Node-red not updating OpenHab items in IOS App

Hi
Hope someone can lead me in the right direction, I have openhabian 3.1.0 and node-red also updated today… I am using the updated OpenHab Palet in Nodered.

My issue is that an item gets updated from MQTT, then I do some work on it in Nodered and need to push it to OpenHab. The item does get reflected fine in OpenHab with new values, but nothing goes to the IOS App. The item is displayed but the value is blank.
I used to use text config, but since V3 I configured all via web interface. Sitemap should be good, as all is reflected, just not updated!

Any advice is welcome, this is driving me up the wall… I can read items from OpenHab items fine in NodeRed…

I did look around quite a bit, but could not find anything to help with the issue.

Thanks in advance!

Guys, any suggestions please?

Divide and conquer.
You seem concerned about Node-red, but …

If that is true, it has nothing to do with Node-red.
How are you determining this, you can see the expected update in openHAB events.log perhaps?

If it comes down to IOS app, what version is involved here?

Hi Rossko

Thanks for replying…

IOS App version is 2.4.36

Log says nothing funny:
2021-10-20 14:11:01.631 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item ‘GridVoltage’ changed from 231.3 to 231.5

2021-10-20 14:11:05.637 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item ‘GridVoltage’ changed from 231.5 to 231.4

Web App:

IOS App:

Thanks

So you’ve shown it’s nothing to do with node red, the mystery ‘web UI’ shows the value you expect.
Assuming that is MainUI, it doesn’t use your sitemap, so the next area of interest for IOS app is your sitemap entries.

What type of Items are involved? There is a little trap for String types -

Hi Rossko

Yes that is in the main UI, which tells me that the data is coming in fine from Node red. Below is the entries from node red and my sitemap.

and here is the config of the opehab node:

And here is the item and sitemap:

Sorry for the lost of pics, but hopefully this helps you. let me know if there is anything else you require?
And thanks for your time!

I don’t care about any of the node red stuff.

The Item you are looking at is GridVoltage, it’s a Number type, it has state “230.2” - so far so good.

This Item does not appear on your sitemap at all.
That’s okay, it appears to be a member of Group Victron and that does appear.
So we’d expect to view GridVoltage when the Group is viewed, and sure enough we do. But the state is not visible in IOS viewer.

Try using BasicUI (which will use your sitemap), what do you get?

The thing about using Group in a sitemap is that the sitemap then has no control over presentation of individual member Items, you just get default style (Many people abandon it because you cannot even order the list of members, and end up listing them individually).

I would, as a test, add the Item individually to my sitemap, just with a Text widget will do.
Text item=GridVoltage label="Testing [%s]"

In our case, using a Group widget means the Items default state presentation will be used. In old-style OH2 items that was the "label [part]", and that style is retained in sitemaps if you use it.
In OH3 it has moved to the Item metadata.
It’s possible IOS is not getting a sensible default presentation. (That’s why I put the [’%s] part in the text widget)

Hi Rossko

Very nice explanation, I think i looked at another post that had something similar, but I did not catch it!

You 100% correct, BasicUI did not show it until I added the line is the sitemap as suggested. now it is showing in BasicUI and in IOS App. I will add all the other ones as well.

Thanks so much far taking the time!

Ruben

Interesting - I expected it to work actually, and show up an IOS app limitation.

We ought to complete the story here, I would guess your Item has no presentation metadata at all. The equivalent of no [%s], i.e. the equivalent of , “show me nothing”. The sitemap based UI shows you what you asked for by default i.e. ask nothing, get nothing.

You ought to review the state presentation 'pattern’metadata of your Item (and I expect others) and put something meaningful in there.