Vera Concierge is dead?

It started crashing my Vera Secure AGAIN. Removing it for the second time. (Thanks Vera Support.)

Looking @ this section of the forum - there isn’t any official communication. Looking on the Vera Concierge page, it still says, “Google has temporarily removed the Concierge Agent!” Based on the fact that it the official page has had that message for a long time without any other details, the assumption is [size=18pt]Vera Concierge is Dead[/size].

Does anyone have proof otherwise?

There has been a new version of Vera Concierge released in the past couple of months, so it’s definitely not dead, just not very talkative :slight_smile:

[quote=“gniknalu, post:1, topic:199086”]It started crashing my Vera Secure AGAIN. Removing it for the second time. (Thanks Vera Support.)

Looking @ this section of the forum - there isn’t any official communication. Looking on the Vera Concierge page, it still says, “Google has temporarily removed the Concierge Agent!” Based on the fact that it the official page has had that message for a long time without any other details, the assumption is [size=18pt]Vera Concierge is Dead[/size].

Does anyone have proof otherwise?[/quote]
I have proof - it works for me… :wink:
Well, kind of. The Vera Concierge Agent/Assistant doesn’t work because it is apparently undergoing testing with Google. This means you can’t ask google to talk to Vera Concierge and then send commands such as what is the status of a specific device. Vera Concierge does still enable you to have google control whatever Vera devices appear in Google Home. I can live with this as I never used the Concierge Agent and instead just used the Google Assistant.

Any of you running a Vera Secure? I did a complete uninstall/remove then, a month later, reinstalled it. It is on a decently powerful (i5) Ubuntu box and our local network is Gigabit so there’s speed and power. When it was re-installed it caused the Vera Secure to reboot every 54 seconds so had to uninstall it.

Maybe we have too many devices?

I am on a vera secure. I run Concierge on a Zotac PI221. I am not having any issues or reboots. I have a pretty big system ( I think). Most of the devices are connected to a Concord 4 panel that connects to the vera secure via serial port.

I have 6 cameras; 7 dimmable switches; 3 indoor switches; 27 security devices connected to C4 panel; 4 on off switches; 2 outdoor switches; 6 apps. Perhaps not so big.

I am on a Vera Plus and have about 30 directly-connected devices and about a dozen other things with plugins like Hue bulbs, thermostat, Harmony, etc.

No problems with Vera Concierge that did not arise from the fact that it’s running on my desktop PC, which might sometimes get restarted or whatever…

Well there must be something up with how it works with the VeraSecure or their Linux implementation.

I’m running it on a Ubuntu i5/8GB RAM machine (which is also running Plex) on a gigabit NIC/Network. The VeraSecure has between 60 - 70 devices on it (Nest, Ecobee, Lots of motion sensors, lights, Z-Wave power strips etc) and most are working fine. This is what, according to Vera Support, is what they saw that led them to believe it is Vera Concierge:

06 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.260 Device_Variable::m_szValue_set device: 1 service: urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs variable: Version was: 2.017 now: 2.025 #hooks: 0 upnp: 0 skip: 0 v:(nil)/NONE duplicate:0 <0x71873520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.261 UserData::m_iDataVersion_Variables_incr Version user data 246769032 variables 246769232 <0x71873520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.261 UserData::DataIsDirty UpdateStateList was 1 incr 0 user data 246769032 variables 246769232 <0x71873520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.261 luvd_get_info_data_request creating file buffer /data_request?id=variableset&DeviceNum=1&serviceId=urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs&Variable=Version&Value=2.025 pMem 0x15dd000/22925312 diff: 12500992 <0x71873520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.262 luvd_get_info_data_request done /data_request?id=variableset&DeviceNum=1&serviceId=urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs&Variable=Version&Value=2.025 ret 0 size 2 pMem 0x15dd000/22925312 diff: 12500992 took 0 info (nil) <0x71873520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.263 mg_callback /data_request stop id: 38 <0x71873520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.264 GlobalLog: mongoose get_socket: 0xfa7898 idle: 1 threads: 2 max: 100 head: 18 tail: 18 s: d:3305 <0x71873520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.430 GlobalLog: mongoose put_socket: idle: 2 threads: 2 max: 100 s: d:3305 <0x71673520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.431 GlobalLog: mongoose get_socket2: 0xfa7898 idle: 1 threads: 2 max: 100 head: 19 tail: 18 s: d:3305 <0x71427520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.431 GlobalLog: mongoose get_socket3: 0xfa7898 idle: 1 threads: 2 max: 100 head: 19 tail: 19 s: d:3305 <0x71427520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.431 GlobalLog: mongoose ctx: 0xfa7898 idle: 1 threads: 2 max: 100 pthread_self: 1900180768 s: d:3305 <0x71427520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.432 mg_callback from IP:127.0.0.1:45145 /port_3480/data_request id=variableset&DeviceNum=1&serviceId=urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs&Variable=Server&Value=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx start id: 39 <0x71427520> 12 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.432 luvd_get_info_data_request starting /data_request?id=variableset&DeviceNum=1&serviceId=urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs&Variable=Server&Value=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx pMem 0x15dd000/22925312 diff: 12500992 <0x71427520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.433 JobHandler_LuaUPnP::HandleRequest id variableset request pMem 0x15dd000/22925312 diff: 12500992 <0x71427520> 06 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.433 Device_Variable::m_szValue_set device: 1 service: urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs variable: Server was: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx now: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #hooks: 0 upnp: 0 skip: 0 v:(nil)/NONE duplicate:1 <0x71427520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.433 luvd_get_info_data_request creating file buffer /data_request?id=variableset&DeviceNum=1&serviceId=urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs&Variable=Server&Value=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx pMem 0x15dd000/22925312 diff: 12500992 <0x71427520> 10 xx/xx/18 2:40:17.434 luvd_get_info_data_request done /data_request?id=variableset&DeviceNum=1&serviceId=urn:rts-services-com:serviceId:vcs&Variable=Server&Value=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ret 0 size 2 pMem 0x15dd000/22925312 diff: 12500992 took 0 info (nil) <0x71427520>

