Another Elk email conundrum

[apostolakisl]

I was just out of town for a couple weeks.  I had a house sitter come in a couple times a day to feed the dog, water the plants, and so forth.  I have several elk rules which are supposed to email me every time the system arms or disarms.  I got an email the day I left like normal when I armed the system.  Then. . . no more.
 
I noticed about 24 hours into my trip that I had no emails.  I panicked and thought no one had come.  I called the sitter, and she says everything is fine and she was coming.  So I logged in using mykeypad and checked the log.  Indeed, all the arm/disarms were noted.
 
I came home and disarmed. Still not a single email.  I logged in with RP2 and did a "test".  I got the test.  Then I did a test arm/disarm and sure enough got the emails.  ????!!!!!
 
My entire HA system was still sitting in the house just like usual.  The only change to anything technology was that I took my laptop with me that I usually use to configure the system and is usually at home and on, but is not an active part of anything.  Plus I was able to use mykeypad to check the Elk log so it was obviously still connected to the internet.
 
Any ideas?

 

[pete_c]

Nada here Lou.  Doesn't make sense. 
 
You can test it some more maybe by creating a tickle email that runs every 120 minutes or so and see if it changes when you arm or disarm along with your regular arm and disarm emails.  You can maybe also test by using a text message via another email service and a regular email that gets sent out at the same (not sure if Elk can do this?)
 
I utilize an email proxy on the firewall here which logs all of the in and out emails. 
 
Very occasionally I have see issues with the logging into the email server type stuff; usually delays; then the event is repeated again; but that is in the logs anyways.   I over do it here because the alarm service already does the emails and texts plus I do another set of emails and texts.   I have occassionally left on an hourly status script email thing while out of town more to look at temps and stuff.

 

[apostolakisl]

Pete,
thanks for reading it.
 
I also did get emails from my ISY (it reminded me to take the trash out).
 
I probably should just move my email notifications to ISY and forget about Elk's email function.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Did anything physically change (house temp set up while you were away, etc...)

 

[apostolakisl]

Did anything physically change (house temp set up while you were away, etc...)

 
Nope.  I left the AC on like normal since our house sitter was going to spend the day at the house potentially (and the dog was in there).
 
The only thing that changed is my dyndns updater was on the computer I took with me so it changed addresses.  (Yes, that was un-intentional, the computer I had it on had a hard drive melt down a couple months ago and I moved the updater to my laptop, so I pretty much sabotaged myself there).  And, it was an impressive hard drive failure, the head gouged out a 1/2 inch wide swath of the platter.  But anyway, I can't fathom how that could have anything to do with it (dyndns that is).

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Weird, one last thing (then I'm out of ideas)...did the dog-sitter arm/disarm differently than you normally do (say from a keypad instead of your phone)?
 
I take it from re-reading your OP that you 'had' these Email rules in place long before you left for your trip (ie you didn't create new rules right before you left and just tested them on your exit)?

 

[apostolakisl]

Weird, one last thing (then I'm out of ideas)...did the dog-sitter arm/disarm differently than you normally do (say from a keypad instead of your phone)?
 
I take it from re-reading your OP that you 'had' these Email rules in place long before you left for your trip (ie you didn't create new rules right before you left and just tested them on your exit)?

 
I had her use our spare keyfob.  All the keyfobs radio activate relays connected to Elk zones which then arm the system via rules, so Elk shouldn't know the difference between the different keyfobs.
 
The rule is 
 
Whenever Main House (area 1) becomes armed
Then send email
 
So not much room for mis-interpretation there.
 
Really the only thing that was not normal was the fact that my laptop (along with dyndns updater) was offsite.
 
And like I said, I got some ISY emails and it uses the same email server.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

OK, I know this isn't 'totally' realated, but I do remember some delays on disarm giviing me some (unrelated) problems in my friend's systems as shown in this post.
 
Look at Spanky's reply (post 12).  There is some delay in the system that might be giving you problems possibly?  Wonder if you could delay after a disarm event, then fire your email rule.
 
Again, not pretending this is even close to your problem, just throwing it out there!

 

[gatchel]

I probably should just move my email notifications to ISY and forget about Elk's email function.

 
Definitely the better option until Elk steps in to the mid 90's with their email capability...My ISY never fails to notify me in any event. Elk not so much. I might get notifications for months then all of the sudden 2 or 3 days go by with no email from trhe M1. I have thrown in the towel with the M1 being a relaible source for email content.
 
You paid the money for the ISY, put it to work!

 

[newalarm]

Funny how this kind of stuff only seems to happen when you go on vacation....

 

[apostolakisl]

Yes, and it literally happened on the very first email after I left.  And like I said, the only "technology" thing that changed is me taking my laptop with the ddns updater on it.  But I just can't fathom any way that this caused the problem.
 
I think I will go ahead and move those emails over to ISY.  I have already moved about half of my Elk rules over to ISY as it is, so I might as well just finish it off.

 

[gatchel]

Yes, and it literally happened on the very first email after I left.  And like I said, the only "technology" thing that changed is me taking my laptop with the ddns updater on it.  But I just can't fathom any way that this caused the problem.
 
I think I will go ahead and move those emails over to ISY.  I have already moved about half of my Elk rules over to ISY as it is, so I might as well just finish it off.

Then just make a good backup of the ISY