I’m not a Surety subscriber since I believe you don’t offer service in Canada, but I’m hoping you can still help . I recall that the community, and Jason in particular, was very helpful when I last had an issue years ago.
I’ve recently switched my 2GIG GC2 panel from one alarm.com provider to another. Since then, I haven’t been able to add any users to the panel via the alarm.com website. The user is created successfully on alarm.com, it then says “Synchronizing Devices” for a few minutes, and then it looks like the user has been added successfully. However, the new user does not appear on the panel’s user list. I’ve tried to create multiple users and it never works, even after waiting overnight and rebooting the panel.
Interestingly, if I allow Z-Wave lock access to the new user (in addition to panel access), my Z-Wave lock picks up the new PIN as expected within minutes - but the panel does not although the communication between alarm.com and the Z-Wave lock is done through the panel.
With my old alarm.com provider, this worked perfectly. Not sure what’s going on and my new provider can’t find a reason why it wouldn’t work either. Any ideas? I’m thinking there’s a provider setting somewhere on alarm.com that hasn’t been enabled properly, but I don’t know…
Most of the troubleshooting in this case is going to be on the dealer end, so I can only provide some general suggestions unfortunately.
Does this only affect new codes? Can you edit your existing panel user codes successfully? Did you manually add any codes at your lock or at the panel screen?
I’m not sure what your provider has already tried of course, but we do not provide dealer level support so that would be outside of the scope. Your dealer should consult Alarm.com for support.
One thing that leaps out: there are Alarm.com service plans which do not support user code application at the panel but they would for locks, we use one for our Automate plan. In that case you would just see an option when creating a code to select Locks. You might want to verify the type of service plan you are using with the new provider.
Thanks Jason. I managed to resolve the issue by adding users into the first 4 user slots locally on my 2GIG panel (because I have a total of 4 users), and then deleting them. Then, I was able to add users via alarm.com and they populated those slots on the panel automatically. I don’t know why this worked, but it did. Perhaps there was some leftover corrupted data in those user slots from my previous alarm.com provider that was causing issues, and clearing out that data resolved it. Admittedly a vague explanation, but it’s the best I have!
Now I have another issue. With my old provider, I was able to create an automation rule to disarm my system when my front door is unlocked (I have a Yale Z-Wave lock connected to the panel). I tried to recreate the same rule with my new provider but it’s not working as expected. If I unlock the door, then pause for a few seconds before opening it while the disarm command is sent to the panel so that the panel is disarmed by the time I open the door, everything is fine. However, if I open the door quickly and start the entry delay timer before the panel has disarmed, the disarm command is never sent and I must manually disarm the system. This never happened with my old provider: I opened the door, heard the first few entry delay beeps, and then the system disarmed. I don’t know why the behavior is different with my new provider since it’s the same alarm.com back end; is there a setting somewhere on the back end that could explain this, like a delay timer or a setting that disallows automatic disarming after the entry delay has started?
I don’t know why the behavior is different with my new provider since it’s the same alarm.com back end; is there a setting somewhere on the back end that could explain this
Did this issue occur once or twice or is the problem 100% repeatable?
Did you upgrade the panel firmware when signing up with your new provider?
There are no general back end dealer settings controlling how disarm automation is applied like you are describing.
Have you reached out to your Alarm.com provider about this issue?
The general recommendation for when a rule is behaving in an odd way is to delete that rule, wait 10 minutes, then recreate the rule in Alarm.com. You may want to remove and relearn the lock as well.
Thanks Jason. The problem is 100% repeatable. I did upgrade the GC2 panel firmware from 1.19.3.1 to 1.19.4 during the transition to the new provider. It did occur to me that this could be the problem so I tried downgrading, but 2GIG’s flash utility (rflashd) won’t allow downgrades - it aborts because it detects that the installed version is newer.
I’ve reached out to my alarm.com provider and currently have an open support case. Just want to get as much information as I can. I foresee that they might just ask me to upgrade my panel
I’ve tried multiple times to remove and add the rules and I’ve also removed & re-learned the lock.
I’ve noticed that when it works, i.e. when I wait before opening the door, I can see a “Command: Disarm” entry in the alarm.com event log which I assume is what tells my panel to disarm. However, when it doesn’t work (i.e. when I open the door immediately), there is no such command in the log suggesting that alarm.com is not sending it, which would explain why the panel isn’t disarming.
I’ve noticed that when it works, i.e. when I wait before opening the door, I can see a “Command: Disarm” entry in the alarm.com event log which I assume is what tells my panel to disarm. However, when it doesn’t work (i.e. when I open the door immediately), there is no such command in the log suggesting that alarm.com is not sending it, which would explain why the panel isn’t disarming.
Alarm.com does not send that as a command, that is just an event log line item reported by the panel.
Z-wave lock automation rules like that process locally. The panel saves the rule and it functions without ADC.
You can test this by removing the cell module and performing the trigger event.
Thanks, good to know. As a simple test, I switched my Z-Wave option (question 79 in the 2Gig configuration) from 3- Remote Control to 2 - Local (I forgot the exact text) and configured the system to disarm when the lock is unlocked. It works perfectly in this case, but of course I lose the ability to configure lock users, rules and scenes remotely through alarm.com.
If I can’t resolve this through my alarm.com dealer, my next step will be to reset the system to factory defaults and reconfigure from scratch. It will be painful with 26 zones, but I see no other option at this point…
I forgot to ask, if I do end up doing a reset, will alarm.com pick up the changes automatically (sensors all removed after the reset, and then added back when I reprogram them) or do I manually have to remove all sensors from alarm.com?
Changes to sensors on your panel automatically sync with Alarm.com.
Whether or not changes sync with any professional monitoring service your dealer uses can only be answered by your dealer. Some monitoring companies do not support zone syncing.
. I recall that the community, and Jason in particular, was very helpful when I last had an issue years ago.