After disabling it on the Ubuntu box, the problems stopped. If it’s working fine for you guys, I wonder what is the problem with my system.

Did Vera Support say what they saw in that dump that identified the problem? I have zero expertise on this, but interested to know, for possible future reference on my system.

Vera Concierge is DEAD for me… it has been ever since I had userid problems 4 months ago. I traded messages with the author, and asked for debug help, but basically didn’t get any.

I get a Java socket timeout right away when Concierge tries to talk to the Vera servers (vera-us-oem-autha12.mios.com).

Richard offhand said it must be my network… But I can login to the Vera servers just fine. Concierge DOES see my google devices, but since it can’t talk to Vera, its kinda useless. I guess one plus is the my Amazon Echo is controlling things just fine…

Kirby

[quote=“kirbyb, post:9, topic:199086”]Vera Concierge is DEAD for me… it has been ever since I had userid problems 4 months ago. I traded messages with the author, and asked for debug help, but basically didn’t get any.

I get a Java socket timeout right away when Concierge tries to talk to the Vera servers (vera-us-oem-autha12.mios.com).

Richard offhand said it must be my network… But I can login to the Vera servers just fine. Concierge DOES see my google devices, but since it can’t talk to Vera, its kinda useless. I guess one plus is the my Amazon Echo is controlling things just fine…

Kirby[/quote]

I’m sorry you had such a bad result with Vera Concierge. I was fortunate that my install did work, despite my weak expertise in this area. I did a quick scan on the instructions to install Vera control from the Echo, and it looks to be much less demanding technically to set up. Vera definitely would be helped if there was a simple to install mechanism that ideally wouldn’t require a secondary processor for continuous support.

For myself, I’m happy using the Raspberry Pi to support the Vera Concierge operation, but I don’t think that need and the complex setup would appeal to a typical cellphone or media device Google user.

Quickly looking at your log, not sure I can work out what the issue is. Initially I thought it might be because there was a lot of stuff happening over a short period of time, but when I compared yours with my log I found a string of commands being received over a few thousandth of a second when I get Concierge to send commands and my older Vera Edge seems to cope. My only suggestion might be to try running the software on a different box (eg a laptop or raspberry pi) to see if that resolves the issue, and if it does then would then point the finger at the configuration of the Ubuntu box.

Here’s a theory - possibly the Ubuntu box is hitting the Vera with oversize packets (you haven’t adjusted the MTU size from defaults eg enabled jumbo frames?) which means the packets need to be fragmented when they hit Vera (if that’s not also been changed) which perhaps is causing a memory issue effectively meaning the Ubuntu box is causing a DDOS on the Vera. I know - grasping at straws, but definitely try it on a different box and see what happens.

Cheers

An immediate java socket timeout indicates that the software cannot resolve the name or when it does it’s getting the wrong IP address back or some other issue to do with networking. On the web interface, check that the IP address for both the Concierge server and your local Vera are correct. If you haven’t already, make sure both the host of the Concierge server and the Vera are running with fixed IP addresses. If everything looks good, I’d try uninstalling Concierge and starting from a clean slate. I’d even consider trying (at least temporarily) running it from a different machine. In my case I had stability issues when running it on my Raspberry Pi - but it was doing a number of other things and would frequently lose the local connection to Vera (going onto the local web interface, under Vera Devices the IP address would change to the remote access address rather than the local IP address). I installed the software on an old Mac mini that is used to host our iTunes library and it’s now been rock solid.

@ninkasi, what number of other things is your Pi doing? Your signature says “various scripts for power and weather station”, have you created some kind of virtual weather station on it? Also, what model Pi is it?

I ask because I’d like to get Vera Concierge off my PC and onto a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and would ideally also like to run Homebridge on the same Pi in order to resolve Homekit compatibility at the same time, I wonder if it would be too much for the Pi to handle…

The latest Version of concierge Server (2.027) released around 5/6/18 will lockout remote access.
I used a a library I wrote for Android that supported local and remote connections … but Concierge Server always needs local access for communications … It only needed remote access to find the Vera initially.

