CBus/ctouch system time

What holds and gives out the time on a cbus system which incorporates a colour ctouch? If the ctouch has its time and region set, along with British summer time enabled, is it this that sends the time out to the DLT?s?

If the time is changed on the DLT?s should this change the time on the ctouch?

If the time is changed on the Ctouch should this always update the time on DLT?s?

If the system has more than 1 ctouch is one the master or is it simply whatever one is changed last updates the rest?

Is it possible to have different times within the system on different units? If so then schedules saved on different units would be happening at unexpected times.

I ask this becasue I have a setup here where the colour ctouch shows the correct time but recently the DLT?s show an hour behind. Changing the DLT time an hour forward to match the ctouch works for a while but after a short time the DLT's revert back to the 1hr behind the ctouch's. Opening the Date/Time page on the ctouch and selecting Ok to save (without changing the time) immediately changes the DLT times back in line with that of the ctouch. This has happened a few times now over the course of approx 3 wks.

Any ideas what is causing this?

Rgds

Stephen

 

Read the PICED FAQ topic "C-Bus Unit Clocks". It explains the process.

The colour C-Touch has a battery backed-up clock in it, like all PCs do.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

They will decide between themselves which is the master. If you change the time on one unit, it will become the master.

No.

This shouldn't be possible.

I am not sure what might cause this. It would be good to log the C-Bus traffic (using Colour C-Touch or the C-Bus Diagnostic Utility) to see which devices are broadcasting the time to see if that shows what is going on.

 

Thanks for the reply Darren.

Strangely, although the time on the system had only changed approx 3 times over the last 3 weeks or so, it actually changed again twice last night and once this morning.

Neither the cbus system or the ctouch have been modified recently (i.e. within the last few couple of weeks) so can't think of what might have triggered this.

I'll look into running the Diagnostic util as you suggested.

Stephen

 

Running the Diag util it picked up this morning that the colour ctouch sent out a Daylight Savings command twice knocking the dlt times back an hour. The pic attached shows the first two entries which I saw after noticing the dlt times had gone back. The 3rd daylight saving entry is when I opened the Set Date/Time window on the ctouch and selected Ok (without changing any settings).

Any ideas what is causing this?

 

More info...

It would appear that the colour ctouch is broadcasting the time every 90mins. Perhaps not important but the PICED FAQ says colour ctouches broadcast every 60 mins.

Each broadcast sets the dlt times back an hour yet the ctouch time always stays correct.

Oddly the diagnostics shows the offset as 20 hrs instead of 1 hr. Does this indicate anything?
I checked the various settings on the ctouch such as the region and location and all are correct.

Stephen

 

In the diagnostic output, the time stamps at the last two time broadcasts are just a few minutes apart, yet the times in the broadcasts are an hour apart. If these broadcasts originated in the C-Touch without any outside interference, it appears that there is something fishy about the C-Touch's interpretation of the time.

 

Hi Don

The 3rd time broadcast shown on the screenshot is when I manually opened the Set Time/Date window and closed it again, which in turn "corrected" the dlt times, even though the diag util shows the exact same info broadcast.

For the rest of the day the ctouch broadcast the time every 60mins, bringing the dlt times an hour behind that of the ctouch each time.

Oddly this morning I see for the last few broadcasts the diag util shows the time offset now as 21 hrs instead of the 20 hrs it shows yesterday. This would match the day of the month, but surely should simply show as 1 hr for the summer time offset?

The ctouch was on 4.7.0, so this morning I updated to the latest 4.7.2 to see if this makes any difference.

Stephen

 

Well, so far after updating the ctouch to 4.7.2, the time broadcasts from the ctouch are now every 90mins instead of the previous 60mins, and state the expected time offset as 1hr rather than 20 or 21 hrs. And the time broadcasts are not altering the DLT times.

Strange but maybe sorted now. Still interested to know what might have caused it to watch out for in the future.

Stephen

 

I'm seeing a similar issue here in the USA. I have an out-of-town job with 10 touch screens (4 color/6 Mark II) and several DLTs. The homeowner is reporting that the time on the touch screens (and as a result - any schedule) is changing on it's own. I've had him reset the time several times, but he's still reporting the problem. He claims it's offsetting by 'several' hours (6-12 hours).

