Pioneer Receiver discussion

Could just trigger when it becomes blank and set it to off.

Ya know.. it never even occurred to me to try a trigger of blank! I’ll give it a look at soon. If not i can still go with the source numbers which appear to be consistent. Thanks!

Nathan,
Love your work - great stuff.
I have a Pioneer VSX-1123. The plugin works well (I have had zero operational problems), with the caveat that I'm not really pushing the limits on it. I use Indigo to automate Airfoil connecting to the receiver or disconnecting, but that's about it.
However, the plugin seems to throw an error in the log every time the receiver powers up or down:

Nov 15, 2013, 8:47:47 PM
Pioneer Receiver power (zone 1): on
Pioneer Receiver input source (zone 1): TV
Pioneer Receiver audio input/output information updated
Pioneer Receiver Error Error in plugin execution runConcurrentThread:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "plugin.py", line 405, in runConcurrentThread
File "plugin.py", line 1374, in processResponse
<type 'exceptions.KeyError'>: u'0212'

Pioneer Receiver Error plugin runConcurrentThread function returned or failed (will attempt again in 10 seconds)
Pioneer Receiver Error Error in plugin execution runConcurrentThread:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "plugin.py", line 405, in runConcurrentThread
File "plugin.py", line 1374, in processResponse
<type 'exceptions.KeyError'>: u'0212'

Pioneer Receiver Error plugin runConcurrentThread function returned or failed (will attempt again in 10 seconds)
Pioneer Receiver Error Error in plugin execution runConcurrentThread:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "plugin.py", line 405, in runConcurrentThread
File "plugin.py", line 1374, in processResponse
<type 'exceptions.KeyError'>: u'0212'

Pioneer Receiver Error plugin runConcurrentThread function returned or failed (will attempt again in 10 seconds)

Nov 15, 2013, 8:48:47 PM
Pioneer Receiver volume (zone 1): -29.0 dB
Pioneer Receiver volume (zone 1): -29.5 dB

I get other quirky error messages, and occasionally the receiver's state in Indigo is "error".

This isn't creating a problem, but I thought I'd give you the feedback in case it means something to you.

Best,
Phil

Hi Phil.

Thanks for the report. I checked to see if Pioneer has their "RS-232 codes" for that model of receiver, and they do have that up now. It looks like the error is appearing because the VSX-1123 has new playback listening modes of "ECO MODE 1" and "ECO MODE 2" which previous models did not have. ECO MODE 1 is identified by the code "0212" which isn't defined in the current version of the Pioneer Receiver plugin, causing the plugin to crash after it asks the receiver what playback listening mode it's in since the plugin doesn't know what 0212 means. I'll get that fixed when I add VSX-1123 support. It'll take a little time to get that done though. In the interim, if possible, you might try selecting a different playback listening mode, or disabling the ECO MODE feature (if possible). This should fix the plugin crash.

Nathan,
No sweat - not in any hurry. Like I said, it is making no difference to my actual operation - just shows up in the log. Glad you figured it out, though, and looking forward to "official" VSX-1123 support.
Best,
Phil

I have a VSX-1021 and have added the plugin to Indigo 6 and configured per the instructions. I can browse to the receiver's IP address with Safari and I see a "download MCCAC data" page, so I know the device is responding and visible. The problem is, I have no control options in Indigo. The device is just listed with a state of "off." It is off, but shouldn't I be able to turn it on?

Hello greenhornet.

Because Indigo's user interface was designed with basic light and appliance controls in mind that only have on, off, and dimming controls, it's not possible to add all the controls available from a device like the VSX-1021 to the Indigo user interface. Instead, you control the 1021 using Actions within an Indigo Action Group, Trigger, or Control Page. So, for instance, one way to turn on your VSX-1021-K's power is to create a new Action Group (perhaps naming it something like "VSX-1021 Power On"). For the "Device" popup menu, select your VSX-1021-K receiver device. For the "Type" popup menu, select "Pioneer Receiver Actions", then "Power", then "Power On (Zone 1)". Click the "OK" button. To test it, with the new "VSX-1021 Power On" action highlighted in Indigo, click the "Execute All" button at the bottom right of the main window. Your receiver should turn on. This action group can be called from within any other Action Group, Trigger, and Control Page within Indigo as well.

I’ve been having an issue lately where the plugin has lost its connection with the AV receiver.. it’s been very intermittent and i suspect it might be the switch i’m using (as i’ve had a couple of other odd connectivity issues in the past). I’m wondering if there’s any way to get the plugin to automatically detect when the connection has been lost and re-establish itself? I thought of some kind of check on the ‘last updated’ field but when watching a movie it might not change for 2-3 hours. Any better ideas?

