Groov Event tag errors + watchdog on comms to a device?

Hi All,

This question comes up sometimes: “is it possible to generate and notification in groov based on the communication going down between groov and a device?”

In the current groov App release (3.4), if you have a tag that goes off-line for whatever reason, our Event list will show an “Event Tag Errors” message like this on your /#events_status page, and the Event is effectively disabled.

image

Wish list: the condition drop-down options included a “Tag Error” or something:
image

…in addition to the Conditions based on the value of the tag.

In the meantime, the way I solved this for one customer was by adding a tag to the strategy which I also passed to the command “Retrieve Strategy CRC” in the Powerup chart (in case he later wants to check to see if the strategy changed, in addition to monitoring the connection to that PAC).

I also added a Data Store tag for an Event to check. My two Node-RED flows included one snap pac read to get that strategy tag, and write it to the Data Store tag. The second flow had a Catch note and a write (of a non-zero value) to the same Data Store tag.

But perhaps others out there in OptoLand have used a different method to monitor their connection? Do share!

Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a single-box solution? :wink:
Stay tuned for some exciting news!

Cheers,
Mary

Follow-on question I got from the customer:

Q: What is the time out in Node-RED for the PAC Read node?

A: connection timeout: 20 seconds; request/response timeout: 30 seconds