this topic.
After further debugging, though, it now appears that "Extra Warmth" was not false when I came home, and therefore didn't think it neeeded to turn on the spaceheater. (Because it didn't think it had changed state, right?)
But...you can see from the Office Occupied device log at the top of this post that Office Occupied went ON at 6:24am and OFF at 7:20am, and both events also appear in the RM log for the Extra Warmth app.
But Office Occupied came back at 8:58am, and then OFF again at 11:26am. That "off" event was not logged by the Extra Warmth app, and so HE never re-evaluated the rules, leaving Extra Warmth to believe that it was still truth-satisfied. At least that's my best guess. Am I wrong to assume that the 11:26 "off" event should have been recorded by the Extra Warmth rule?
