Rules triggering randomly

Hi there,

I am on Platform v2.3.2.141 and Rule Machine 5.1 and getting some inexplicable triggering of actions.

Below screenshots apply - I have a rule with a day and time frame requirements constraint that gets triggered by motion detection to turn on devices.

The overall required expressions evaluation is false, yet this is now the second night that we have been woken up just past midnight when the actions are triggered as shown by the event screenshot from the one device.

The same app has been running reliably for months and this is is the only app able to turn on these device.

Any ideas please?

One more thing, I had to do a soft reset yesterday due to a corrupt database error. The restore seemed to work fine and no other issues are apparent, but this could potentially be a cause.


Two things come to mind.

First, if you restored a backup from a different time, the "time between" conditions in your required expression will not be evaluated upon restore but rather whenever the next scheduled job was (for example, the beginning or end of the next or current timeframe). You can hit "Done" or "Update Rule" to make it re-initialize this--and everything, including cancelling any delays, waits, etc. that are in your actions, so keep that in mind if that matters for your rule.

Second, there isn't actually any evidence here that the rule triggered. The light turning on could have been done by any other app (or directly from the device detail page or perhaps physically), so what you'd really need to prove it was the rule is app logs. You can enable trigger, action, and event logging in the rule, then look at Logs (current or past) to see what the rule is doing when. This is better than logs or event history on the device, which can show you what happened but not why (though in your case, given that you mentioned a restore, I suspect your required expression may have had an unexpected value and in fact let triggers happen when they shouldn't have--but we're both guessing without logs :smiley: ).

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Thank you.

I have enabled detailed logging, but I'm 100% sure that the rule did trigger because of the unique combination of devices it activates across Hue, LIFT and TP-Link devices in my bedroom.

Your restore comments make sense, but it would be great if a general app update or restart was added to ensure alignment to the current time - it could get messy with devices such as garage door closes or electronic locks if a hub's time drifted unexpectedly.

Also was there a power outage or quick on off .. some lights cone on when power is restored.

Yes, I've seen that before. In this instance smartplugs were involved as well though. It has not happened again, so I believe the previous comments from @bertabcd1234 regarding the restore state was on the money.