Latest Version 2.0.32 - Better data management options

[Chameleon]

Hi all

I've had a number of reports from users regarding a global 'db' variable not defined error in recent days. I believe that the main reasons this occurs is that users have checked the Should NEST Home archive all data changes? option in the NEST Home configuration dialog but then have not provided a Text File Folder (or incorrectly entered the full path of the folder such as '/Users/Michael/NESTMap') into the field on the configuration dialog. This causes the error listed above.

I've now provided trapping & recovery for this error as part of the plugin. If the plugin is unable to access the tracking file it will advise you to check the Folder Path details and then disable the reporting features automatically. If you're not interested in reporting you can ignore this message and the plugin will continue to operate. However, if you do need tracking & reporting then make sure that the folder is correctly entered in the NEST Home configuration dialog and then recheck the Should NEST Home archive all data changes? option and reload the plugin.

• You can download the latest version (2.0.32) for NEST Home from this link:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/bxafk8uuhmam3 ... e.zip?dl=1
  
  You can download the latest version (2.0.32) for NEST Home 2 from this link:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/xz7og67m84dpe ... 2.zip?dl=1
  
  You can download the latest version (2.0.32) for NEST Home 3 from this link:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/wfbuudkt2ryza ... 3.zip?dl=0

You can install these updates in the usual way.

What's new in version 2.0.32?

1. Bugfix to resolve a data tracking bug presenting itself with global variable 'db' not defined. If you are currently using NEST Home with tracking and without issue you do not need to upgrade at this time

If you have any issues resolving this error please contact me with a copy of the error message from the log.

Regards

Mike

[slimjimh]

Hi Mike,

I entered a valid folder and now am not receiving any errors.

Thanks for your fine work!

Jim

[Chameleon]

Hi Mike,

I entered a valid folder and now am not receiving any errors.

Thanks for your fine work!

Jim

My pleasure - glad it's working

[marketability]

Hi
Just changed to 2.0.32 and am getting the following error in the Indigo log
Error device "Dining Room Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Dining Room Thermostat" state key humidityInputsAll not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Dining Room Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)

everything else seems to be working OK
any suggestions? thanks!

[Chameleon]

Hi
Just changed to 2.0.32 and am getting the following error in the Indigo log
Error device "Dining Room Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Dining Room Thermostat" state key humidityInputsAll not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Dining Room Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)

everything else seems to be working OK
any suggestions? thanks!

My guess is that you need to regenerate your API key. It looks as if it's working on an old version without the Humidity element added. When the plugin was first released the API didn't include the Humidity reading from the NEST but now it exists. If you regenerate the key using the configuration dialog the message should go away. Let me know if it doesn't and I'll trap the error so you don't see it again.

BTW which generate of NEST do you have 1, 2 or 3?

Regards

Mike

[marketability]

I have a gen2
I'll let you know how i get on after regenerating the API key
cheers and thanks

[Chameleon]

I have a gen2
I'll let you know how i get on after regenerating the API key
cheers and thanks

No problem. I can solve the issue with trapping but I'd rather not if it's a 'client version' API issue D

Mike

[marketability]

Strange... not getting the error any more but the humidity is reporting 65% in Indigo and 63% from thermostat

[Chameleon]

Strange... not getting the error any more but the humidity is reporting 65% in Indigo and 63% from thermostat

I suspect that the API only records in 5% increments while the thermostat itself works in 1% steps. I have a similar issue with Temperature. Thermostat says 75.5F and the API says 75F because it only uses whole numbers (unlike the Centigrade that uses 0.5 steps so 22.5C is displayed as 22.5C in the API as well.

it's typical of Google to be frank - lack of consistency for no real reason!

