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SMS Trouble after power failure
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 Posted: Tuesday Jan 7th, 2020 11:34 am
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caravanboy
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I think I did do that in the past but I will do it again. I think I only pulled power to my main panel though (which has the GSM module) and not the separate supply to my SEP panel. You could imagine some quirky behaviour if both lose power, or something like that. I will try and also disconnect the network cable from the ETH module as when I lose power that would also effectively lose it's connection, just in case that makes any difference. I'll report back in a few days...



 Posted: Wednesday Jan 8th, 2020 12:48 am
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slychiu
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I will try and also disconnect the network cable from the ETH module as when I lose power that would also effectively lose it's connection, just in case that makes any difference.
Do not disconnect the ETH03 as that would mean we would not be able to monitor the GSM status
The battery shpuld powere up the Comfort and UCM modules, they should not lose power



 Posted: Wednesday Jan 8th, 2020 08:28 am
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caravanboy
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yes, okay, good point. I just meant as an optional test (after I've checked signal levels etc) to see if that's the trigger for making the GSM module start to fail



 Posted: Monday Jan 20th, 2020 08:43 pm
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caravanboy
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Hi Slychiu,
I haven't got around to doing a controlled power failure test but I was at home today when we had a 45 min power outage so I did some checks during that power outage:
During the full power failure, my network switch and wifi were on UPS now so I eventually (*see below) got Comfigurator on my laptop to show the GSM4 UCM GSM network signal status. It showed "Good - 3" as the network strength but I had NOT received a power fail SMS text message.
When the AC power returned after ~45 mins, a few minutes later I did then receive a Power restore SMS message. Also, when the AC was restored I then immediately checked the signal strength again and it showed "Fair - 2" and texts are working normally. I never miss one under normal circumstances.
So, I'd say this seems to show that the fault is very likely with Comfort. I can still do a controlled test power failure (i.e. Comfort main panel only) if needed, but the fact that the GSM module claimed to have a good signal strength does point a Comfort bug somewhere.

* I think there is a minor Comfigurator bug/quirk - if you launch and open the config, navigate to the relevant GSM4 Module and click "Get Status", it asks you for the PIN to login, but then does not immediately show the status. Trying again now I think it puts you on to a different page and you have to navigate back to that page, but maybe I did not notice that earlier during the power failure. 
Also, when I was in power fail situation, the "GSM Network Strength..." message appeared in red for a couple of seconds and was then replaced by "Normal/No error" in black and no mater how long I waited the signal strength message didn't reappear without me navigating away from the module and back again.  Now I'm in AC-okay mode, it still does mostly stay on "Normal/No error" but does regularly (every 30 seconds or more?) switch to the signal status message, but still only for a couple of seconds. Not 



 Posted: Tuesday Jan 21st, 2020 02:51 am
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slychiu
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We have bot been able to find any problem with diak out during power failure
Please upgrade to GSM4 7.128 Beta firmware which has some improvements in operation which may or may not have an effect on your probelmsfrom http://www.cytech.biz/product_details.php?item_id=227



 Posted: Tuesday Jan 21st, 2020 07:51 am
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caravanboy
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Ok, thanks, I'll download and try that over the next week or so and let you know.

Before installing the new firmware, I will still try and do the manual controlled power failures (of my Comfort main panel, and SEM01 panel) as they are on different circuits within the house, just so I have that info to help with the diagnosis too



 Posted: Monday Jan 27th, 2020 07:36 pm
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caravanboy
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I did some manual power failure tests as follows but all worked as expected:
1) Power fail on main panel - official Comfort SMS received OK, voice call OK, test SMS worked during power failure, AC Restore SMS worked ok.
2) Power fail Slave panel only - no Comfort SMS (as expected), test SMS worked during power failure.
3) Power fail Slave, then power fail main panel (approx. 2 mins later) - official Comfort SMS received OK, voice call OK, test SMS worked during power failure, AC Restore SMS worked okay.
So, I just need to remember how to upgrade firmware now as I've not done it for a couple of years. Comfigurator only seems to offer me a "by cable" option. Hmm 
I guess I can then just have the latest beta GSM4 firmware installed and wait for the next full power failure.  Perhaps the issue is caused only when the main and slave panels fail at exactly the same moment?



