Geofencing error

Posted on
Fri Oct 06, 2017 10:05 pm
jmiked offline
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Location: Austin, Texas

Geofencing error

I'm getting an error message whenever I leave an area: "Error executing action group". It does not happen when entering an area, all works fine then. I can manually trigger the Action Group for leaving the area from DomoPad and it works. My geofencing radius is set for 100 meters.

I'm using an LG phone with Android 7.0, version 1.6.1 of DomoPad.

Any thoughts?

Also, in the Geofence Edit page, if I have an On Enter action and an On Exit action, how do I delete or turn off just one of them?

Mike D.

Posted on
Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:03 am
jmiked offline
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Re: Geofencing error

Two weeks and no suggestions? It's looking like I'll have to go back to the iPhone.

Posted on
Fri Oct 20, 2017 7:43 am
RogueProeliator offline
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Re: Geofencing error

Two weeks and no suggestions? It's looking like I'll have to go back to the iPhone.

Hey Mike, sorry - I know that I typed up a response to this, so not sure what happened - if I got distracted and never submitted or what... my apologies. (And for what it is worth Indigo Touch doesn't have geofencing :))

I'm getting an error message whenever I leave an area: "Error executing action group". It does not happen when entering an area, all works fine then. I can manually trigger the Action Group for leaving the area from DomoPad and it works. My geofencing radius is set for 100 meters.

This has come up several times and, thus far, every single time we have had a conclusion/follow up it has been due to the phone's attachment to WiFi. Basically, in these cases what happens is that when the geofence is triggered, the phone still has a very slight (poor) connection to WiFI. So when DomoPad attempts to execute the action group, it receives a network error from the Android system due to it attempting to go over WiFi... unfortunately, many (all?) Android phones try a bit too hard to hold on to that WiFi connection. This doesn't happen when entering the geofence because the phone will be on cellular until it has a good WiFi connection, but either way the action group can be sent on through.

There is an ultimate solution in that I want to implement some form of execution retry queue type setup - along with perhaps a button on the error notification to "Execute Now" for those times whenever it just HAS to be executed manually for whatever weird reason (currently it will retry once and then bail with the error). In the shorter term, though, most people have had success in expanding out the geofence to a distance where WiFi definitely won't reach at all (most people I've helped with this will start at 250 or 300 meters and continue up until they get a reliable execution).

Hope this helps some!
Adam

Posted on
Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:12 pm
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Re: Geofencing error

OK, thanks. I made a semi-kluge solution by using MacroDroid to do the geofencing and then ending an email that Indigo would scan. It worked, but wasn't very elegant. I would rather use something that didn't rely on emails.

On looking at the settings in MacroDroid, I see that the geofencing was set at 200 meters, whereas I'm pretty sure I set DomoPad at 100 meters. I'll re-configure the setting and give it a try. From your comments, that should get it working.

I know Indigo Touch has no geofencing, but using Apple's Find My Friends app to to the fencing and sending an email to Indigo was 100% reliable at 100 meters on an iPhone 6. But the email solution isn't very elegant.

The jury is still out on staying with the Android phone. It's not driven by DomoPad, though. I do a lot of emails, text messages, and note-making by dictation and over the last week have discovered that the Android dictation capability for formatting is very limited. It can only do periods, commas, question marks, exclamation points, and maybe one or two others. The iPhone can do 55+ formatting commands by voice, even writing numbers as Roman numerals. The iPhone has a huge advantage for me in this area. Not for most people though, I would say.

I wonder if you can wear out a SIM by switching it between phones every week? :)

Again, thanks for you help. I think your suggestion will help.

Posted on
Sat Oct 21, 2017 7:29 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Re: Geofencing error

I know Indigo Touch has no geofencing, but using Apple's Find My Friends app to to the fencing and sending an email to Indigo was 100% reliable at 100 meters on an iPhone 6. But the email solution isn't very elegant.

I've had this issue of Android attempting to hold on to WiFi at all costs on multiple phones over multiple manufacturers... it is definitely some weakness in the algorithms somewhere base in Android. I would guess it is technically "as designed", but I consider it a bug or poor decision.

I do a lot of emails, text messages, and note-making by dictation and over the last week have discovered that the Android dictation capability for formatting is very limited. It can only do periods, commas, question marks, exclamation points, and maybe one or two others. The iPhone can do 55+ formatting commands by voice, even writing numbers as Roman numerals. The iPhone has a huge advantage for me in this area. Not for most people though, I would say.

I don't know if LG has customized their implementation, but the following should work:
Period = period (.)
Comma = comma (,)
Question mark = question mark (?)
Exclamation or exclamation point = exclamation point (!)
Apostrophe = apostrophe (‘)
Enter or new line = moves to a new line
New paragraph = new paragraph
Tab key = tab
Colon = colon (:)
Dash = dash (-)
Ellipsis or dot dot dot = ellipsis (…)
Ampersand = ampersand (&)
Asterisk = asterisk (*)
At sign = at sign (@)
Backslash = backslash (\)
Forward slash = forward slash (/)
Open bracket = open bracket ([)
Close bracket = closed bracket (])
Open parenthesis = open parenthesis (()
Close parenthesis = close parenthesis ())

Different phones and OSes have their strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's is better, just wanted to give you some that SHOULD work.