Regards

Mike

[BigClaw]

Hello all

I've had a vera3 for years and decided to switch controllers. I installed the nest 2 driver for my 2 nest thermostat's. While it worked flawlessly on the vera this driver left me with:

NEST Home 2 Downstairs Thermostat target_temperature_f updated to 72
NEST Home 2 Downstairs Thermostat ambient_temperature_f updated to 72
Error device "Downstairs Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Downstairs Thermostat" state key humidityInputsAll not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Downstairs Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
NEST Home 2 Main Thermostat target_temperature_f updated to 71
NEST Home 2 Main Thermostat ambient_temperature_f updated to 72
Error device "Main Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Main Thermostat" state key humidityInputsAll not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Main Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)

Ok, no issue, I delete this driver and use the NEST on the vera3 since I need it anyway to deal with locks. No go here.. It keeps on regenerating. I don't want to blow down my entire NEST account to remove this driver. Is there a fix for the nest driver issue, I see others with simialar issues. I'd rather blow away indigo and start over than redo my nest account.

Any suggestions as to a fix or how to delete this driver without a major production would be appreciated.

Thanks
Paul

[Chameleon]

Hello all

I've had a vera3 for years and decided to switch controllers. I installed the nest 2 driver for my 2 nest thermostat's. While it worked flawlessly on the vera this driver left me with:

NEST Home 2 Downstairs Thermostat target_temperature_f updated to 72
NEST Home 2 Downstairs Thermostat ambient_temperature_f updated to 72
Error device "Downstairs Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Downstairs Thermostat" state key humidityInputsAll not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Downstairs Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
NEST Home 2 Main Thermostat target_temperature_f updated to 71
NEST Home 2 Main Thermostat ambient_temperature_f updated to 72
Error device "Main Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Main Thermostat" state key humidityInputsAll not defined (ignoring update request)
Error device "Main Thermostat" state key humidityInput1 not defined (ignoring update request)

Ok, no issue, I delete this driver and use the NEST on the vera3 since I need it anyway to deal with locks. No go here.. It keeps on regenerating. I don't want to blow down my entire NEST account to remove this driver. Is there a fix for the nest driver issue, I see others with simialar issues. I'd rather blow away indigo and start over than redo my nest account.

Any suggestions as to a fix or how to delete this driver without a major production would be appreciated.

Thanks
Paul

Paul

Sorry if I'm dumb here but I'm not sure what you're saying. There isn't a driver for the NEST in indigo - it's a plugin NEST Home that does all the work. It doesn't install anything on your setup and certainly wouldn't impact Vera if it was disabled.

If I understand what you're saying is that you installed the NEST Home plugin on your Indigo Setup and you get this error? If you then disable the plugin on Indigo you continue to get this error. I'm not sure you mean by 'driver' - do you mean plugin?

If you're using Indigo then you only have to disable the plugin in the Plugins/NEST Home menu and it will stop working and you'll get no messages. The plugin doesn't install any drivers or other files on your system so it wouldn't impact the VERA and it's operation.

However, if you want to continue to use the NEST on Indigo then we'll have to do one of two things:

1. First of all you can regenerate the plugin API key from NEST. This doesn't impact your NEST setup in anyway it just provides a new access key. The plugin/NEST dialog makes this fairly easy and I think the manual covers it well enough. Google have changed the API twice in the past year which potentially leads to a need to regenerate the key to have access to the latest fields - including humidity. Updating the key in the plugin will eliminate this issue. This is my standard response to the error messages you've sent through and it's worked for anyone with this type of problem although I've only had two in the last year out of 200+ users

2. I can trap out the error for your system. It would take very little effort and I'm happy to do it so that the messages won't occur. However, I'd like to see if it's an API issue or just bad coding on my part.

If you're unsure how to regenerate the key then let me know and I'll put together a step by step.

I'm probably missing the point here but I'm willing to help you however I can.

Thanks

Mike

[BigClaw]

Mike

Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes you are correct in that I installed the "plugin" yesterday. I used incorrect terminology calling it a driver. Never the less I installed it yesterday on a new mac mini system, new EL Capitan, new indigo 6.1.4. switched over some of the vera3 light switches, and used the vera bridge to access some of the other devices on the vera including the locks. Little slower but acceptable.

