DSC Alarm Binding errors - Cannot determine item type of 'PANEL_CONNECTION'

I’ve setup a simple connection to my DSC1832 system via EnvisaLink3 and the dscalarm-1.8.0 binding, but I can’t seem to get any status messages from the panel. I’ve limited my configuration to show panel and partition status along with a couple of switchs. OpenHAB’s connection to the Envisalink shows up on its interface after I start OpenHAB.

Here’s where the problems appear to start:

16:34:20.027 [WARN ] [.o.u.w.i.render.SwitchRenderer:70   ] - Cannot determine item type of 'PANEL_CONNECTION'
org.openhab.core.items.ItemNotFoundException: Item 'PANEL_CONNECTION' could not be found in the item registry
    at org.openhab.core.internal.items.ItemRegistryImpl.getItem(ItemRegistryImpl.java:80) ~[na:na]
    at org.openhab.ui.internal.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl.getItem(ItemUIRegistryImpl.java:554) ~[na:na]
    at org.openhab.ui.webapp.internal.render.SwitchRenderer.renderWidget(SwitchRenderer.java:57) ~[org.openhab.ui.webapp_1.8.0.jar:na]

16:34:20.192 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_CONNECTION for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Switch
16:34:20.194 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_CONNECTION for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Switch
16:34:20.196 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_CONNECTION for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Switch
16:34:20.199 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_MESSAGE for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Text
16:34:20.201 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_MESSAGE for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Text
16:34:20.203 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_TIME for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Text
16:34:20.206 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_TIME for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Text
16:34:20.209 [ERROR] [o.u.i.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl:438  ] - Cannot retrieve item PANEL_TIME for widget org.openhab.model.sitemap.Text
16:34:20.216 [WARN ] [.o.u.w.i.render.SwitchRenderer:70   ] - Cannot determine item type of 'PANEL_TIME_STAMP'
org.openhab.core.items.ItemNotFoundException: Item 'PANEL_TIME_STAMP' could not be found in the item registry
    at org.openhab.core.internal.items.ItemRegistryImpl.getItem(ItemRegistryImpl.java:80) ~[na:na]
    at org.openhab.ui.internal.items.ItemUIRegistryImpl.getItem(ItemUIRegistryImpl.java:554) ~[na:na]

What do you have as your items configurations?

I’ve tried to keep it pretty short. This is all I have in there for now, just to get things going.

/* Groups */
Group DSCAlarm
Group DSCAlarmPanel (DSCAlarm)
Group DSCAlarmPartitions (DSCAlarm)
Group DSCAlarmZones (DSCAlarm)
Group DSCAlarmKeypads (DSCAlarm)

/* DSC Alarm Panel Items */
Number PANEL_CONNECTION "Panel Connected: [%d]" (DSCAlarmPanel) {dscalarm="panel:panel_connection"}
String PANEL_MESSAGE "Panel Message: [%s]" <"shield-1"> (DSCAlarmPanel) {dscalarm="panel:panel_message"}
DateTime PANEL_TIME "Panel Time [%1$tA, %1$tm/%1$td/%1$tY %1tT]" <calendar> (DSCAlarmPanel) {dscalarm="panel:panel_time"}
Switch PANEL_TIME_STAMP (DSCAlarmPanel) {dscalarm="panel:panel_time_stamp"}
Switch PANEL_TIME_BROADCAST (DSCAlarmPanel) {dscalarm="panel:panel_time_broadcast"}
String PARTITION1_STATUS "Partition 1 Status: [%s]" (DSCAlarmPartitions) {dscalarm="partition:1:partition_status"}

Has the DSC Alarm binding file been copied to the addons directory?

I don’t see any errors in the configs…

What are you using as a text editor? Does it save the file in UTF-8? I think I’ve seen this cause problems before.

Do you have HABmin installed, and if so do you see the items there?

Hi Russell - Yes, I am using v1.8 of everything:

As @MichaelWatson has mentioned, it could be your editor. Here is a link to the old forum that addressed that issue: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openhab/ALsUnNikWiU.

Hi Michael - I’m using SciTE as my editor. Encoding is set to “Code Page Property”. I tried switching to UTF-8 with BOM, but I get the same response. I’ll try installing HABmin to see if it recognizes my items. Thanks

Per the link @rsstephens posted, looks like it should be “UTF-8 without BOM”.

Right. Thanks @MichaelWatson . That solved the problem. I missinturpreted the link @rsstephens posted.

Thanks both for your help!

To anyone checking this for answers- I ended up opening all of my edited config/items/sitemap files in notepad++ and choosing 'Convert to ASCII.