Neptune Apex Fusion offline

jgvergo

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Ditto for me. I never stopped to think about Fusion as a single point of failure until now!
 

csockwell

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Same here. Thank goodness for Fallback statements!

FYI - your Apex continues to work normally even if it cannot connect to Fusion. You can connect to the local interface and control everything. Fallback statements are for if a device loses connection to the Apex, they wouldn’t activate for Fusion being down.
 

MBX5

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I couldn't access the old IP interface during this outage either. Didn't check the main display as I was in a different area of my home.
 

RussM

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This post is correct:

FYI - your Apex continues to work normally even if it cannot connect to Fusion. You can connect to the local interface and control everything. Fallback statements are for if a device loses connection to the Apex, they wouldn’t activate for Fusion being down.

I'll add more though.

Same here. Thank goodness for Fallback statements!

Fallback is entirely a function that resides in the Apex base unit itself and the attached modules; it has nothing to do with APEX Fusion, other than Fusion simply being one of several ways that you can configure Fallback for a given output. When you use Fusion to configure an output (including Fallback settings), that configuration is merely sent to the Apex by Fusion; it is stored in the Apex.

A Fallback statement is a special programming command which, if used in an output's program, tells an output in an AquaBus module what to do if that module loses communications with the Apex/Apex Classic/Apex Lite base unit or the Apex Jr. Fallback has no effect during normal operations, and cannot be used in lieu of a Set statement. Two examples of when Fallback might "kick in":
  • If the AquaBus cable between an AquaBus module and the rest of the Apex system gets disconnected
  • If the controller fails
Fallback has no dependency whatsoever on the state of communications between the Apex and the APEX Fusion cloud. A loss of communications between the Apex and APEX Fusion will not cause Fallback to "kick in".

I never stopped to think about Fusion as a single point of failure until now!
It is not a single point of failure. APEX Fusion serves as one of the available Apex user interfaces; the use of APEX Fusion is optional - it's not required; an Apex can be used without Fusion. All programming resides within, and is executed by the Apex, not by APEX Fusion. Should Apex Fusion be offline for some reason, your Apex will keep on running and you can still access & manage your Apex through the built-in web interface: Classic Dashboard for the Apex Classic/Gold/Lite/Jr models, and APEX Local for the newer Apex (2016) model.

My controller is working but the local display is locked up. I can unplug it and it will update for 3-5 sec then locks up. ALso never got a disconnect txt or "heartbeat" txt.
I couldn't access the old IP interface during this outage either. Didn't check the main display as I was in a different area of my home.
This evening's APEX Fusion outage would not and could not have caused your display to lock up, or your local web interface to become inaccessible, nor should it have resulted in a Heartbeat notification. The APEX Fusion system is a system (not just a single server) which is comprised of several parts. The part that had a server issue is the web server part - that's the part of the Fusion system you use when you access apexfusion.com with a web browser or use the iOS app. The web server outage affected only us, the Fusion users, not our Apexes. The other parts were not offline, including the part that Apexes communicates with. None of my Apexes lost communications with the APEX Fusion cloud this evening, because that part was not down. Since Apexes did not lose communications during this event, there would not have been any Heartbeat notifications sent.
 

jgvergo

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This post is correct:



I'll add more though.



Fallback is entirely a function that resides in the Apex base unit itself and the attached modules; it has nothing to do with APEX Fusion, other than Fusion simply being one of several ways that you can configure Fallback for a given output. When you use Fusion to configure an output (including Fallback settings), that configuration is merely sent to the Apex by Fusion; it is stored in the Apex.

A Fallback statement is a special programming command which, if used in an output's program, tells an output in an AquaBus module what to do if that module loses communications with the Apex/Apex Classic/Apex Lite base unit or the Apex Jr. Fallback has no effect during normal operations, and cannot be used in lieu of a Set statement. Two examples of when Fallback might "kick in":
  • If the AquaBus cable between an AquaBus module and the rest of the Apex system gets disconnected
  • If the controller fails
Fallback has no dependency whatsoever on the state of communications between the Apex and the APEX Fusion cloud. A loss of communications between the Apex and APEX Fusion will not cause Fallback to "kick in".


It is not a single point of failure. APEX Fusion serves as one of the available Apex user interfaces; the use of APEX Fusion is optional - it's not required; an Apex can be used without Fusion. All programming resides within, and is executed by the Apex, not by APEX Fusion. Should Apex Fusion be offline for some reason, your Apex will keep on running and you can still access & manage your Apex through the built-in web interface: Classic Dashboard for the Apex Classic/Gold/Lite/Jr models, and APEX Local for the newer Apex (2016) model.



This evening's APEX Fusion outage would not and could not have caused your display to lock up, or your local web interface to become inaccessible, nor should it have resulted in a Heartbeat notification. The APEX Fusion system is a system (not just a single server) which is comprised of several parts. The part that had a server issue is the web server part - that's the part of the Fusion system you use when you access apexfusion.com with a web browser or use the iOS app. The web server outage affected only us, the Fusion users, not our Apexes. The other parts were not offline, including the part that Apexes communicates with. None of my Apexes lost communications with the APEX Fusion cloud this evening, because that part was not down. Since Apexes did not lose communications during this event, there would not have been any Heartbeat notifications sent.
Russ, thanks for the thoughtful and thorough clarifications. Indeed, my Apex never "failed" in the sense that the system continued to operate normally through the Fusion outage. By coincidence, I happened to be programming a new ATO when the outage occurred and that did stop me from the task of programming the ATO. I realize that I could have used the classic interface, but it's been so long since I used it that I'd have to go back and read the manuals again :-O
 

Terence

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Yes. We did have a slight outage due to a failed server and the switch to backup took a little time to come online.

To add to russ’ comments, the fact that the Apex uses the architecture it does (completely independent controller with remote cloud interface) is what makes it stand apart in the market and give you long term reliability regardless of what may happen to your internet connection or our cloud servers.
 

jrb1021

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I had the issue last week. You probably just need to do a firmware update, which fixed mine. This is the second time I've had this issue. Neptune is the only software company I have ever dealt with who designs their product to STOP WORKING unless it has the latest firmware/software. I think that's horrible design, but it seems to be the case.
 

Terence

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Neptune is the only software company I have ever dealt with who designs their product to STOP WORKING unless it has the latest firmware/software. I think that's horrible design, but it seems to be the case.
This is not correct.

However, many of the AOS updates have included wireless networking improvements to help deal with marginal network conditions in some installations.
 

Rick Krejci

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This is not correct.
However, many of the AOS updates have included wireless networking improvements to help deal with marginal network conditions in some installations.
Hopefully you are partitioning/isolating the Networking SW from the control SW so one won't affect the other if it crashes. No matter what happens with the network, it should have absolutely ZERO impact to controls. Fallback doesn't do a bit of good for things attached to the head unit when they reboot (like my return pump variable output).

My wireless conditions were perfectly stable for everything except the Apex, which had 90%+ signal and I'd still get occasional head unit reboots. If I sit next to the tank with my phone and run a wi-fi speed test, I'm seeing about 600-700 Mbps. Not what I'd consider marginal. Obviously there's a variable somewhere that causing some installations to crash and others not, but it worries me that referring those that aren't working well as "marginal network conditions" rather than "anomalous interplay between the Apex unit and some networks, causing the Apex software to malfunction and reboot"

Once I hardwired the Apex to the satellite hub (Orbi mesh network) it's been quite stable.
 
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