Setting the Message Timeout

[SteveHome]

Since Vista panels don't send messages when a faulted zone becomes ready again, the only way to determine that a zone is ready is for the plugin to notice that the (virtual) keypad is no longer receiving a "Faulted" message for the zone. The timeout setting available in the plugin setting page needs to be set to a value high enough to ensure that the plugin will not incorrectly assume a zone has become ready because the keypad hasn't displayed the Faulted message again. The timeout may need to be quite high (30 seconds or more) on a multi-partition system which might have many zones faulted.

On my Vista 128P, there's 3.8 seconds between messages from the panel. On a 1-partition system with 3 zones faulted, the display messages would look something like this when Zone 30 goes from Fault to Ready:
P1 DISARMED ZONES FAULTED
FAULT 010 ZONE 10
FAULT 020 ZONE 20
FAULT 030 ZONE 30
P1 DISARMED ZONES FAULTED
FAULT 010 ZONE 10
FAULT 020 ZONE 20
P1 DISARMED ZONES FAULTED
(etc)

For the plugin to recognize that zone 10 is still faulted, the timeout needs to be (in my case) 3.8 seconds x 4 , where "4" is the number of messages between the first and second "FAULT 010 ZONE 10" messages, which would be a timeout of 16 seconds or more. The more faulted zones, the longer the timeout.

In a multi-partition system, the panel sends the AD2USB messages for all the partitions in a "round robin" fashion - One message from the P1 keypad, then a message from the P2 keypad, and so forth. In a two partition system, the above example would look like:

P1 DISARMED ZONES FAULTED
****DISARMED**** READY TO ARM (from P2)
FAULT 010 ZONE 10
****DISARMED**** READY TO ARM
FAULT 020 ZONE 20
****DISARMED**** READY TO ARM
FAULT 030 ZONE 30
****DISARMED**** READY TO ARM
P1 DISARMED ZONES FAULTED
****DISARMED**** READY TO ARM
FAULT 010 ZONE 10
****DISARMED**** READY TO ARM
FAULT 020 ZONE 20
****DISARMED**** READY TO ARM
P1 DISARMED ZONES FAULTED
(etc)
Now, the Plugin needs to wait for 8 messages to go by before the "Fault 010" repeats, or at least 30 seconds. If the system had three partitions, there would be 12 messages before the repeat, or 45 seconds.

It might be possible for the plugin to reduce the time by issuing "*" commands to faulted partitions at 1-second intervals; that would display faulted zones one at a time much more quickly than waiting for the panel to do so on its own.

When setting a timeout that's more than 9 seconds, be aware that the entry window in the configuration screen is sized for a single digit; you may need to arrow left or right in the field to see values > 9.

Current Date/Time: 5/8/2018 12:14:56 PM
HomeSeer Version: HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.435
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional - Work Station
System Uptime: 1 Day 14 Hours 25 Minutes 38 Seconds
IP Address: 172.16.100.234
Number of Devices: 477
Number of Events: 128
Available Threads: 400
HSTouch Enabled: True
Event Threads: 0
Event Trigger Eval Queue: 0
Event Trigger Priority Eval Queue: 0
Device Exec Queue: 0
HSTouch Event Queue: 0
Email Send Queue: 0
Anti Virus Installed: Microsoft Security Essentials

Enabled Plug-Ins
2.18.0.7: MCSSPRINKLERSP
3.0.0.37: Vista Alarm
3.0.1.190: Z-Wave

[mnsandler]

Steve,
thanks for laying this out for other 128p users.

a few comments:

1. the plugin uses the formula "message timeout * num of faulted zones" to determine when a zone might be cleared if another fault isn't received. And it adds extra time for system faults. the timeout is recalculated for every fault message received.

2. i can increase the field size for the message timeout. Its set for length 2. I wonder what browser you are using. With chrome it does show a two digital value without scrolling right.

3. you could try adding your own event to send the * command to the panel to force the plugin to process fault messages. I don't have a 128p to test this.