Cortex ignoring light level

[Simon George]

Hi,

I've noticed (after everything working as expected) that Cortex is now ignoring the light level when deciding to operate a light. I have the following setup (mostly defaults).

Light connections :
Room presence = "Lounge - presence state output"
Inside light level = "Lounge LightLevel"

Lounge LightLevel :
Dark Threshold = 50%
Current reading = 56% (ie. it's not dark)

Lounge is occupied and presence reported correctly.

In light behaviour :

Operation mode = "when someone is present and its dark, or light timer"

Automatic light timer :
Duration = 00:10:00
Elapsed time = 01:08:10

Condition states required to turn light on =
level - *ignored*
and
( presence = true
or
timer = false )


So from the above, why is Cortex ignoring the measured lounge light level ? As I said, all this was working ok before - anyone have any idea what's going on ?

Thanks,

Simon

PS. I have attached a zipped screenshot of the above

[Viv]

The .jpg you attached shows the condition of the Light behaviour menu.

Let us assume the light is off and the light level is dark. You walk into the room and the light turns on (because dark and presence are satisfied). Whilst the light is turned on the logic ignores the light level. This is because the action of turnng the light on can/will take it above the dark threshold. If this was not ignored the oscillation would result.

You now leave the room and the light remains on because of the light timer running. If the light timer times out, the light will finally be turned off. However the Light level now goes being ignored to pending (still being ignored). This is to allow time for the light level sensor to reflect the new light level state with the light turned off. Ten seconds later the Light Level sense will now be enabled again.

So in order for you light to turn off you would need to leave the room for Ten minutes ten seconds before the light level will be used for the light control again.

You could try using the plan view replay to see why the light turned on in the first place.

The Light History TEXT now not only shows the light on/off state but also internal conditions i.e. the whys.

Viv.

[Simon George]

Thanks for the reply Viv. I understand the behaviour I think. However my light history text only shows on & off times - no reason is shown. I'm running Cortex v23.0.0 - is this the latest version ?

Thanks,

Simon

[Karam]

In Cortex visit Help | Autoupdate and click on Download and install updates ...
(you will obviously need to have a connection to the Internet on the Cortex PC)

Karam

[Simon George]

Thanks for that Karam - didn't know about the auto update feature !

Unfortunately now that I've upgraded to v23.1.9 I now have serious problems with Cortex - many access violations - it doesn't want to load my database on startup. If I start with a blank DB and then load my working DB then Cortex will work just fine. However if I then save that DB and restart Cortex then it posts an access violation on startup and then must be closed via task manager.

The upshot of this is that Cortex will now not work automatically on, say, a PC reboot. Must I re-create my DB from scratch using the new version ? Obviously I would rather not...

Due to the forum limitations I'm unable to post the windows diagnostic file but have attached my DB to see if it works for you.

Is there perhaps a better place to send bug reports, etc other than this forum ?

S

[Karam]

Oh dear ... Ok we shall investigate this as soon as we can. Do not delete your database. Upon updating to a new version, Cortex will normally make a backup copy of the previous version of Cortex.exe which it was running. This can be found in your Cortex directory called: CortexPrevious.exe. You can replace Cortex.exe with this file suitably renamed (might be worth backing up present Cortex.exe first just incase) and hopefully you'll find yourself running Cortex V23.0.0 again until we resolve the issue.

I think for such issues its best to get directly in contact with us since there are likely to be specific rather than general causes. If you visit your logging menu and click on view log file you will get the log file listing window, at the bottom of which is an e-mail icon. Clicking on this will e-mail your presently listed log file to us followed optionally by database. Or you can just contact us directly via the e-mail address shown on our contacts page.

Karam

[Simon George]

Viv,

Thanks for the explanation of the light logic. However, I'm still confused ! I've setup a button to toggle the light. But now the light is oscillating every 5 minutes as shown in the following log.

13:30:03 Kitchen Light, ON, Override= None, Occupied, Room Dark, Out Dark, Cause=Lounge LightLevel
14:00:01 Kitchen Light, OFF, Override= Temp Off, Occupied, Room Bright, Out Dark, Cause=Lounge DRB Buttons
14:04:47 Kitchen Light, ON, Override= Temp On+P, Occupied, Room Bright, Out Dark, Cause=Lounge DRB Buttons
14:09:47 Kitchen Light, OFF, Override= Temp Off, Occupied, Room Bright, Out Dark, Cause=Lounge DRB Buttons
14:14:47 Kitchen Light, ON, Override= Temp On+P, Occupied, Room Bright, Out Dark, Cause=Lounge DRB Buttons
14:19:47 Kitchen Light, OFF, Override= Temp Off, Occupied, Room Bright, Out Dark, Cause=Lounge DRB Buttons
14:24:47 Kitchen Light, ON, Override= Temp On+P, Occupied, Room Bright, Out Dark, Cause=Lounge DRB Buttons
etc

At 14:00:01 I pressed the button to toggle the state because the light was on even though the room was bright (at 13:30:03 I closed the blinds and so the room was dark - hence the light came on - but then opened them to make the room bright).

I don't understand where this 5 minutes comes from (my timer is set to 10 minutes), nor why it is oscillating given a single button press.

Should I tick the "Auto set override to default..." box maybe ?

Sorry for yet more questions - I think the light logic is cleverer than I am !

S

(PS. The outside light level is dark as I've removed that connection - with it connected, the light wasn't coming on when it got dark inside while it was still light outside...)

[Simon George]

Ok, I think this 5 minute oscillation is down to a button that was permanently pressed, maybe due to the module being screwed too tightly to the wall. This figures as the module has a 5 minute polling period... I loosened the module and now the oscillation is gone.

However, my question as to how the external light level influences the lighting logic still stands - I think I'm seeing that if the external level is bright but the internal dark then the light still doesn't come on. This is why I've removed the outside light level from the light connections...

Thanks,

Simon

[Viv]

The access violations were caused by a bug in the Cortex API and are resolved in an update Cortex 23.1.10. Unless you have enabled some objects for the Cortex API you will not experience the problem.

__________________________________________________ ________________

When you use BOTH internal and external light level sensors connected to the Light object then BOTH must be dark for the Light Level condition to be considered DARK. So it is performing an AND function on the two inputs.

Viv.