ELK Report unidentified zone to Nextalarm

[felixrosbergen]

Hey All,

I've been getting calls from Nextalarm from time to time indicating they have received an alarm for an unspecified zone from my system.

Their online log shows codes such as:
4903 c A0
4903 c B3
4903 c B5
4903 c B8
4903 c 11
4903 c 15
4903 c 18
4903 c 31

At each ocaasion it's sometimes one of these codes, sometimes about 3 of them together.

When i open the ELK log through RP it shows nothing unusual.

Anybody know what this can be? Wife is getting a bit tired of these late night calls from NextAlarm.

Previously i thought this only occured right after an arm or disarm or a quick disarm/arm sequence, but the last few have been hours after the arm.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Spanky? You around..this is starting to become a pretty serious issue with calls multitple times a week from NextAlarm...

 

[CORT]

Spanky? You around..this is starting to become a pretty serious issue with calls multitple times a week from NextAlarm...

How is your system reporting to Next Alarm? I am a Next Alarm subscriber, and I don't even have the option to look at a log file that resembles what you are describing. I recently learned that Next Alarm does not recognize the CID codes for auxillary power supply fail and restore reported by an Elk M1. Can you ask Next Alarm what CID it is receiving to trigger an alarm and then see if that CID maps to any of your zones.

 

[felixrosbergen]

The codes i am seeing are on nextalarms onlie alarm activity log. I spoke to what seemed a knowledgeable person there at nextalarm and he told me it looked like 4-2-2 codes or something similar which is a different reporting method from CID.

So maybe ELK is sending out some non CID codes to nextalarm which they cannot identify. But i have ELK set to report in CID format.

 

[felixrosbergen]

ok, this happened again this morning. Since it's an undefined code for NextAlarm they do not send the police but just place a couretesy call.

I use Vonnage but do not use their ABN, I just use my own Vonnage VOIP box. Could this have anything to do with it? I don't really want to spend the money on the ABN or possibly an AT&T land line if this is not going to resolve the issue.

 

[mustangcoupe]

ok, this happened again this morning. Since it's an undefined code for NextAlarm they do not send the police but just place a couretesy call.

I use Vonnage but do not use their ABN, I just use my own Vonnage VOIP box. Could this have anything to do with it? I don't really want to spend the money on the ABN or possibly an AT&T land line if this is not going to resolve the issue.

I use Vonnage but do not use their ABN, I just use my own Vonnage VOIP box, also. What is your alarm log showing at the time of the nextalarm reported trouble?

 

[Spanky]

All dialer messages are sent from data stored in the log. If the log does not show an entry, the dialer did not sent it. Probably someone else has put your account code in their control.

See if the central station logs a caller ID number with the alarm.

 

[LaurentR]

All dialer messages are sent from data stored in the log. If the log does not show an entry, the dialer did not sent it. Probably someone else has put your account code in their control.

See if the central station logs a caller ID number with the alarm.

My comment won't be very specific, but I have seen plenty of events recoded as "blank" by NextAlarm. I used to report most everything in the log (until UpLink decided I was in runaway mode and cut the connection), and on occasion, I would get a blank report. I think that the auxiliary power loss reported as blank. There were a few more of the uncommon messages taht reported as blank. I have stopped reporting non-alarm events to NextAlarm and haven't had that issue recently.

Laurent

 

[felixrosbergen]

Hi Spanky,

Thank you for the response. Do the codei show in my first post mean anything to you?

Maybe i'll request they give me a new account code or something.

And i am only reporting alarm events to my knowledge.

Could it be possible that because i use my own Vonnage VOIP rather than NextAlarms ABN something gets messed up? SOmetimes it seems their logs are missing the occasional arm or disarm event and their website shows my system armed/on or disarmed/off incorrectly.

 

[WayneW]

Could it be possible that because i use my own Vonnage VOIP rather than NextAlarms ABN something gets messed up? SOmetimes it seems their logs are missing the occasional arm or disarm event and their website shows my system armed/on or disarmed/off incorrectly.

Anything is possible, but I use Vonage VOIP directly to NextAlarm with no known issues, so it CAN work. YMMV

 

[felixrosbergen]

After some back and forth between myself and NextAlarm they confirmed that the behavior I am seeing is a known common issue related to using alarm over VOIP without their special adapter.

So i'll be looking into a POTS to hopefully resolve the issue.

 

[mustangcoupe]

After some back and forth between myself and NextAlarm they confirmed that the behavior I am seeing is a known common issue related to using alarm over VOIP without their special adapter.

So i'll be looking into a POTS to hopefully resolve the issue.

Hold on for a second... your next alarm log should match with your elk log. Are there events happening at the corresponding times? Have you tried to disconnect your ELk and confirm it is really your problem? maybe as stated before someone with a bad account number entered in their system... I have my elk connected via vonnage without any problems...

Maybe we can get look at out elkrp at the same time in chat one evening and confirm settings on reporting. (maybe I am missing events B) from my log)