Topic: Backup alarm bug with My Streams mp3 source

Control panel version 2.8.15
HW: 3.7
SW: 1.6.0
FW: 733

I set up a custom alarm with the following settings:
One time alarm
When: Now + 5 minutes
Audio: Play "My Streams: mp3 source"
Audio duration: 30 min
Backup alarm: Off
Alarm/snooze screen: Off
After alarm: Return to prior screen

When the alarm goes off, everything works as advertised, and it plays the mp3 stream fine.  The problem is, if the source of the mp3 stops transmitting before the 30 minutes is up, the backup alarm goes off, even though I specifically specified no backup alarm.  Also, since I specified no snooze screen, once the backup alarm goes off, there is no way to silence the beeping, short of turning the unit off.

I would expect that if I set "no backup alarm" that the playback would simply stop when the source stops transmitting, and then retry periodically until the 30 minutes are up.

Re: Backup alarm bug with My Streams mp3 source

You can go to the "Music" screen and hit the "Stop" button - it's how you shut down streaming alarms that do not have the "snooze/stop" screen.

There are actually two backup alarms - one that plays if the stream is interrupted (the one you heard) and the low-level backup alarm (which you didn't hear).

The low-level backup alarm, which is a brutal, ugly thing, is the one you configure to be on/off - the stream interruption one cannot be configured.

The system actually does try to reconnect, but gives up fairly quickly if a connection cannot be made - this is supposed to be an alarm, after all, so its job is to make some kind of noise to wake you up, even if it's not the exact one you picked.  Missing an appointment because the chumby was overly optimistic about the stream coming back "any minute now" seems unacceptable for an alarm system aspiring to some level of reliability.

Re: Backup alarm bug with My Streams mp3 source

I know it is called an "alarm" but what I like to use it for is to automatically play music at various times of the day.  For example, some nice soft music to play while I go to sleep.  Then suddenly, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP and I wake up...

Re: Backup alarm bug with My Streams mp3 source

Well, I guess I got confused because you labeled this a "bug", while it appears to me that the alarm is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, which is to wake people up.

I will admit my skin in a little thin on this particular issue, since back when alarms were not quite as reliable, I got a *lot* of heat from people complaining about the alarm doing what you now want it to do, which is to quietly fail should a streaming source become unavailable.

Now, if you're making a suggestion that perhaps some method should exist to play music on a schedule, then that's a different issue altogether, but it seems we're no longer talking about a "bug" or "problem" with the current functionality.

Re: Backup alarm bug with My Streams mp3 source

Sorry, I thought is was a bug.  I'll repost as a suggestion.

But here is one I ran into this morning, which I think is a bug: if you have a streaming music source as an alarm, and then cancel the alarm within a couple seconds of going off BEFORE the streaming music starts playing, the alarm screen goes away, but then the streaming music starts playing anyway.

The way I came across this is I have a Picassa album start playing 10 minutes before my alarm, so if I'm already awake, or the change to bright backlight wakes me up, I know the audio alarm is coming.  In the middle of the night my 2-year-old climbed into my bed, and I didn't want to wake her up with an audible alarm, so I waited for the alarm screen to show, and canceled it immediately.  But then a couple seconds later the music started playing anyway.  So I had to frantically navigate to the 'stop music' button to get it to be quiet so as not to wake up the little one.

Re: Backup alarm bug with My Streams mp3 source

That probably *is* a bug.  I believe it's due to a race condition where you cancel a stream while it's still connecting.  Since it hasn't actually connected it there's no connection to disconnect.

I'll make sure that's logged as a bug.

Thanks!