Wrong Alarm Status

[ctdeng0]

I am running 2041 with HAI plug-in 2.0.0.12. I have Omni II version 2.10. I am experiencing a number of problems

1. Console beeps when trying to view status on the console. This is an intermittent issue.

2. Comm errors.

3. Plug-in crashed and the buttons for the panel were gone. Restarted Homeseer and it came back.

4. Wrong alarm status. Every time I start homeseer it shows alarm panel status as "Armed UNKNOWN 112 (Delay)" even though the system is disarmed. If I arm then dis-arm the panel then Homeseer shows the correct status for a while, then it goes back to reading the incorrect status.

Below is a copy of the Email I sent to HAI. I am impressed with the capability of Homeseer and want to switch from Hal2000 but am reluctant at this time.


"To whom it might concern.

I am a HAI Omni II owner. I bought this alarm system to replace a Napco Gemini system because I thought it had better integration with home automation software Hal2000 and Homeseer.

I am presently using Hal2000 but am evaluating Homeseer as it has more capability and integrates better. Hal2000 cannot ready unit status correctly from the HAI panel.In testing Homeseer I have uncovered a number of issues with the HAI panel.

I as a HAI customer want to request that your company help Homeseer by providing the technical documents and support to help them solve theses issues. It is to your best interest as your product will never do the things that Homeseer can do and Homeseer will never be able to do what your panel can do. I want the reliability of your system to control the lights and outputs (along with the alarm function) and want the PC capability that Homeseer offers.


If these PC software packages get better integration with the Elk M1 system (for example) then I think it will hurt your sales.

Thanks in advance,

John Reason"

[ctdeng0]

Response from HAI

This is the response I got from HAI.

Thanks for writing with your comments and concerns.

Let me first assure you that HAI does support all third-party developers. We provide all necessary documentation and protocols that will let any third-party developer interface with our full line of controllers. We also provide a Network Protocol Library API kit that is used to connect to our controller with network capability. These protocols and utilities are being used by over 200 third-party developers without any issues.



If HomeSeer is having a specific issue with the protocol, please have them contact me so that we can assist in getting it resolved.



Best regards,



Scott Dudoussat

Director of Technical Services

Home Automation, Inc.



HAI Technical Support

[Sean Willoughby]

interesting...............

[Rick Tinker]

Sent to Scott

Here is the text of an email I sent to Scott Dudoussat on November 3rd, 2005 at 9:07AM:

Scott,

I hope everything is returning to normal down there.

I have a problem that I am pretty much at wit's end about.

The plug-in for the HAI panels that has existed for years now.... I have honed it over the years to keep the zones and units as up-to-date as possible. Besides polling for the event messages every 1/2 second, every 12 or so of those polls triggers a poll to get the current status for the zones, units, and thermostats. It does this by requesting multiple zones or units or thermostats at a time. For instance, if the user says they are using 60 of the 128 units on their system, the default number of units it gets each time is something like 8 or 16, so the plug-in will do 12 of the 1/2 second event polls, then it will get units 1-8, then it does 12 more of the 1/2 second event polls, then it gets units 9-16, etc.

With the older HAI panels, this works absolutely flawlessly. With ALL of the newer panels, many of these multi-unit or multi-zone polls fail, and the panel gives back a checksum error.

I know from previous conversations with you and Brian that the checksum error is the panel's way of saying essentially "I am too busy to finish processing this command". However, with even the number of units or zones reduced to as little as 2-4 at a time, some users still get a ton of these checksum errors.

I am at your mercy - cannot figure out a way to stop this from happening - it seems the newer panels are much, much weaker and slower than their predecessors! Do you have ANY advice for me that can help?

I know that much of your time has to be accounted for in terms of panel sales, so let me put this into perspective. There are [many] users of this plug-in, and while I am unaware of how many use it with newer panels versus older ones, I do know that all new users are getting new panels since the older ones are no longer made. As more and more perspective users see these issues that are still not resolved, more and more of them are going to choose the Elk M1 over the HAI. Please help me solve this.