 Posted: Tuesday Jan 28th, 2020 01:48 am
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slychiu
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You donthave to use the firmware upgradingt cable if your UCM and Comfort are version 6 and above

see http://www.comfortforums.com/forum92/3400.html for instructions



 Posted: Tuesday Jan 28th, 2020 06:37 pm
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caravanboy
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Thanks. GSM4 successfully updated to beta 7.128 firmware. Basic GSM tests appear okay. Will await next full AC failure (sadly shouldn't be too long given recent power outages in our area) and will report back after that



 Posted: Tuesday May 4th, 2021 02:30 pm
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Hi Slychiu,
As mentioned above, I upgraded UCM/GSM4 to 7.128 a while ago but that did not show any noticeable improvement on this behaviour – the AC Fail/Restore SMS messages rarely arrived promptly after a power failure, although I did not have as many outages as usual in the last year so I didn’t get back to looking into this.


About a month ago I upgraded my system to the most recent firmware for all components (Comfort, Slave and UCM/GSM4 etc). Yesterday was the first power outage I’ve had since being on the latest firmware but I’m sure there’s still something not right…
 
We had a power failure at 8:20am for around 10 seconds. I acknowledged this from the keypad (to stop the warning beeps) and then also received a call to my mobile which I acknowledged. I did not receive any SMS messages until 7 minutes later and their contents showed they were generated at  8:27:54 and 8:28:04 for the “AC Fail” and “AC Restore” respectively.   By the way, it is nice to see that the newer firmware has added the seconds in to the message times.
 
I checked that Comfort’s time is still accurate so those messages were only generated by Comfort about 7 minutes after the power outage.
 
Relevant items from the event log still show some sort of initial SMS Trouble and then an SMS Restore (8:21am) but then repeated failures to send after the SMS Restore, before the AC Fail and AC Restore messages were eventually sent to both my phone and my wife’s. This is very similar to the behaviour we saw back in April 2019 (on this thread) when the failures continued after the SMS Restore. You can see from the other tests I did a while ago (Jan 2020) that when the power has failed Comfort still show the signal strength of the cell is okay.
 
Do you have any further suggestions or ideas of how I can investigate this further?

Event log shows this (also nice to see that the misleading/confusing Dial Failure error number has been replaced with a zero):

05/03 08:20 AC Fail 1
05/03 08:20 AC Restore 1
05/03 08:21 SMS Trouble ID # UCM 2
05/03 08:21 Sign in - User # 2
05/03 08:21 Sign in - User # 2
05/03 08:21 Dial Number # 3
05/03 08:21 SMS Restore ID # UCM 2
05/03 08:21 Remote Signin - User # 2
05/03 08:21 Remote Signin - User # 2
05/03 08:22 Dial Number # 1
05/03 08:22 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:22 Dial Number # 2
05/03 08:23 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:23 Dial Number # 1
05/03 08:23 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:24 Dial Number # 2
05/03 08:24 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:24 Dial Number # 1
05/03 08:25 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:25 Dial Number # 2
05/03 08:25 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:26 Dial Number # 1
05/03 08:26 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:26 Dial Number # 2
05/03 08:27 SMS Dial Failure # 0
05/03 08:27 Dial Number # 1
05/03 08:27 Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
05/03 08:27 Dial Number # 2
05/03 08:27 Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
05/03 08:27 Dial Number # 1
05/03 08:28 Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
05/03 08:28 Dial Number # 2
05/03 08:28 Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge



 Posted: Saturday May 8th, 2021 06:23 am
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slychiu
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SMS Dial Failure indicates that the SMS was not accepted by the SMS provider. The reasons are not clear


Are the dialout to Voice phone at #3 also my GSM or is it by phone line?



 Posted: Monday May 10th, 2021 08:16 am
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caravanboy
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Hi, dial out 3 was by phone line.

As I've mentioned before in this thread, during power outages the GSM module has a good signal and my SMS messages are sent many times per day (when a gate opens) and they never fail.

I cannot understand why the SMS messages fail to send from Comfort only when there's a power failure even if the signal strength is good. This does point to it being a quirky bug with Comfort.

Any suggestions on how I can help investigate further?



 Posted: Monday Aug 16th, 2021 10:29 am
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caravanboy
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I'm still having issues with SMS messages after power failure. This time I have more evidence that the issue seems to lie with Comfort...