Anyway when I installed the NEST plugin it gives me all the garbage, as I explained I just wanted to delete the plugin and have it gone. When I did it consistantly returned. I was able to find a reference to removing the plugin which said you must delete the thermostats from the nest account and then not then delete them from indigo. Didn't sound promising. Since I'm running on a demo version at this time I have hit the limit on devices, appearentely items like the AEON motion sensors motion, light, humidity, and temp each count as a device.

So I have maxed out on devices and only have a small part of my system moved over.

I wanted to change because all new controllers in the vera line appear to be total failures and very unreliable (bad software). When I started this project I was sure I wanted to change to indigo, so much that I purchased a mac mini to run the system Now that I've started the process I'm finding that I may have made a mistake...

So yes, I know I can turn off communications to the nest devices and they will not fill my logs up with garbage but it appears they still count as devices. If they don't work correctly I want them gone.
If its a plugin, driver, or one of santa's reindeer I should be able to delete it.

Mike I appreciate your response and will try to regenerate the key. I'm not interested in masking the errors in the log. Also while playing with Thermostat Controls for the nest in your plugin I didn't see any indication if the thermostat was calling for heat (ON). Is it there and I just missed it?

One more question, does your nest plugin communicate directly with the nest devices or does it talk to the nest server?

Thanks for your assistance!!

Paul

[BigClaw]

Mike

As you suggested I regenerated the key which appears to have the issue. Also I found the "ON" indication.

Thanks for your assistance.

Best regards
Paul

[Chameleon]

Mike

As you suggested I regenerated the key which appears to have the issue. Also I found the "ON" indication.

Thanks for your assistance.

Best regards
Paul

Hi Paul

Glad that worked. However, I did promise a step by step guide to removing a plugin - especially the NEST Home plugin so here it is.

Essentially there are three stages - plugin, preferences and devices

Plugin

All plugins are contained in the /Library/Application Support/Perceptive Automation/Indigo 6/Plugins Folder. You can delete the file from this directory (it's normally easy to find)

If you disabled the plugin you'll find the key file in the /Library/Application Support/Perceptive Automation/Indigo 6/Plugins (Disabled) folder

It's easier to disable the plugin first and then delete the preferences file so I'd recommend that

Preferences

The preferences file will be contained in the folder /Library/Application Support/Perceptive Automation/Indigo 6/Preferences/Plugins folder. The preferences file looks a bit more complicated to find but normally it's not so bad. For example: For NEST Home it will have a filename such as com.corporatechameleon.nestplugBeta.indiPref. You can delete this file as well.

Devices

I didn't realise that Indigo counted disabled devices towards the total overall. However, if you've reached this point and deleted the plugin and preferences files you can delete the devices without any issues. I understand now what your issue was and I can see that there is a use case where someone might want to remove devices WITHOUT the plugin realigning the indigo map to the online account. I'll add an option into the plugin to allow people to disconnect, as you wanted to do, without all of the hassle or remove the plugin completely without having to understand the MAC operating system (something that I've never really got used to)

In some ways the NEST Home plugin is unique in Indigo as it creates all devices on an account automatically to maintain integrity. I don't think that any other plugin does that so I don't think you'll have any problems with similar issues in the future. Even the Santa/Reindeer plugin allows you to add and delete at will so I'll include similar functionality in the NEST Plugin on the next release. Thanks for highlighting the issue which I hadn't considered - it was the first plugin I wrote.

As for your last question. The plugin communicates with the NEST Server via the NEST API & the internet not directly. In the coming months Google is intending to rollout 'Weave' rather than the current API for NESTs. It is proposed that 'weave' will allow direct communication with the NESTs rather than via the server. Weave will keep all of the equipment aligned on and off line. That will be a step forward because the plugin can't communicate with the NEST if the internet link is down which is, to put it lightly, annoying and removes redundancy.

Thanks for being patient.

Regards

Mike

[marketability]

Just one further update/feedback - not sure if its important or not
I'm getting occasional ( 2 -m 3 times per day) log entries as follows...

" NEST Home 2 Error versionCheck: There was an error parsing the server's version file."