Also, I started to implement the network DLL that you sent me, but unfortunately the engineers who wrote that for you used none of the languages I am familiar with. My working knowledge of C is not that good, and they provided examples for .NET using C instead of C#, and I know nothing of Delphi and Borland. Quite strange that they chose those actually because there are by far more VB.NET programmers than there are Delphi and Borland these days! Nonetheless, I will eventually prevail, but it is taking some time.

Let me know if you have any ideas for fixing the checksum problem.

Regards,


Rick

To date, I have received no response. I will forward the exact same message to him again and see what happens.

Remember, HomeSeer competes with HAI on the Media Center plug-in and in some of the overlapping capabilities between HomeSeer and HAI. Instead of embracing this as something that helps sell hardware, I think they see it somehow as a threat as I have asked for help with this issue before and have not received anything beyond Scott D.'s knowledge of the panel and protocols. Also, HAI never updates us when they change firmware - it is always something I have to go and check out on occasion (or learn about from users) and then see if there is updated protocol to go with it.

[Rick Tinker]

BTW... I sincerely doubt that the plug-in has anything to do with the panel beeping, especially if you are not using any "Show Message" actions. This seems to indicate to me a problem with the setup of the panel - e.g. a zone that is not wired correctly, too many consoles on the system for the power supply, bad battery, etc. The HAI event log should indicate something that is causing the issue.

[Rick Tinker]

Getting somewhere....

I resent the email and immediately got a reply from Scott, something that has never happened before in my history of working with him!! Fingers crossed...


Rick

[Rick Tinker]

OK, for those of you who are able to get the plug-in up and running, but frequently get the CheckSum errors, I need a debug log to send to Scott D. at HAI.

After the plug-in is up and running, enable a debug log level 4 (make sure you delete any existing debug log file). Wait for a few of the CheckSum errors to appear in the HomeSeer log, and then turn off the debug log. Zip up the HAI debug log file and send it to me at my email address and I will forward them to Scott.

To prevent me from getting these for the next 2 years while people are reading this post, please don't send any past the end of the week as I expect that I will have received enough of them by that time. I will post here if I do not.

[ctdeng0]

Rick,

I hope that my proding of HAI has help. My email was forwarded to Scott from the sales dept.

Panel beeping: I am 99% sure that the panel is setup correctly. It does not beep when I had it hooked up to HAL2000. I have been running HAL2000 with this panel for almost a year. I only have 2 consoles hooked to the panel. I also am not using any Message event in Homeseer. My trial has expired so I cannot get you a log file with the debug set to level 4. I will setup a new machine to see if I can duplicate this and also get data for the wrong alarm status that I am seeing.

I am reluctant to switch to Homeseer without some hope that these issues will be resolved.

John

[JLehnert]

When you get the beeping, is any message displayed on the console, i.e. "no communications" or similar?

I know when I kick off large macro on my OP, the panel gets so busy that it loses comms with the consoles occasionally. It beeps for around 30 seconds, then things go back to normal. The overhead from the panel answering the plugins requests on your system might be just enough to tip the system into overload, vs what you used to have with HAL.

[Rick Tinker]

Nobody has sent me a debug log yet, so I am still open to volunteers!!!

[ctdeng0]

Sent log file

Rick,

Your profile does not allow people to send you email, so I sent the log file to the webmaster@homeseer.com.

John Reason

[JLehnert]

Don't worry, I'm going to send you a log.......


Of course, since I don't have problems with checksum errors, it won't help you there.

[Rick Tinker]

I thought my email address was public knowledge - sorry. email via the MB was turned off because too many people started using it as another support avenue - Inbox was getting crazy. I enabled a download of my vCard from here which contains my email address.

[Rick Tinker]

John,

I got the log, but I could not see a single CHECKSUM error in it anywhere!

Did you see one in your HomeSeer log during the time the capture to the debug log was enabled?

[rileydogmi]

Checksum

I am getting a lot of these errors - I just restarted HS and set the debug mode. I can email you my log latter today when I fill it - I am getting one every few minutes...

This would be GREAT to get rid of these!