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| Subject: From: Date: | Re: [ACE] ACE and ECS question Dan Hoehnen Tue, 3 Aug 1999 07:45:40 -0400 (EDT) |
Martin, This is an ACE setup issue. I will direct all future replies to the ACE list only. ACE has a default "heartbeat" value of 30 seconds for ECS. If ACE does not see any message from ECS within that time, it changes the status of the ECS link to "ECS down". However, this does not affect the ability to communicate with ECS, so it really isn't causing a problem. To fix this you can do 1 of several things. First, you can increase the heartbeat limit to something greater than 60 seconds so that your time update that occurs each minute will reset ACE's hearbeat timer. You can do this with the following entry in your INI file. Look for the entry first. If not found in the file, add it. In ace-c.ini (Windows dir for 16 bit client, ACE Client dir for 32 bit client) change/add the following line in the [ECS] section. The [ECS] heading will already exist in this file. SO, just find it and add/change the ECSHeartbeatLimit line. The change below will make the timeout period 90 seconds. [ECS] ECSHeartBeatLimit=90 Second, you can have ECS send a heartbeat msg to ACE at regular intervals. Simply have ECS send the following command at an interval shorter than the timeout period: acec:0:ecshb: Maybe 30 seconds is too fast of a default number. Should I change the default value to 90 or 120 or something else? Any ideas/comments from the ecs crowd? I would probably recommend changing the timeout to 90 since that is most likely quick enough and you already the time being sent every minute. This will work if the client button is monitoring trhe time variable. I don't think it will work if you are just sending the time to a button using the BTN: api command. On Mon, 2 Aug 1999, Martin Terry wrote: > Hi All- > > I'm posting this to both the ACE and ECS lists because I'm not sure which > needs to be tweaked. :) > > I've recently setup ECS 4.1 and ACE. I have ECS and the ACE server running > on one machine, and the ACE client running on a second machine. > Communications is by TCP/IP. > > I've setup the ACE client with several buttons that monitor ECS items. This > seems to work well, and I can turn lights on and off by clicking the buttons > (no touchscreen yet). > > However, after about a minute the ACE client screen says "Connected" and > "ECS down" at the bottom. If I change an item, it will say "ECS up" for > about a minute then change back to down. > > Is this normal? If have the following environmental variables set in the > autoexec.bat file of the ECS/ACE server computer as suggested by the ACE > install instructions: > > ECS_DDE_RET_DLY=5 > ECS_DDE_CLN_DLY=5 > ECS_S_DDE_CLN_TRYS=10 > ECS_DDE_RETRY_DLY=500 > > Any help with this is appreciated. ACE and ECS make a cool combination. > > > -- > ___________ ACE Users List _________ > To Remove, Send An Email To: ace-l-off@lists.piping.com > To Join, Send An Email To: ace-l-on@lists.piping.com > To Post, Send An Email to: ace-l@lists.piping.com > ACE on web: http://web.piping.com:81/~ace/ > > Dan Hoehnen dhoehnen@infinet.com He who dies with the most toys, wins! ************************************************************************* * Home Automation Index: http://www.infinet.com/~dhoehnen/ha/list.html * * * * ACE Home Automation Software - Supports HomeVision, ECS and most * * other automation systems - Caller ID, Text-to-Speech, Internet and * * intranet support, Touchscreen support, E-Mail, much more... * * * * Port16.ocx & Port32.ocx - Give Visual Basic access to I/O ports * * * * http://www.infinet.com/~dhoehnen/software/index.htm * *************************************************************************