Updates to String Items not Triggering Rules

I have two string items that I want to monitor to determine whether my house is in “vacation mode” in my Ecobee thermostats. I have written the rule to run on update, rather than change, so that the variable is correctly initialized after a restart. Below is my rule (I added the pushover line to double-check that the rule is not being run):

rule "Update sOnVacation"
when
Item tDiningRoomEventType updated or
Item tDiningRoomEventName updated
then
pushover(“Test - Vacation Variables Updated.”)
if ((tDiningRoomEventType.state.toString.toUpperCase() == “VACATION”) &$
sendCommand(sOnVacation, OFF)
} else {
sendCommand(sOnVacation, ON)
}
end

The items are being updated every three minutes:

2016-04-01 13:48:27 - tDiningRoomEventName state updated to Uninitialized
2016-04-01 13:51:29 - tDiningRoomEventType state updated to Uninitialized

But the rule is never triggered. Again, the two items are string items. Am I missing something or is there a bug with respect to updates to string items?

I should add that I also tried changing the value to an arbitrary value (“HA”) and that did not trigger the rule either:

2016-04-01 14:01:37 - tDiningRoomEventType state updated to HA

Should it be received update instead of updated?

Yes, I just caught that. That’s what I get for assuming that I know the syntax off the top of my head!

Gets me too often as well!