A couple app “History” issues

[Keith Belt]

1.  When on the app on my phone, if I open “History” and scroll to the end, I get a rotating “loading” icon at the bottom of the page that gives the impression its loading the next set of events. But nothing ever happens.  The thing just keeps spinning and nothing further is added to the list.

2.  Zone violations are indicated by “Alarm” (recovery is “Zone Restore”).  The zone in question however, is not being used as a perimeter alarm, its just being used in rules (aka “Automation”).  The full event message is “House AUTOMATION ALARM [sensor]”.  This may be nit-picky, but its a little confusing to have non-alarm events described as “alarms”.   Else where in the app, the terms used are more generic (“secure” and “unsecure”).

Where the above becomes important:  Its not just a matter of a confusing description.  The event history logs all alarm events.  For a true intruder alarm, it goes off once, and eventually gets disarmed, so it typically appears in the history as just one set of alarm on\off events for the whole duration.  But automation usage is not a true intruder alarm.  What happens is: because its characterized as an “alarm”, *every* instance where the sensor is triggered gets logged in the history.  In this case, its a montion sensor in the garage configured as “automation” used in the rules to detect when I come home.  My history is now full of fasle “alarms” because I was walking around cleaning the garage yesterday repeatedly triggering the motion sensor.

K.

[Michael Burrell]

1. The history log as 500 events, the app requests these events in banks of 10. When you get to the end of the log the app will ask for 10 events, but the control only replies with the last event. Continuing to request the log will just return the last event, which does not “paint” anything in the list which appears as nothing change, which is correct since it is the end of the log. When a new event is logged, the oldest event is dropped off. We are going to be expanding the history to include 1000 events, when this rework is completed we will be sure to include an end of log message.

2. If you are running 0.5.22 Control Firmware, The automation zone definition has the option to not be logged in history. This is located in the zone settings toggles. This toggle is called “Do Not Log”. There is also a “No Indication” that would prevent it from showing on the keypads or app (when logged in a user, installers will see it in the app).

The use of the term “Alarm” for the Automation zone is due to the zone being a 24hour zone. Essentially the Automation Zone is “Armed” 24/7, when activated it goes into an “Alarm”. This is was done to expand the use of the Automation zone logic in the rules engine.

[Keith Belt]

I get the history explanation, but I don’t think you got what the problem is:   You indicate the app requests events in banks of ten.  When I first go into the history, its actually displaying 15 events.  12 fit on the screen right now, and I have to scroll down slightly to see the last 3 events. And the constant rotating “loading” icon is always there by itself at the end in its own blank row like its event 16.  Its like the history opens with that icon already rotating except its just hidden off the page.   There’s nothing I’m doing to “request” the next bank.  I’m just scrolling to the bottom of the page and its already rotating.   I can slide the screen up and down and the rotating icon row moves with it.

In any case, its only the initial set of events that I ever see.  I never get the next “bank”.  I’m sure I have hundreds of events logged by now, but I can’t get them.  It may hold 500, but all I ever see is the most recent “bank” of a dozen or so (15 this time) that displays when the history opens the first time.  At the moment, that’s only covering the last 20 minutes of logins and a couple programming changes.   Its like its trying to load more, but can’t complete it.  Even if the log held a million records, anything earlier than the most recent 15 events is invisible\inaccessible at the moment (and therefore useless).

K.

[Michael Burrell]

I was responding based on the statement “you got to the end of the history log”, which I made the assumption was several pages of loading.

The history is loaded when you scroll down or swipe up. It loads a full screen when you open it, continuing to swipe up loads the next “page” or ten events etc.

Please confirm the version of App and Control. I am happy to test this at the office to see if we can recreate this.

[Keith Belt]

HW version: 0.1.4

Bootloader: 0.2.24

Firmware: 0.5.22

Phone app: 0.12.179

Phone: Motorola One 5G Ace (Android v. 11)

[Keith Belt]

I also noticed a couple other odd things:  the “History” on the phone app is apparently not the same as the “Event list” on the web portal.  Which is fine, I guess, but the web portal event list is showing a lot of “Notification” events that I’m not seeing anywhere else.  What’s more is that a lot of them indicate “Event ignored – Notification globally ignored”.   I’m not sure I understand what that’s all about.   But I can’t get or provide any more detail because I can’t seem to “open” any of the events listed.  They don’t seem to be active objects that you can click on.  They’re more like a fixed image.   There’s more info available (the message is truncated and ends with “….”), but I don’t see how to get the rest of the message.

[Michael Burrell]

The History on the ElkConnect App is the History in the Control Panel. This includes panel based history.

The Event List on the ElkConnect Web Portal is the notification event list. This includes events that are sent via notifications from the system through the cloud. This list notes the events, even if you have opted to not receive them via Push, Text, or Email.

I assume the truncated list you are referencing looks like this or similar.

 

Here is a similar list from a web browser on a 22′ monitor.

 

My assumption is the truncated message is due to a mobile or tablet browser. There is no additional information offered by clicking the entry, this is a image as you noted.

The “Event ignored – Notification globally ignored” entry indicates a “Automation” Alarm event. This event is still communicated to the cloud, but it is currently ignored by the notification server. Automation zone alarms do not get forwarded to user notifications, at the moment. This is there as a place holder for allowing the option of these events to be sent in the future. As we build out the site, we will be adding more options for what events are sent and what events are not sent. Due to the way Automation zone types are used, we are ignoring them until the selective filtering is implemented.

Additional, once we implement web based configuration of the control by the installer, we will allow for the control history to merge with the cloud event list. The cloud has a larger storage capacity and will allow for a larger log. This effort is current in progress.

[Keith Belt]

Thanks for the explanation of the Notification log.  I didn’t think about screen size and it was just a little counterintuitive logging notifications telling me “This notification is being ignored”.

But we still have the original issue with the ElkConnect ap’s history only loading an initial subset of events on the phone’s view screen, and then seemingly getting stuck to only that one page and fixed set of most-recent events.

[Michael Burrell]

Honesty, I asked the web team to just hide that notification, but I was persuaded to allow them to log the message it was ignored. I too felt it would be taken incorrectly.

In reference to the history issue. We have tested this issue with several different controls and Android devices (as well as iOS) and we are not able to reproduce this issue. Is it possible for you to do a screen capture and send it to me, I would like to review it with our app team. You can email me at michael.burrell@elkproducts.com or you can message me directly at 828-341-2687.

 

[Keith Belt]

Touching base as its been a few days.  I sent a video to the email address above showing what I see on my phone regarding history loading an behavior.

[Michael Burrell]

I did not receive the email. I have asked IT to check to see if it got blocked, which it likely did due to the attachment. They should be able to allow it through. I will let you know if I get it.

[Michael Burrell]

IT got me your message today.

That is odd behavior that we have not seen in the past. We are publishing a new version of the app today that will support new features offered in a new control firmware coming out very soon. Android version 0.12.197 is processing in the Google Play Store, iOS version 1.1.8 is processing in the App Store as well.

I would suggest doing a “clean” install of the app, uninstall the app, then install the new version. We have made some changes to the history page in the over the year and it is possible that something didn’t apply properly on a prior app update that included the history area.

[Keith Belt]

Update:  I updated all the firmware on all devices and re-installed the current Android ElkConnect (12/197) and have same behavior with the History:  loads 15 events only and lsyt “row” is just the continuously spinning loader (no subsequent pages come up)

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