All of a sudden, I can’t pass a start value from one flow to the next. Yes/No values come in as nothing, while text and number values error out when you try to use them. Only Yes/No testing allows you to enter a yes/no value when testing the flow and still does not maintain the StartValue tag, while text and number When cards now don’t even let you enter a test value. Anyone else encountering this?
That’s weird, as I have a number of Advanced Flows that call other Advanced Flows while passing values through the StartValue tag and they all seem to be working OK still. Running on a Homey Pro 2026 with the latest stable firmware.
An example of what I just tested:
Which calls this Flow, passing a sentence of text from the “dadjoke” tag contents:
A daft Flow I admit, but just using it as an example. And I can confirm my home was filled with the sound of a terrible dad joke ha ha.
Do you have any examples of what is not working for you? Specifics would really help.
Here is the best way I can demonstrate without a video.
This flow is called Receive and I just tested the first When card. It DID ask me to enter a yes/no value but the Echo in the Then card simply said “The value is”. Should have said “The value is yes”.
Now I’ll test the second When card and no prompt to enter a number value came up. Furthermore, the Then card raised an error with this description:
Same exact thing when I test the third When card.
I’m stumped because I have an existing flow that is currently working fine. This one starts like this…
When I test this one, sure enough I get the dropdown to enter some text.
However, for shits and giggles I just dropped a “start flow with number” card and tested it and no dropdown at all. This is downright strange.
Does this illustrate the problem well enough?
Appreciate any thoughts.
Miguel
I totally get it. I’m a long time software engineer so I’m all about “separation of concerns”. This one is killing me cause as you can see on my reply, it works in one place and not in another.
Have you tried putting an “Any” card in-between the 3 When cards and the office echo Then card?
Also, the Echo then card might not like the mix of text and boolean types. You could try using this Logic Then card to convert your boolean and numeric values to text before passing them to Alexa to speak…
This is crazy. Am I going nuts on stuff I’ve done for a long time or is there an actual issue here.
I just created a new flow that looks like this:
As you can see, testing the “start with text value” is showing the test popup and when I enter a value, it is spoken but not before I set another test variable to its value. Both cards are working cause variation works too:
But if I run the first flow in there (the one with the “started with yes/no”, I get the yes/no dropdown, and the value carries into the And card for logic, but the words spoken are leaving out the “start value”, which is why I manually inserted the “yes” and “no”.
However, I have another flow where I first noticed this. The top looks like this: (modified to avoid actual flow running)
When I run this one, the dropdown comes up, I enter Yes, you would expect the boolean variable, QuietMode, to be set to Yes but the And card still hits the true branch so it still uses the original value I st in QuietMode and not the one coming from the “Start value”. Yet if I use “Start value” in the And card, it does branch correctly, though does not speak it through either of those Then cards.
Pascal, what is the Flow Gadgets app? I can’t find it anywhere.
You know what, in this test example, the problem does seem to be the lack of type safety and the need for the explicit conversion like you just said, Andy. So this is the modified flow. I created three different test variables, of the three types. I can set each to the appropriate start value as you would expect. I DO need to convert to text on the number and boolean before I can “speak” them. And more importantly, I can condition on the boolean fine. What is still kind of weird, though not a show stopper by no means, is that the conversion of boolean-to-text in that first one does not yield anything when I speak it (which is why I still have yes and no hard coded in there). Strange that I’ve not encountered this until now, but hey, live and learn. I think all is good now. I guess I just needed a little more Homey education. I’ve had some pretty elaborate flows combining advanced flow diagrams with javascript code using the Homey object model. And of course, error handling everywhere appropriate, which is a great thing Homey allows us to do. Pretty cool stuff. The kind of nerdiness I’ve exhibited more than likely guarantees celibacy for a while.
You guys have been very helpful. Thanks for not treating this like one of the Microsoft insider forums I have to post on once in a while and get trashed for not knowing or for a stupid question or even being criticized for style. Devs can be brutal ass wipes many times.
Again, thank you
Miguel
Now I’ll test the second When card and no prompt to enter a number value came up. Furthermore, the Then card raised an error with this description:
When second trigger is triggered the THEN-card is expecting a orange YES/NO-tag. But the flow is triggered by a number-tag. In this case the start-value-tag should be blue
It’s the app I’m actually developing. It is actually in certification, but Homey seems not wanting to do so as the app is to similar to an existing one, what ist completely senseless.
You can find it as test version here: Flow Gadgets | Homey
The doc for the app is here: Pascal Nohl
Yeah I recently noticed that the color of the tag is relevant. I didn’t know that before.
oh man, Homey too ey. So what if it is similar?!? It should be all about choice. Good luck to you, man.
Looking forward to checking it out. I’ll report back any issues I come across. What app are they saying it is similar to, cause the description in your doc already shows some uniqueness?
Miguel
As long as the certification process is ongoing I do not want to mention the other app here. In case it gets rejected, I may kindly ask testers to compare both apps and for help.
Understood
