After announcement plays, TV turns off

[jevansoh]

Hello,

I'm new to C4 and Composer HE and am having a problem with an announcement I created.

I created an announcement for when motion is detected at the front door via the Chime it will display text on the touchscreens and also make an audible announcement from a WAV file.

In programming, I selected the Front Door Chime motion sensor event and set it to execute the announcement.

This works, but as soon as the input is changed on the TV to the EA1 input to play the announcement (and also in the theater, the StormAudio Pre-Pro changes to the C4 input on its EA5 to play it there), as soon as the announcement is finished playing, the TV (and the StormAudio in the theater) turns off.

I need the TV and StormAudio to both go back to the last used input and NOT turn off after the announcement, but I can't figure out where to set this or how to do it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[jevansoh]

I figured out how to get it to select a specific input when finished playing the announcement, but this isn't what I want.

For instance, if I'm watching DirecTV and motion is detected, then it should switch to the EA1 input and play the announcement then switch back to DirecTV.

But if I'm watching a Blu-Ray and motion is detected, then it should switch to the EA1 input and play the announcement then switch back to Blu-Ray.

But I can't figure out how to get it to switch back to the last used input and instead can only figure out how to get it to select a specific input.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[TFlury]

What OS are you on? There were issues with announcement agent back in the day but with current OS Control4 should switch the zones back to their previous state / selected device.

[jevansoh]

3.3 / newest OS.

Yeah, in the Master Bedroom, it just turns the TV off and in the theater it turns the pre-pro off instead of switching back to the last known input.

But I think I'm missing something because how would it know what input it was on and what to switch it to?  I didn't set any of that anywhere.

All I set was if motion detected play announcement/text - that's it.  Do I have to do something to get it to switch back to the last used input on all the TV's/AVR's in the house?

[TFlury]

You created the announcement with the agent correct? I use that for doorbell notifications in distributed audio systems all the time never have an issue. I do not use any on screen navigator or pop up text so it may be treating that differently. 

[jevansoh]

Yes, I did.  The pop up text is set for the T3 touchscreens and works fine.  It's just that once the audio announcement switches to the EA1/EA5 controllers to play it, when the announcement is finished, it turns the TV/AVR completely off instead of back to the last used input.

[Matt Lowe]

i would suggest using the snap shot driver. it will likely give you more consistent programming and better automation.

not input programming would need to be used. Can use the correct commands and it should play and then recall the snapshot after the time that you set.

 

[jevansoh]

Ok,

I installed the Snapshot driver and set it up and it's still doing the same thing.

Motion detected, then it switches to the input the EA5 is on and plays the announcement, then it switches off instead of back to the original input it was on.

Attached is a screenshot of my settings.

What do you think?

[Matt Lowe]

close but you are executing the recall before the announcement is finished. I would also suggest breaking up the motion detections as well you are going to get a lot of unintended alerts with it setup in that fashion.

[WhyPhy]

13 hours ago, Matt Lowe said:

close but you are executing the recall before the announcement is finished. I would also suggest breaking up the motion detections as well you are going to get a lot of unintended alerts with it setup in that fashion.

Are you suggesting to use a timer to delay the execution of the recall event? And to use a timer so that the motion trigger will be disabled for several minutes after a motion notification occurs?

[jevansoh]

14 hours ago, Matt Lowe said:

close but you are executing the recall before the announcement is finished. I would also suggest breaking up the motion detections as well you are going to get a lot of unintended alerts with it setup in that fashion.

So I need to add a delay of some kind?

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by breaking up motion detections?

If you could clarify both of those points, I'd greatly appreciate it.

The problem is, even with it set up this way, as soon as the announcement plays, it turns the AVR off instead of going back to the previously used input and keeping it on.  I don't know what I've done wrong, either before using Snapshot or with Snapshot to cause that behavior?

Thanks for your help, everyone.

[jevansoh]

I've tried and tried to get the Snapshot driver to function correctly, but keep getting the same results.

Every time it switches to the C4 input to play an announcement, as soon as it is done it powers off my AVR instead of switching the input back.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.

[lippavisual]

I’d start looking at your driver for that AVR.  Not familiar with Storm at all, sorry. 

[TFlury]

On 9/23/2022 at 5:42 PM, Matt Lowe said:

i would suggest using the snap shot driver.

I was going to suggest that but I thought it was more of a work around for something not working correctly.

 

1 hour ago, lippavisual said:

I’d start looking at your driver for that AVR.

Lippavisual may be correct. Control4 may be sending a disconnect input to the AVR and in the driver it may be set to use a power off command with that.

[Cyknight]

5 hours ago, lippavisual said:

I’d start looking at your driver for that AVR.  Not familiar with Storm at all, sorry. 

Except that it is also turning off a TV elsewhere.

 

This whole snapshot thing should NOT be needed when all you're doing is an announcement - the agent should do all you want (play announcement, revert back to previous) without any further programming.

