Haiku Phantom phone line trouble push notifications

[jharrell]

I have started getting phone line trouble push notifications and then immediately trouble cleared randomly about once a day, sometime more than once. At first I though my FiOS line was simply having issues as losing dial tone, but looking at my Omni event log, there is no record of it there, only in the HH log.
 
I purposely disconnected the line to test it's behavior and got the push, but my Omni also logged it and put a trouble message on the key pad that I had to clear. This not occurring with the ones I have been receiving.
 
Looking over the Omni docs it states:
 
PHONE LINE DEAD TRBL NOW or HAD TRBL: Indicated if the phone line is dead for more than 1 minute.
 
Is perhaps Haiku not honoring the 1 minute policy and send trouble if down for just a few seconds?
 
I have been at home once or twice when it occurred and it seemed like the phone might have just got done ringing(this line is rarely used and we have a machine on silent answering), is Haiku perhaps interpreting a line pickup or hangup as a trouble?
 
Haiku logs look like this when it occurs:
 
 
2013-03-15 12:15:02 Notification » XXX: Phone Line Trouble Now
2013-03-15 12:15:02 Notification » Push » XXX: Sending push notification: Phone Line Trouble Now
2013-03-15 12:15:10 Notification » XXX: Phone Line Trouble Cleared
2013-03-15 12:15:10 Notification » Push » XXX: Sending push notification: Phone Line Trouble Cleared
 
The problem is there is no way to turn off phone trouble notifications within Haiku if I still want alarms, and the only way to do it in the Omni is to turn off telephone access completely, which I need.
 

 

[jharrell]

It actually just occurred again while at home, it's definitely triggered by a call and occurs at the point when the call ends.

 

[lupinglade]

Haiku does not make the decision, the trouble is triggered by the controller. Thus it must have been "dead" for 1 minute, or at least thats what the controller thinks. I believe there is a setting in PC Access that can be tweaked for the phone line detection feature in cases like this.

 

[jharrell]

However as I said the trouble is never logged in the Omni event log. When I actually pulled the phone line manually the Omni logged a trouble and put it up on the keypads which stay there until it's cleared.
 
How is it possible to have a trouble in Haiku without it being anywhere in the Omni this makes no sense.
 
Do you have any suggestions on how to debug this further, more detailed logging, or am I going to have to resort to a network analyzer and weed through a day of packets to figure out where the problem lies?

 

[lupinglade]

Seems like the controller must be sending out the trouble notification even when the time hasn't elapsed then. However, this is still odd as we have no other reports of this and have never seen it while testing. Your line is still triggering an abnormal event of some sort. Have you tried tweaking the line condition setting in PC Access?

 

[jharrell]

I think you are referring to:
 
 
DEAD LINE DETECT
NOTE: To disable OmniPro II from detecting a dead line, set this item to '0'; otherwise adjust only under direction of HAI.
This item adjusts the threshold that is used to determine when the phone line goes dead.
DEAD LINE DETECT: 8
0-15 0=DISABLE 
 
I am not sure which way to tweak it or how to test since disconnecting the line works as it should throwing a trouble in the Omni. I'll try some changes here and see if it helps.
 
Sorry to be skeptical, but I have had this Omni running on this FiOS line since 2008 and it has had very very few dead line conditions, and the times it did the Omni logged it and beeped the consoles, so now I get Haiku Helper push working and immediately start getting phone line troubles daily with absolutely no record in the Omni.
 
After looking through the SDK you must be listening for the PHONE LINE DEAD 0000 0011 0000 0000 notification. By it's name I suspect it is sent immediately, it is up to the subscriber to implement the correct logic to wait for a minute before classifying the event as a trouble. This give the subscriber more flexibility but would lead to bugs such as this where a false trouble is reported. Are you doing a REQUEST SYSTEM TROUBLES polling instead? 

 

[jharrell]

So I just confirmed, if I pull the line for just a few seconds Haiku Helper pushes a trouble immediately while the Omni ignores the issue until 60 seconds has elapsed before reporting trouble. I speculate the REQUEST SYSTEM TROUBLES probably returns nothing during the first 60 seconds as the phone line indicator check in Haiku still shows ok when I pull it. (Haiku Helper show a red exclamation).
 