Adam

Posted on
Sat Oct 21, 2017 9:06 pm
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Re: Geofencing error

Nope. Maybe LG has customized things. The first seven you listed work (except for the apostrophe). The rest fail, printing the word instead. :( I'm going to continue searching for a solution, though.

It appears that setting the radius to 200 meters has fixed the problem. Tomorrow I'm trying 150.

Posted on
Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:21 pm
jmiked offline
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Re: Geofencing error

I'm wondering if setting the phone to turn off WiFi when away from home would affect any of this. It should provide a clean cut-off. I won't be able to try it for a while.

Posted on
Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:15 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Re: Geofencing error

Nope. Maybe LG has customized things. The first seven you listed work (except for the apostrophe). The rest fail, printing the word instead. :( I'm going to continue searching for a solution, though.

OH, just remembered something... some of these are specific to the dictation on particular keyboards. Try out Swype (it uses Dragon Naturally Speaking IIRC).

Posted on
Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:17 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Re: Geofencing error

I've only had this occur once and I'm sure that it was not trying to hold on to a WiFi connection.

I was speaking of those where we could reliably reproduce the issue -- the one-off failures could be hundreds of things. Some type of facility to re-try the send after a delay would handle this in most circumstances.

Posted on
Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:46 pm
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Re: Geofencing error

RogueProeliator wrote:
OH, just remembered something... some of these are specific to the dictation on particular keyboards. Try out Swype (it uses Dragon Naturally Speaking IIRC).



YES. The Swype keyboard works very well for the missing punctuation marks. Thank you very much.

Posted on
Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:09 am
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Re: Geofencing error

I've been observing a peculiar behavior of the system the last few days. It will seemingly at random turn my SimpliSafe system on and then a few minutes later, turn it back off again. This happens when I haven't been near my phone for several hours. It does not happen when I delete the geofencing entry in DomoPad. I've observed this to happen half-a-dozen times over several days. The time-stamps in the Devices list in DomoPad match the times the system was activated.

Any thoughts? This is weird.

Posted on
Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:02 am
RogueProeliator offline
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Re: Geofencing error

You can check the Indigo Log -- the time stamps for the change should correspond to an entry in the Indigo Log if it is being initiated from the Android device. But that would only serve to be sure that it is the phone kicking off the action group (the time stamps in Devices come from the server so would update regardless of what kicked off the action).

In terms of the geofencing itself, that is all handled by the Android system and not by DomoPad -- it simply tells the device "Setup a geofence at this point using this radius and notify me on entry or exit". It doesn't actually look or know your location. SO, in your case it sounds like the system is notifying of a geofence crossing erroneously. I would double/triple check the geofence and radius and be sure your phone couldn't be near the boundary. I've seen those GPSes drift several hundred feet at time. But assuming that is all good, have you tried a reboot in case there is just something in a bad state?

I know these are general suggestions, but not too much evidence to go on yet...

Adam

Posted on
Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:03 am
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Re: Geofencing error

By the way, what phone and Android version?

Posted on
Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:20 pm
jmiked offline
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Re: Geofencing error

I'm using an LG V20 with Android 7.0. I have a 250 meter radius set up. I have re-booted the device several times.

I did think about the GPS giving erroneous data. I thought I had it pegged when I noticed that Google Gallery had my photos place-labeled incorrectly. They were all 0.2 miles (~220 meters) off to the south. I then checked the meta-data embedded in the pictures and they were all spot-on, so it seems something in the Gallery app is screwed up.

Additional data is that I have another app that uses geofencing (MacroDroid) that I have now set up to raise an alarm if it thinks I've gone outside a 200-meter radius. Also, I use a navigation app a lot to keep me updated on time of arrivals when I'm driving, and I haven't noticed any unusual behavior with the location info on the map. I'll have to pay a bit more attention to it.

Please don't think I'm blaming DomoPad for this, I assumed from the start that standard system calls were being used.

Posted on
Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:44 pm
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Re: Geofencing error

I'm using an LG V20 with Android 7.0. I have a 250 meter radius set up. I have re-booted the device several times.

I've experienced Samsung phones having a slow-to-acquire GPS in the past (not so much any longer), but never had any issues with LG's past hardware in that regard.

I did think about the GPS giving erroneous data. I thought I had it pegged when I noticed that Google Gallery had my photos place-labeled incorrectly. They were all 0.2 miles (~220 meters) off to the south.

Hmm, that is interesting in that if Gallery is somehow mis-reading the coordinates I wonder if others apps could be too. Like you, though, I don't think this is a smoking gun...

Please don't think I'm blaming DomoPad for this, I assumed from the start that standard system calls were being used.

Oh, I'm not saying it couldn't be something, somehow, in DomoPad -- just was saying that unfortunately this is difficult to debug since much / most of the code is within the system. There is always still a chance that the app is interacting with the system incorrectly or something.

Could you check the geofence coordinates in DomoPad by plotting them on Maps or Earth or whatever? (Thinking here of the Photos app being off...)

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