I started over with a ‘fresh’ Raspberry PI installation, followed the PI installation instructions (except first I set my IP to 192.168.0.14, and set that same IP into /etc/hosts).

My vera is 192.168.0.6 (both PI and VERA have static IPs).

I went to https://192.168.0.14:8989 and verified I’m running 2.027 software. I keyed in my Vera userid and password, confirmed by logging into my Vera, and then logging into the Vera ‘cloud’. I immediately went to the log file, and see this after about 5 seconds:

11-May-2018 05:41:59 I:VeraConnect.VeraGateway:URLConnection:https://vera-us-oem-autha11.mios.com/autha/auth/username/kirbyb?SHA1Password=368F8D7D8CC44A660B127C9981E4B1E9B25752A2&PK_Oem=1
11-May-2018 05:42:05 V:CSWebContainer:Cmd:/Log?
11-May-2018 05:42:10 V:CSWebContainer:Cmd:/Log?
11-May-2018 05:42:15 V:CSWebContainer:Cmd:/Log?
11-May-2018 05:42:19 E:VeraConnect.VeraGateway:URLConnection
Exception:java.net.SocketTimeoutException: connect timed out
java.net.SocketTimeoutException: connect timed out
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.doConnect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:350)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:206)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:188)
at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:589)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.connect(SSLSocketImpl.java:668)
at sun.net.NetworkClient.doConnect(NetworkClient.java:175)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:432)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:527)
at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsClient.(HttpsClient.java:264)
at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsClient.New(HttpsClient.java:367)
at

It takes awhile… the timeout is maybe 5 seconds?

So I tried this url in a browser:

https://vera-us-oem-autha11.mios.com/autha/auth/username/kirbyb?SHA1Password=368F8D7D8CC44A660B127C9981E4B1E9B25752A2&PK_Oem=1

And sure enough, it times out. Now if I change the ‘autha11’ to ‘authd11’ (also a vera server), I get this as return ‘data’: ERROR:Invalid request, allowed:device, devices/permissions

SO, there’s SOMETHING wrong with the login string. My userid is certainly ‘kirbyb’. At one point I tried reaching out to Vera support, and they had no idea why someone would try to login to the ‘autha11’ server… they said the authd11 server had the configuration information. But clearly, I have no idea what’s going on, and perhaps they don’t know why autha11 is being accessed either.

I had all this working at one point, and then I had Vera login issues… They created a temporary userid for me (kirbyb1) and then I had Concierge working for a week with that, but then Vera support got my ‘kirbyb’ userid working again, and deleted kirbyb1, and I’ve been unable to get Concierge working. Vera support is no help. I’ve also tried a windows machine and get the same results. I’ve also tried another Vera account and get the same results.

Suggestions:

Richard? Help!

autha is for authorizing account info.
authd is for authorizing device info.

NONE of the url looking things in the log will work with a browser … there is also headers and PUT method info that must also be specified … can’t do that from the browser.

You may have some problem with your account … Create a new Vera account and move stuff over to it.

[quote=“lecter, post:13, topic:199086”]@ninkasi, what number of other things is your Pi doing? Your signature says “various scripts for power and weather station”, have you created some kind of virtual weather station on it? Also, what model Pi is it?

I ask because I’d like to get Vera Concierge off my PC and onto a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and would ideally also like to run Homebridge on the same Pi in order to resolve Homekit compatibility at the same time, I wonder if it would be too much for the Pi to handle…[/quote]

I actually have two Pi’s - I use them to get the weather off my weather station and upload that to wunderground, host an internal wiki where I save our cooking recipes, grab power usage off our electricity ‘smart meter’ via a rainforest usb dongle, grab the solar generation info off our solar inverter, and a few other things. I was using one of them to also run ha bridge until that broke when google required a cloud login, so then I tried Vera Concierge on it until I moved that onto my mac mini (it worked fine normally but every now and then I’d need to restart it - just saw a post from Richard that indicates my issue may simply have been due to timing when the Pi rebooted).

My Pi’s are older than yours - yours should be more powerful - and frankly I could put everything on just one without an issue (I just ended up with two and split the load over them more for redundancy than performance) so there should be no problem running homebridge and Concierge on the one box.

I ‘removed’ all my Vera units from my account, and created a new one. I called Vera support and had them totally delete all my old account, and email. On my new account, there’s a section under ‘User Info’ that requires you to validate your email. When I click on that, it times out much the same way as the Concierge access to auth11a does. I’m now in an email loop with Vera trying to get the email validation fixed. Hopefully when they get that fixed, the similar request from Concierge will start working (again).

It now appears to be something of a Vera problem with their auth11a server… Now that I have a ‘Vera’ function that’s not working (email validation), hopefully they can figure out their server problem.

Kirby

Do you have some Non ASCII character in your password ?
Just guessing … but that might cause a problem.

As it turns out, it appears to be a very obscure problem with my router. Its a Ubituiti EdgeRouter lite. It seemingly ‘swallows’ the URL request If I connect my laptop or Pi to my cell phone AP, it works. If I swap out the router for a Netgear router, it works. I’ve engaged Ubiquiti support, and they’re working the problem.

Kirby