SMS Notifications stopped working

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
As of Tuesday October 2nd, 2018 all of my SMS notifications have stopped functioning. None of my scripts that use SMS notifications are sending out the notifications any more and I have no idea why. None of my scripts that use SMS have been edited since the day contact book was removed and yet they all stopped on that day. I created a new script to send myself an SMS as a test just now and it works perfectly fine yet all my existing refuse to send the SMS. I have some of them set to change the piston status to message that is sent and that part works fine so it thinks it is sending out the message yet we are not receiving them on either of our phones. Both of us last received an SMS when we left the house last Tuesday morning.

Any ideas as to anything that happened that day with Webcore or ST that may have caused this? I am unsure what to do to resolve it and nothing has changed on my end. I have not edited any pistons in months nor have I added any new devices to our ST setup. I am stumped why this would happen suddenly.

#2

Interestingly, there’s a thread on the ST forum about Ring Pro notifications stopping as of 2nd October… probably just a coincidence though.

SMS’s are working fine for me.

#3

If your wording is identical between your old pistons and the new test piston, this leads me to think that it is not the SMS’s that are wonky, but something else.

I often add “Log to console” commands scattered about in my code when troubleshooting. It lets you easily see which blocks are executing, and which ones are not.

#4

I am absolutely stumped. My wording is identical in my existing scripts and my new test script. My existing scripts use a global variable for each phone number in the event either of us ever changed numbers I did not want to go and change every reference. However I have gone through every script and changed every variable reference to exact phone numbers and it did not fix anything. In my test script I have used the variable and an exact number and both worked fine. I am absolutely stumped and beyond frustrated.

I tried cloning the pistons, copying and pasting the code in to new pistons and nothing. It would be a ton of work to re build all of my pistons manually that rely on SMS notifications.

Any other actions that are grouped with it are working perfectly so I know it is not the trigger that is the problem but specifically the SMS notifications. In the code I shared when we are both home the notification correctly arrives as a PUSH notification and we both receive it, however neither of us receive any SMS notifications.

Here is one of the pistons as a sample to see if anyone can see anything to explain this issue.

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#5

I tend to avoid ELSE IF statements like the plague, but you said this was working well for months, so let’s ignore that for the moment…

One observation is in that piston of yours, there is no way to tell what is happening, since the only command is Send SMS. I imported your piston, and placed log commands inside each block.

If you use this piston (instead of your old piston) for a day or so, your log should populate with enough data to pinpoint what is happening… (It might be as simple as Switch 10 has a dead battery)

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(you may want to lower the wait on line 39 during testing)

I would also turn Logging to at least ‘Minimal’ or your log will be lost each time you edit the piston

temp

#6

Thanks for the information. I am out of town for a few days but will test this out when I return home.

#7

I should note that “Switch 10” is a virtual device so there is no battery. I should explain this specific script for context. This script is one we use for when we are working in our yard. We have a motion detector near the door we use to enter the home and when we have turned on “backyard mode” aka that switch. We have August Smart Lock Pro on our door and it auto locks after 10 minutes. This script just makes it so when we work in the yard we don’t have to worry about keys or unlocking the door ourselves. The hourly message is to remind us the mode is still on so that if we are back indoors for the day we are reminded to turn it back off.

I know there is a hub update scheduled today and I am hopeful that maybe that resolves this. I really don’t understand what is going on otherwise.

EDIT: @WCmore Can you briefly explain the “expression” portion of the logging? I want to add these log commands to our more important home status script but I don’t fully understand what to do with the “expression” area of the command.

#8

The log can be written using “expression” (as I did above) or “value”. I just prefer using the expression box so I can see more text at once.

The basic concept in expressions is variables are outside of quotes, and text is inside quotes. You can also choose one of 5 colors to make that particular log event stand out a bit from the other clutter.

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#9

I used that function and when I looked through my logs it still appeared as though the send SMS command was completed successfully, at least no errors were reported. I kind of gave up for a bit as I was super frustrated and had no idea why it wouldn’t work in my d scripts yet worked in new ones.

Today out of nowhere when I arrived home I received the SMS notification my “Home/Away Script” is supposed to send and had stopped as per my post. I had not changed anything in days and the only changes I’ve ever made since it initially stopped was the logging. I have no idea why it decided to start working again today. As well it did not send the away message when we left this morning but we both got the welcome back messages early this evening when we got home. Something fixed it today but I have no clue what. I hope it continues to stay functional.

#10

Yea, the logging I added to the piston above does not verify if the SMS went thru or not. It’s main purpose is to easily see which BLOCK of code executed at any given time. That helps us to rule out faulty conditions etc.

Glad it is working for you now. If it bugs out again, please post a fresh green snapshot and the relevant log and we’ll take a look.

#11

The exact same problem has happened to me. I have 4 or 5 pistons that all send SMS messages for various events. All stopped working at the same time. I added an email notification action immediately after each SMS action to confirm that the the “if” conditions are being satifisied… and they are. I receive the email notifications immediately after if condition is satisfied, but no SMS.
I have confirmed that the webcore phone number is not in my list of blocks numbers. Any ideas on what caused all of my SMS-related pistons to stop working?

#12

where are you located?

you may want to check out the following thread on the recent SMS changes ST made…

#13

SMS services in Canada stopped for Samsung… Use Notification services or email - those are still fine.