Power failure was at 00:09 - you can see in the event log that it went on and off a few times over several seconds before then staying off for almost 3 hours.
After the first AC failure Comfort then logged "SMS Trouble" that we've seen before in previous postings in this thread. HOWEVER, it also logs an "SMS Restore" very shortly afterwards at 00:10.

At 01:05 I dialled-in to Comfort on the GSM number (instead of landline) and got silence (a separate issue that was only resolved a few days later after a reset) and did not realise it had answered and was actually recording a voicemail. But this DID prove that the GSM module was alive and well and able to send texts as I did then receive a "New voicemail" text immediately (the custom message #4).

At 03:00am when the power finally came back on we started to receive the Power Fail/Restore texts that should have been sent at 00:09.  The bodies of the text messages had Comfort times embedded in them ranging from 03:00:56 to 03:02:36. This presumably indicates that Comfort only decided to create and send them at that point (i.e. they had definitely NOT been stuck in the GSM network).

Any thoughts on how to investigate this further, slychiu?

Event log...

06-Aug  00:09     AC Fail 1
06-Aug  00:09     AC Restore 1
06-Aug  00:09     SMS Trouble ID # UCM 2
06-Aug  00:09     AC Fail 1
06-Aug  00:09     Alarm Type # PowerFail (8)
06-Aug  00:09     AC Restore 1
06-Aug  00:09     AC Fail 1
06-Aug  00:09     Alarm Type # PowerFail (8)
06-Aug  00:09     AC Restore 1
06-Aug  00:09     AC Fail 1
06-Aug  00:09     Alarm Type # PowerFail (8)
06-Aug  00:09     Sign in - User # 2
06-Aug  00:09     Sign in - User # 2
06-Aug  00:09     Mode Change # Security Off
06-Aug  00:09     Sign in - User # 2
06-Aug  00:10     SMS Restore ID # UCM 2
06-Aug  01:05     Alarm Type # NewMessage (29)
06-Aug  01:05     Send SMS Custom Message # 4
06-Aug  01:05     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:00     AC Restore 1
06-Aug  03:00     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:00     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:00     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:01     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:01     Dial Number # 3
06-Aug  03:01     Remote Signin - User # Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:01     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:01     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:01     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:01     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:01     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:01     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:01     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:01     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:01     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:01     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:01     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 1
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge
06-Aug  03:02     Dial Number # 2
06-Aug  03:02     Remote Signin - User # SMS Acknowledge



 Posted: Wednesday Aug 18th, 2021 01:39 am
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slychiu
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THanks for the log. We will invetigate



 Posted: Wednesday Sep 22nd, 2021 09:03 am
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caravanboy
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Hi, any clues yet from your investigation, slychiu?



 Posted: Wednesday Sep 22nd, 2021 11:26 am
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slychiu
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We have not been able to duplicate the problem unfortunately



 Posted: Friday Nov 25th, 2022 09:01 am
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slychiu
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We may have found the cause of this problem and a workaround.
Please see http://www.comfortforums.com/forum48/5407.html



 Posted: Monday Nov 28th, 2022 09:25 am
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caravanboy
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Ahh, this is great. Makes me feel a little better - I did just assume there must be some unknown setup/config issue with my system :)  I'll look into the linked information.

However, I changed my SIM and GSM network provider a few months ago and since then I've had a couple of power outages and the SMS messages re. power failures have worked perfectly.

I guessed that perhaps my old provider had a borderline signal (despite it showing "Good" when on AC) and wondered if perhaps when on battery Comfort wasn't providing enough power for the SIM to make reliable contact with the cell tower? 

Anyway, assuming my theory was rubbish, could this problem that you've identified only happen with some providers/SIMs, and might explain why my new SIM works okay?

Last edited on Monday Nov 28th, 2022 09:26 am by caravanboy



 Posted: Monday Nov 28th, 2022 10:16 am
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slychiu
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We have been using various gsm modules in the office and have never had the problem even after AC Off. This particular customer informed us of the problem and allowed us to access the system remotely and check signal level and event log. Thus we noted that after power failure the sms failed to send. This was fixed by a reset of the module. It also happened after power restore. I agree that it could be due to a network providers signal. 
I dont believe it is due to battery not being able to supply the GSM becayuse after a reset you could asend SMS again. It is probably the voltage drop or a noise interference during power off and restore.



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