 

That doesn't help much I know, but I just want to point out the over thinking with the snap shot here.

What I'm wondering is if there is some sort of room level binding issue.

 

-Are you able to 'just' play music in either zones? Meaning, can you select listen, play tune in from C4?

-If so, does it behave the same way when doing the above, then trigger the announcement?

[jevansoh]

Ok, I did a test.

If I select a SirusXM station, it will switch to that same input (I've labeled it the C4 Input) and it plays.

When I'm done listening to Sirius, I just tap on "Computer" under "Listen" which is my normal/default listening device as I always have the computer audio on 24/7 unless I happen to be watching/listening to a different source.

That all works fine.

I can switch to the Roon input and it will automatically switch to my Roon Ready input on my StormAudio, I can play Sonos and that works, etc.

The only problem is when it makes an announcement, it switches to the C4 input, which is the same as the SiriusXM input, then puts the StormAudio to sleep instead of switching back to the Computer input.

I'm happy to do more testing or provide more information.  I just don't know where to go from here.

I agree that the Snapshot driver shouldn't be needed, but even though I'm using it, it still isn't working so there is something else going on.

I'm an end user and my dealer has no idea how to help me.  I have Composer HE so I am limited with what I can do, but if there is anything I can check in Composer HE, please let me know.  I'm not familiar with room binding or where I'd look in Composer HE for any of the settings that might affect this, so if you could point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.

[lippavisual]

Only option is to get your dealer to call support and have them figure it out.

Whi makes your driver for Storm?

[TexasBill]

I am having a similar issue - On MY announcements when it is done anyone watching a television gets (what appears to be) a "previous" command sent - this means that it switches to the previous channel. opening the door again will execute the "previous" again and you will be watching the original channel. 

I simply cannot figure out what the issue is that is causing it.  I hope to get logs turned on today to trap what the issue is, if I figur it out I will post it here.

Thanks,

Bill

[jevansoh]

On 9/28/2022 at 7:59 AM, lippavisual said:

Only option is to get your dealer to call support and have them figure it out.

Whi makes your driver for Storm?

It's a certified driver and comes directly from StormAudio.

[jevansoh]

17 hours ago, TexasBill said:

I am having a similar issue - On MY announcements when it is done anyone watching a television gets (what appears to be) a "previous" command sent - this means that it switches to the previous channel. opening the door again will execute the "previous" again and you will be watching the original channel. 

I simply cannot figure out what the issue is that is causing it.  I hope to get logs turned on today to trap what the issue is, if I figur it out I will post it here.

Thanks,

Bill

Hi Bill, I'd greatly appreciate any follow up information you are able to provide.  Thanks.

[jevansoh]

Well, StormAudio was no help and basically said contact my dealer.  My dealer has never had this happen and doesn't know what to do, so at this point, I don't know what else to do.

This is something that just "has" to work and should work without fail and without any solution or tweaking needed from what I understand.

Any other suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

[Cyknight]

21 hours ago, jevansoh said:

This is something that just "has" to work and should work without fail and without any solution or tweaking needed from what I understand.

You're not wrong, in it's basic form, this should 'just' be working.

Where it may be failing is how the driver for the StormAudio handles switching, or other a capability setting somehow set wrong.

[jevansoh]

On 10/4/2022 at 10:45 PM, Cyknight said:

You're not wrong, in it's basic form, this should 'just' be working.

Where it may be failing is how the driver for the StormAudio handles switching, or other a capability setting somehow set wrong.

I was able to speak with the person at StormAudio that created the C4 driver.

He admitted that he did not try the Announcement function when creating the driver, but also reported that there were no issues on his end and couldn't reproduce the issue.

So at this point, I think I've missed something, somewhere, or my dealer has missed something, somewhere.  He's not well versed on things like this, so I'm afraid I'm on my own at this point.

I only have Composer HE, but knowing the limitations I have with HE, and that I'm not trained on using it other than just messing around with it, would you kindly tell me what exactly to look for as far as setting up the StormAudio's inputs, bindings, settings, etc and maybe give me an idea as to how I can just start over?  I think making a new Announcement for testing purposes is a good place to start, and just did that, but got the same results.  But since it's just a test, I'm not worried about messing it up or trying the wrong thing and can easily delete it. 

Since there isn't much to creating an Announcement, I don't "think" I could have screwed that part up, but like you said, I think it's got something to do with the inputs and how they are set up, but I don't even know where to look for that or if I have access to that with Composer HE.

Any further advice or suggestions would be much appreciated.

[msgreenf]

You shouldn't have to change anything with inputs and outputs and you can't change any of that w HE anyway. 

Post a screenshot of your announcement and a screenshot of your programming to call the announcement 

[TexasBill]

OK - after a very long session with C4 Technical support - it appears that the TIVO driver has "become corrupt". The recommendation is that we simply delete the current driver and put a copy of it back in and reconstruct - just waiting for a good time to do that.

Bill