When I was there, I do remember that when I was testing schedules [by changing the time on one of the the touch screens], the time would jump forward by 1 hour whenever I would hit OK to save the time. In a hurry, I just set the time to 1 hour previous to the desired time to get the test done. When I left the house, the time was correct, but at some point later (within a few days) it had changed on its own.

The project is using PICED 4.6.1

I don't have access to the house to get logs, but I'm wondering if this could be the same issue?

Can anyone confirm that 4.7.2 will fix this before I make another cross-country trip?

Thanks,
-Duke

 

Without having logs it is going to be difficult to know what is going on. At this stage, we have not been able to replicate this fault, and so have not been able to identify a possible cause.

Given that we don't know the cause of the problem, it is not possible to say for sure.


If anyone else has seen this problem, let us know. The more information we get, the quicker we will be able to find out what is going on and fix it.

 

Same Scenario

I have a client with the exact problem, the time on the DLTs is 1 hour behind the time on the Colour C-Touch.

I have logged the events, first is the message sent out when the time is set at the c-touch. This correctly updates the DLTs time.
17:50:35 Rx : 0514DF000E0207DA0209010D0111320D09A4<CR>
17:50:35 Rx : = Local Network, Source Unit 20, Time, Clocks: Date: Tuesday 9/2/2010; Clocks: Time: 17:50:13 Daylight Savings Offset: 9 hour(s)

Next is the message sent out later that changes the DLTs time to 1 hour behind.
19:06:00 Rx : 0514DF000E0207DA0209010D0112052609B7<CR>
19:06:00 Rx : = Local Network, Source Unit 20, Time, Clocks: Date: Tuesday 9/2/2010; Clocks: Time: 18:05:38 Daylight Savings Offset: 9 hour(s)


The offset of 9 hours does correspond with the date, as observed by Stephen.


I will check the firmware version when I am on site later today. If any one has any other suggestions please let me know.


Cheers,
Simon.

 

Nick,

Unit 20 is the Colour C-Touch.

From the PICED Coulour C-Touch Transfer Utility the Version Information is:
Server: 2.3.2.0
HomeGate: 4.7.2.0
Operating System: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2

I did not check the firmware version from Toolkit, I will do that next time I am on-site.


Thanks,
Simon.

 

I was back on site this week and checked the firmware, it is version 4.6.00.

Interestingly though the time was correct on the DLTs.

 

Problem has re-occurred

Hi

Well after 6 or so months this time issue has re-occurred. Yesterday I noticed that that DLT times were once again 1 hour behind the correct time, which the colour ctouch had stored.

Again by going into the ctouch Date/Time page, not changing the Time but selecting OK, the ctouch would broadcast the correct time immediately, but this seems to be changed fairly soon when the next broadcast is sent out. I've connected up the Diag Utility to see what it says. When setting the time using the ctouch the utility shows the following -
08:35:56 Rx : Source Unit 180, Date Tuesday 11/5/2010, Time 08:35:35 Daylight Savings Offset : 11 hour(s)
.....why would it show 11 hours ? (this unusual hour offset seems to be common with others having the issue -- any ideas what it means?)

Note that the ctouch firmware is the same as uploaded to initially cure the problem last time -

Software: 4.7.2.0
OS: NT 5.1.2600 SP 2

Stephen

 

OK. I have duplicated the problem now. Setting the date/time on Colour C-Touch results in a C-Bus message with the Daylight Savings offset being the value of the day of the month.

Issue number 19316.

 

With the Diag Util running here is the line when the ctouch broadcast the time bringing it back 1 hour from the actual time ->

10:07:33 Rx : Source Unit 180, Date Tuesday 11/5/2010, Time 09:07:11 Daylight Savings Offset : 11 hour(s)

The offset may match the day of the month but the problem was always that the DLT time would be set back 1 hr. It never went back more or ahead AFAIK.

Will upgrade ctouch to 4.8.3.0 here now and see what happens.

 

The problem exists in V4.8.3 too.

For the time being, use a device other than a Colour C-Touch to set the time.