Sorry to hear about the connection issues.

Actually, the Pioneer Receiver plugin has a fair amount of connection monitoring built-in. It attempts to read data from the connection to the receiver every 0.1 seconds. If the TCP connection to the receiver has been broken, it will report a connection error and attempt to reconnect to the receiver every 10 seconds. The same is true of sending commands to the receiver. If, when a command is sent, a communications error is reported, the plugin will report an error and attempt to reconnect to the receiver every 10 seconds. Of course, if the OS still thinks it has a telnet connection to the receiver when, in fact, it does not, the plugin wouldn't detect that condition until the OS did. If you're noticing intermittent network issues, you might be able to test for a broken connection by setting up an Indigo schedule to send a receiver status update action every 20 or 30 seconds. It would cause a lot of log entries, but should cause the OS to more quickly detect a broken connection when TCP packets are sent but not acknowledged, thus causing the plugin to try to reconnect when command sending fails.

Good idea! At least that way i might be able to narrow down a time when the issue happens and troubleshoot from there on. How can get it to do a “receiver status update action”? I’ve had a look in all the different options for actions and can’t see a way of doing it.. there’s Request Full Status Update under universal controls, but the AV receiver isn’t selectable under that option and i can’t see a option under the pioneer plugin's menu either.

Sorry. I wrote that inaccurately. In an Indigo action (Action tab in a Trigger, Action tab in a Schedule, Action Group action, or Control Page action), for the action Type pop-up menu, follow the menu path "Pioneer Receiver Actions" -> "System" -> "Refresh All States".

One of these days I should update the plugin to respond to the Device Actions -> Universal Actions -> Request Full Status Update call, though I'm concerned that such an update might require making the plugin incompatible with Indigo 5. More investigation will be needed.

Ah yes i see it now.. will try it out and see what happens! Moving house in a couple of weeks with all new cable runs, so if the issue persists i’ll know it’s likely to be the switch.. might be time for a shiny new one

Version 1.0.4 Released

(See main Pioneer Receiver plugin announcement thread for download link).

• Added support for VSX-1123-K and other newer models.
• Having received no reports of issues, the VSX-1022-K support is no longer "experimental".
• Changed audio input/output frequencies from a number to a string to match state definition in Devices.xml.

First of all thank you very much for the plugin! Very much appreciate the amount of work that went into this.

I have a new Pioneer SC-75 that I need to control and to my big surprise, I got the basic functionality working with this plugin right away. It does throw some errors that I will need to look into and get fixed, probably the newer SC-75 not supporting all APIs or introducing new ones.

In addition I am observing a TON of network traffic with this plugin enabled and wanted to see if that is normal and how to potentially reduce the traffic significantly.

The Mac Mini I am running Indigo on without the plugin averages around a few KB/sec (monitoring through OSX Mavericks). When I enable communications with this plugin the average goes up to about 350KB/sec and stays there as long as the plugin is active. (e.g. hours and potentially days - my guess indefinitely)

Is there anybody still working on this plugin? If so I would love to provide feedback and input. If not, would it be ok to fork the plugin and add support for the SC-75 and provide it back (e.g. GitHub)

[jay (support)]

FYI, we now host a Github repo where we'd like to see these kinds of open source plugins to live. We can grant appropriate rights as necessary to make sure changes are done well/coordinated for anyone who wants to host the plugin there. We don't want to be the gatekeeper though so for active plugins we'll definitely want to assign someone else merge/commit.

Now, having said that, Nathan is really good about supporting his plugins so I'm sure he'd welcome patches…

Hi. Thanks. I'm glad the plugin is at least partially functional with that model.

What errors are you getting? Assuming that Pioneer publishes the supported commands for the SC-75, I can modify the plugin to work more smoothly with that model.

350 K/sec is rather high. Some of that may be due to the numerous errors, causing the plugin to attempt to re-request status updates from the receiver. Some of that may also be communication between the plugin and Indigo, though I'm not sure about that part as that's all handled by the IndigoPluginHost process.

As for posting the plugin on GitHub, I'll consider it. Strictly speaking, though, none of my plugins except for the Hue Lights plugin are open source. They're all free and in clear-text, but not really "open source". That said, however, there's nothing stopping anyone from taking any of my plugins and modifying them for their individual needs. Anyone is welcome to do that, as long as they keep my original copyright notice in the plugin.py file (and wherever else in the plugin that it appears). If someone is making a ton of money off my plugins, a generous donation would also be nice.