TRIGGERcmd outage

Russ · Jun 22, 2022, 10:17 PM

I'm sorry about the outage today. I'm actually still working on it. I thought it was fixed this morning, then after work I found it was still down. I'm working on it again now.

Mark Hollis · Jun 22, 2022, 10:21 PM

@russ no problem russ, what happen exactly?

Russ · Jun 23, 2022, 1:19 AM

@mark-hollis, as of this morning I actually hadn't touched the code in almost 2 weeks, so it wasn't something I changed. It seemed the database got overloaded, which killed the 6 instances of the server, and they kept re-starting, so I suspected it might have been a denial of service attack. I modified some settings in the database client and thought it was good to go. I was wrong. I found out after work it was down again. I'll post more details soon.

EDIT: After a reboot, the forum wouldn't start, and while troubleshooting it I made it worse by disabling all of the forum's plug-ins. I finally got those re-enabled and the forum is working.

EDIT 2: It has been stable for a few days now. The root cause of the problem was apparently too much pressure on the database server which caused queries to time out and the application servers to crash and reboot. I reduced the number of connections the application instances keep open on the database server. That seems to have solved it.

EDIT 3: I finally fixed the real problem on Wednesday 7/13. The actual problem was that AWS was throttling my server. I moved it to a different type of server. I'm paying more but it's worth it of course.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 1:19 AM

@russ Hello excuse me.

I have several tasks for windows such as turning off the monitor, turning off the computer and since yesterday they don't work for me, in fact, I installed the agent again on my PC, I deactivated the skill in Alexa and then I activated it again but Alexa does not recognize my devices .

Russ · Jun 23, 2022, 1:23 AM

Hi @ricardomat. Will you please try again? The app has had a few problems today but it's finally stable now.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 1:37 AM

@russ I already tried and it still doesn't work, I don't know what to do. If I add a task like turning off the monitor it should show in my Alexa app that a new device has been found but it is not, it is not recognized.

Russ · Jun 23, 2022, 2:10 AM

@ricardomat, I see. Does does the command show up in the "Smart Home Voice Commands" list?

If not, it won't show up in Alexa's device list either, and the problem is likely the computer isn't set as the default computer set in your profile, or your computer doesn't have the voice field set (something like "laptop").
One or the other needs to be true, but if you only have one computer, I recommend setting it as your default so you don't have to say "turn on calculator on laptop". You can just say "turn on calculator" instead.

If you've confirmed the above, you could try Remove All then Discover here:
https://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#appliances

EDIT: I noticed you set your computer's name as "Turn monitors off". That should be something like "laptop" instead because that's what you're using to refer to your computer when you use Alexa or Google Assistant.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 2:22 AM

@russ The command if appears in Smart Home Voice Commands:

I haven't actually made any changes, just removed the command and added it back. It was working fine for me until yesterday.

The problem is that my Alexa app does not recognize these commands as a new device added.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 2:24 AM

@russ If I run it from the computer it works perfectly, the problem is that Alexa does not recognize the new device, even when I give it the command it tells me that it cannot find the device.

Russ · Jun 23, 2022, 2:33 AM

@ricardomat, the voice field for the command should be something like "monitor", then Alexa will create a device called monitor and you can say, "Alexa, turn monitor off".

Your voice field is set to "monitor off" which will confuse Alexa because you'd need to say, "Alexa, turn monitor off off."

But, it should still show up as a Smart Home device. Do you see it listed here?
https://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#appliances

Also, please confirm you can run the command from the website.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 3:13 AM

@russ It is not listed here: https://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#appliances

That's the problem, that before yesterday, if I added a command Alexa recognized it immediately, in my phone application, in the echoes, everywhere, but not since yesterday.

And yes, I can execute the command from the website and from the agent on my pc.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 3:17 AM

@russ I also tried disabling the skill in Alexa and re-enabling it even tells me that Alexa is linked to my account.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 3:23 AM

@russ Here I show you how the Skill is activated and linked to my account:

Russ · Jun 23, 2022, 3:26 AM

@ricardomat, if you change Trigger or Voice field for the command, it should trigger a re-sync with Alexa for that command. If it worked, you should be able to refresh this page and see it.

I might see the problem. That screenshot is for the wrong skill. You need the TRIGGERcmd Smart Home skill.

The screenshot you show is for the old original skill that doesn't create Smart Home devices.

ricardomat · Jun 23, 2022, 3:33 AM

@russ Oh bro, that was the problem. It has been solved, thank you very much for your help!

Russ · Jun 23, 2022, 3:34 AM

@ricardomat, awesome. You're welcome.