Disappointed

[Devrope]

I don't get it; you make breaking changes that makes my lights ignore sunset/sunrise but you can't fix the browser loading issues...
Might as well move on and look for another home automation system, even though I like the concept of HomeGenie.

[petediscrete]

It's been stated here before. Find a version of Homegenie that works for you and stick with it. If you want the latest version of any software you will need to accept that you are part of a testing community and your feedback to the developer is part of the development process.

The word beta in any software release means exactly that. Homegenie integrates so many aspects of home automation control in one package and many users may use only a fraction of its capabilities.

 Instead of a negative posting like this maybe you could contribute a bit more and help Gene develop his efforts in improving Homegenie even further.

[bkenobi]

I've been on the same version for several months without a single hickup.  All of my environment is working as intended and I have seen no issues at all.  That said, I don't have the most advanced hardware (X10 plus a couple custom bits running on dedicated RPi).  If you use more modern components that Gene has been working on to improve, you will likely want to stay more up-to-date.  But, if you use the testing release, you WILL see errors that Gene will work to fix.  If you stay on the stable released versions, you should see very few bugs.

Gene is the only coder on the core HG system and this is not his primary job.  He does a great job of providing a FREE system that is very usable and customizable because he enjoys the hobby.  If there's something you need help with, posting in the forum with detailed information generally gets things resolved.  Posting a "I don't like it and I'm leaving" message won't accomplish anything beneficial to either you or fix the issue within HG.

[Devrope]

I know it's free and I shouldn't complain, but...
I (and several others) have mentioned the browser loading issue for months, and it's only become slightly better.
For the betas, I thought that maybe the priority would be to make the basic things work before making breaking changes to stuff that already worked.
To not be left in the dark (pun intended) I will revert to 520 and stay there for a while and see what happens.

[bkenobi]

I suppose it depends on how you view HA, but "auto-update" is one of those things that isn't really a good idea to be set as default for most people IMO.  I find that HA works best when you get the hardware working correctly with your software and then don't touch anything.  If you need to add capabilities or something isn't working at the time of setup, tweaking the setup may be required.  However, I've updated HG several times right before leaving town because I had a few minutes to tinker while waiting to leave.  That resulted in the system breaking when I've been out of town several times.  Well, I've learned my lesson and am now staying on a stable release that functions correctly for my needs!  IIRC, I'm on r515 or there about.

[bkenobi]

I checked last night and my HG version is r519.  Although everything was working correctly, I couldn't log on the web interface.  I haven't logged in for weeks, so I don't know when it stopped but a simple restart of the service on my RPi got it back on track.  I wouldn't consider this a major flaw in the system as some might.  It took less time to log on with putty, issue the restart command, and log in than it would have to come here and complain about the software being a failure.

That said, if I were using the interface daily and it broke regularly, I would want some kind of resolution too!

[Devrope]

For a beta, sure no problem, but to me it looks like this issue doesn't get that much love from the developer(s).
The main problem (according to me) is that loading the main page results in > 200 requests for different content.

On a personal note; using Telldus gadgets, restarting the HG service will result in every lamp in the house being "on" and me clicking through the UI to set them to "off". Also, when at work I rely on the web interface, remoting to the server to restart the service is a bit of a hurdle.

Anyway, r520 is stable for me now, thanks, as long as I don't try to browse to it and change things.

[bkenobi]

I appreciate the startup issues (sync issues really).  I don't have that many modules and I always assume they are in the wrong state anyway.  X10 does not have any status method so local control will put things in an out of state situation.  If you have things set up such that states are critical, then restarting the interface will cause issues.  The alternative is to write a code that will put things in the state you want on startup.  This could be based on time of day or polling modules.  Obviously it would be more robust if restarts were not required.  I was just pointing out that the system is still fully stable (for me) after weeks without administration.

Btw, if you have an Android device, you can use the app to control your system.  I much prefer that approach to the web interface.  However, yesterday both were unavailable so it wouldn't have helped anyway.

[enterprised]

I had an instance where I had a memory leak in HG. I identified that using system checker (see attachment - can't remember the name of the person who created it). Every time my memory usage went over 88% the web interface would stop working and if I left it running longer also my link to the android UI stopped working. The only way to get things going again is to reboot the RPi.

I noticed that when ever the memory usage was high, Mono was also using a lot of memory.

I did a complete new Raspbian & HG install to fix it.

[[email protected]]

The main problem (according to me) is that loading the main page results in > 200 requests for different content.

Sort of related but I keep meaning to look at the MIG code to see if the logging levels for this can be changed as I don't really need to be writing HTTP 200 messages to a log file in my house

On a personal note; using Telldus gadgets, restarting the HG service will result in every lamp in the house being "on" and me clicking through the UI to set them to "off". Also, when at work I rely on the web interface, remoting to the server to restart the service is a bit of a hurdle.

Crudely, rather than adding serialization to the state in the interface - which is probably the ideal option for the hardware (i'm unfamiliar with it) you should be able to write a program that would save the state to a file when a module of that type changes, and then when HG starts make it read the file back in and set the states back as they were.

David

[bkenobi]

In my case, the mono process was using a small amount of memory (~20% IIRC).  When I've seen memory leaks in the past, it's caused the mono process to reach and remain at 100%.  I don't know what caused my need to restart HG, but it wasn't a memory leak.  I looked at the log files but they were not useful this time.

[Devrope]

I agree with you David, sounds good!