Alarm in Memory - Alerts Stop (Ademco VISTA 20 P Panel)

[DaveSin]

My daughter came home from school and did not disarm the Alarm in time, which triggered an alarm event. The problem is, although she disarm the system, she was supposed to enter the arm/disarm code a second time to clear the "alarm in memory". When I log into my EYEZ-ON account, the status displayed "Alarm In Memory" and with this condition, no further alerts were sent by the EnvisaLink 3. Therefore, we did not receive any Alerts for:

(1) FRONT DOOR Open

(2) FRONT DOOR Closed

as we normally would.

The only alert that was sent was when she disarmed the system:

2013-01-16 11:08:16 (EST)- Opening By User Code 2- Partition 1

Why does the VISTA 210P stop sending events when the the status displayed "Alarm In Memory"? Is there some thing I can do from my end (changes to the programming of the VISTA 20P) to get around this issue?

[GrandWizard]

This does seem to be an annoying "feature" of Ademco panels. They have this quasi-disarmed state that you enter when you disarm after an alarm. No zone information is available in this state. You have to disarm (end) again to enter the true disarmed state.

If anyone has a panel work around I'd like to know as well.

[DrParanoia]

This is a totally stupid ridiculous feature of the Vista. In the most important few minutes of this alarm panels career when it is finally in a real alarm state it is programmed to just shut down and take a nap until some sort of intervention? What a joke. This thing should be logging every bit of activity and any additional zones that have been tripped. Anyways does anyone know if the DSC has this ridiculous "feature" while in an alarm state as well?

[GrandWizard]

No, DSC panels don't do that. They hold a state called "Alarm in Memory" but that is just an LED on the keypad, otherwise the panel is operating normally.

I'm new to Honeywell systems myself and I too find this behaviour baffling.

[DrParanoia]

GWizard thanks for the prompt answer you are the man. This really angers me and am even considering returning the Vista for a DSC solely because of this.

[DaveSin]

What I find very puzzling is that if an Alarm event occurs (and the siren is sounding) and you open multiple zones, those additional zone openings are transmitted to the Alarm Monitoring Center (confirm by test), yet those additional zone opening does not register to the EnvisaLink 3 during the the Alarm Event. What could give rise to this difference?

[GrandWizard]

No, what we're talking about is the "opening after alarm" state, not "in alarm" state. I have lots of examples of alarm states with multiple zones faulted and alll zone faults are reported as alarms. Here is an example from the logs (details changed to protect the innocent).

[08/Mar/2013:02:12:50 -UTC] - Event from 001C2AXXXXXX : Zone 4 Alarm
[08/Mar/2013:02:13:10 -UTC] - Event from 001C2AXXXXXX : Zone 10 Alarm
[08/Mar/2013:02:13:21 -UTC] - Event from 001C2AXXXXXX : Zone 12 Alarm
[08/Mar/2013:02:13:26 -UTC] - Event from 001C2AXXXXXX : Zone 3 Alarm
[08/Mar/2013:02:13:27 -UTC] - Event from 001C2AXXXXXX : Zone 9 Alarm
[08/Mar/2013:02:13:32 -UTC] - Event from 001C2AXXXXXX : Zone 5 Alarm
[08/Mar/2013:02:13:38 -UTC] - Event from 001C2AXXXXXX : Zone 2 Alarm

After you disarm after alarm, the panel gets stuck in this weird state where all it wants to do is tell you there was an alarm and you don't get any zone information, nor can you arm the system. It is frustrating to have to disarm the panel twice but this is how Ademco seems to have always done it.

[DrParanoia]

@DaveSin- I just confirmed with my Vista that IN an alarm state the Envisalink SHOULD report multiple alarms. Ex: open the front door and I fail to disarm the vista, the alarm sounds and the envisalink will send me an alert for front door alarm, with the siren still going I will than trip a motion and the vista records an additional alarm condition which the envisalink should now send off to me as well. So I got 2 email messages/texts from eyez. Email 1) Front door alarm, email 2) Hallway motion alarm. Now with that said I did this another time and only 1 of the alarms were sent to me from eyez, oddly it was the 2nd alarm condition. I dont know, starting to think the Envisalink may enjoy playing with the DSC more than the Vista possibly?