CurrentCost EnviR energy monitor

Plugins & Plugin Development General Plugin Discussion
101

I’ve seen a couple of reports from users who have had their Veras go unresponsive upon installing the CurrentCost plugin.

Obviously, this shouldn’t happen. Has this happened to anyone else? In particular I’d like to hear from those users so that I can reproduce the problem and add guard code to prevent it from happening again.

Edit: see my followup here

102

Hi garretn,

I think that someone who works for Micasaverde will have to look at why the backup doesn’t decompress properly. It’s not the first time that I’ve seen this complaint, but I don’t think that the cause was ever adequately explained.

If you get yourself SSH/SFTP access to your Vera you can probably recover from a misbehaving plugin by changing to the /etc/cmh-ludl directory and deleting the plugin’s file (for CurrentCost the important one is D_CurrentCostEnviR1.xml). Then reboot; the plugin will fail to load and you can then delete it through the web UI. Look in your backup file for the SSH password, instructions are here.

103

Hi Futzle,

I’ve got a new question : I wrote the following lua script to get back the actual power.

local conso = luup.variable_get("urn:futzle-com:serviceId:CurrentCostEnviR1","Watts",82)
and the result is always ‘nil’ for the variable conso.
Is there a bug or did I use the wrong variable ?

Thanks.

Lionel.

104

In the Device’s Advanced tab, hover the mouse over the Watts variable and it’ll popup a bubble hint showing you the standardized ServiceId to use for it.

105

Thanks for you help : I try with this code

local conso = luup.variable_get("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:EnergyMetering1","Watts",82)

and it works well.

Thanks.

Lionel.

106

This happened to mine. I installed the app without having the actual transmitter. The messages I saw in the GUI were:
"
Unit busy.

Luup : Downloading Luup Plugins
ZWave : Configuring ZWave devices

Luup : Downloading Luup Plugin #1128
ZWave : Configuring ZWave devices
"

These messages kept coming in short intervals. When I tried to configure something (like repair zwave settings for example) I received:
“Command failed Action Failed” or just “Error”

At certain moments I saw that the Vera did something, so I waited for the right moment, deinstalled the app and the Vera device was back in business.

107

Thanks Vera1234. That helps a lot. It’s a bit perplexing that you get errors about downloading the plugin, it suggests that the plugin hasn’t even started to run and there’s already a problem. The fact that you hadn’t actually connected a USB device wouldn’t have made any difference.

I will try to reproduce it on my Vera by completely purging the files and reinstalling from apps.mios.com.

108

I am a Noob… I cannot make heads nor tails of this.

i have installed the files as per the instructions. I have added the device and that seems to have works. I now go to do the serial configuration and there is nothing on the the tab… I try clicking on the spanner on configure the created device and it hangs… I am completely lost. If someone is willing to help that would be great but it appears that this is beyond my ability to solve…

109

kestertonm, I wonder if you could try a couple of different web browsers and see if you get different results. Also, see if force-reloading the Luup engine (“SAVE” or “RELOAD” in top right corner) changes things. Any information about your setup that could help me reproduce the issue is valuable.

110

I am running a vera2 UI4. I have rebooted the vera bx and at least got the serial page. I am happy to give you access if that is possible?

111

I am running firefox. Same with IE. I have skype, teamviewer ad a large hammer :wink:

112

Perhaps it is the serial configuration. I have uploaded some images.

113

kestertonm,

I will have to downgrade my spare Vera2 to UI4 to try it out. That may take a couple of weeks, so in the mean time here are some self-help ideas.

The Configuration tab can be bypassed; it assumes reasonable defaults. If you leave the plugin for a few hours does it start to create child devices? Does history appear in the History tab?

This plugin consumes a ton of memory. On a Vera2 on UI5 it’s borderline too big. You may hit that limit on UI4 too if you have many other plugins.

The plugin does log status to the /var/log/cmh/LuaUPnP.log file; get yourself SSH access and watch that file as you reload the Luup engine. It may tell you what’s wrong.

114

Those are the right serial settings from my experience.

A couple of other thoughts: the folks at CurrentCost change their output format every so often. If your unit is outputting something that the plugin doesn’t recognize then it may never be able to discover child devices. Can you connect the EnviR to a PC and start up a terminal program to listen to what bytes are coming in on the cable? Post a small sample of it here and I will know if the format is as expected.

115

PS The USB1 Light is not on even though the serial USB cable is connected and the light is on.

116

I have reproduced this crash on my Vera Lite. It looks like a bug in the Luup engine, crashing and restarting forever.

If you’ve been affected by this, you can remove the plugin at Apps > My Apps. A system reset or restore isn’t necessary. (Edit: timing is tricky, you might have to try a few times.)

I’ll take logs of the Luup crash and take it up with MCV.

Edit: Logging into apps.mios.com with a web browser, and remote-installing the CurrentCost plugin from there, works. Users who want to use the plugin before MCV looks into the Luup engine crash should install the plugin through apps.mios.com.

117

Hi, Quick side question for you all…

Does anyone know if the USB to Serial (RJ45) cable for this can be extended and also go through a patch panel?

My Vera Lite is upstairs in my back bedroom and the Current Cost Monitor would need to go downstairs in the lounge?

118

[quote=“parkerc, post:117, topic:168489”]Hi, Quick side question for you all…

Does anyone know if the USB to Serial (RJ45) cable for this can be extended and also go through a patch panel?

My Vera Lite is upstairs in my back bedroom and the Current Cost Monitor would need to go downstairs in the lounge?[/quote]

A serial cable rs 232 has a max limit of 50ft when extending it.
John

119

Should be fine, as long as (1) signal attenuation doesn’t ruin your day, and (2) your patch panel and cabling is straight and pass-through and makes no assumptions about the signals on the wires.

The signal is TTL, not RS232. That will make you more susceptible to signal degradation.

120

Thanks guys, I think the run via the loft/attic is about 15m approx 50ft so I might be pushing the limits, but maybe worth a try. All the cabling in the house is straight no crossovers.

Thinking about it, can this plug-in be made to work by reading from an round robin database made with the rrdtool ?

The reason for asking is that I spent a lot of time implementing and tweaking this set up Making Electricity Usage Graphs with the Current Cost device (and others) , and I have quite a bit of historical data too, so if it is possible then both solutions can make use of the same data?