It looks like AC power has a similar timer and may have the same issue: AC POWER OFF TRBL NOW or HAD TRBL: Indicated if the normal house current powering the OmniPro II controller
is interrupted for more than 3 minutes.
 
I hope this isn't thought to be correct behavior on Haiku Helpers part, these timeouts are there on purpose to prevent nuisance reporting which is exactly whats occurring for me now. If someone wanted to get immediate notifications of these events the scripting would be the way to do it while HH honors HAI's rules for the built-in trouble notifications.

 

[lupinglade]

Yes, perhaps the controller is sending the information in advance of making its own decision. However, this is how HaikuHelper currently is designed to work (instant response to events). I think it may actually be a good thing to know about the event ahead of the home going in a state of trouble or alarm, especially given that on a mobile device it may take you some time to see the notification to begin with anyway. In this case I think the feature has actually helped you locate an issue with your configuration, it may be a good idea to tweak that Dead Line Detect setting, I would try a +/- 2-5 or so to see if it helps. I think your dead line detect value is just too sensitive for your line. We have not had a single report for this issue, so I don't think this is normal.

 

[jharrell]

Just answer this question for me then, why does the Omni wait 60 seconds before classifying a dead line as a trouble?

 

[jharrell]

We have not had a single report for this issue, so I don't think this is normal.

 
Are you sure?: http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/23030-helper-and-phone-line-disconnect-errors/

 

[lupinglade]

Good call, I somehow assumed this was the same thread. In either case, I would try to tweak the setting first as this should resolve the issue. Please let me know if it helps or not. Thanks.

 

[jharrell]

It my limited testing setting dead line detect to 4 or below seems to stop the Haiku Helper trouble from pushing. Above that and it it consistently reproducible by calling my home line and hanging up, the trouble is pushed when the line goes back on hook. Using the test menu on the keypad it seems that the line voltage reading drops into the single digits for less than a second after on hook, triggering the dead line event if set to factory config. The docs state that the Omni checks ten times per second for the phone line, so it seems I will get a HH push if my phone line drops dead for more than 100ms. A dead line for less than a second after a phone call is not a problem, I am certainly not glad Haiku exposed this non-issue to me after having this setup work fine for many years.
 
This is an ok workaround, but I implore you to reconsider Haiku Helpers behavior as it is inconsistent with the Omni's. It is very clear in the documentation that a dead line is not a trouble until it has occurred for more than 60 seconds, your notification dialog is called "Alarms & Troubles", when one turns this feature on they would expect only alarms and troubles to be sent, not every event, if the Omni does not consider it a trouble it should not be sent PERIOD. This is doubly confusing because Haiku will show a notification badge on the app icon, then pulling up the app there is no record of what that notification is since the event doesn't exist in the event log or anywhere else in Haiku and now the notifications are cleared! If anyone wises to modify this behavior to send dead line events immediately your scripting framework is the perfect solution.
 
Having the built in notifications work differently than the Omni's is confusing and extremely annoying, this is similar to my other outstanding request where by message sent without a beep still beep, Haiku is starting to feel like death by a thousand cuts while overall having great features. I may end writing a script that sends "Alarms & Troubles" as the Omni defines them and turn off the built in one, I wish I could script out the message beeping in the same manner, unfortunately that is hard coded in the app.

 

[lupinglade]

We will look into if we can redesign how this works, there is some complexity in how all these events interact, including via the scripting API.

 

[jharrell]

It looks like 4 is not enough as I just got another trouble push, I will keep pushing it lower and see if they go away, I am afraid even 1 might not be enough as the voltage may be dropping to 0 for a short period sometimes.
 
I haven't done much HH scripting, but I do javascript in my day job among many other things. In order to emulate the Omni's 60 second timer I was simply going to a setTimeout when the dead line event is received and clearTimeout if the line restored event comes in. At the end of the timeout it would send a push, if the line gets cleared before that point the timeout would never run. Is that possible in the current scripting framework? It would probably be good to do one last sanity check too before pushing by doing a REQUEST SYSTEM TROUBLES, is that possible through script?

 

[lupinglade]

We're doing some testing here, the next update should have a fix for this. Thanks for your feedback.