Emergency Stop - what is it and what triggers it ?

[stevek]

Hi all but primarily addressed to Martin ...

I have created a fairly involved (at least for me ) flow that does the following:

Places a semi-transparent overlay covering the entire screen each time the phone is turned on ... this is my version of a security lock. The home screen and all its apps are still clearly visible underneath the overlay but these apps no longer can be tapped and activated in a normal fashion.
However, by tapping anywhere on the overlay, I'm then able to use voice control to perform any of the following actions without allowing access to any of the other apps on the phone. This allows me therefore to keep the phone "locked and secured" at all times but still allowing me to perform common tasks

(a) unlock / lock the phone using a specific word or phrase
(b) create a calendar event
(c) perform an internet search
(d) send an sms message
(e) re-read the last received sms message
(f) place a call to a contact (specific contacts only at the moment)

If I require access to any other app, I simply speak a specific "word" or "phrase" and the overlay is removed giving full access to the phone. Another "word" or "phrase" (or even a gesture on the screen) is used to re-lock the phone by displaying the overlay again.

Now, the above flow works very well and I can tap the overlay and perform one of the above functions, then tap the overlay again and perform another function ... and repeat this process many times without a problem ... so this indicates to me that I don't have any obvious bugs.

However, and quite randomly, I can tap the overlay and immediately the flow stops working (in fact the flow gets turned OFF) and an "Emergency Stop" message is displayed in the notification area. In an attempt to isolate the problem, I have displayed and watched the flow execute as I tap the overlay but there is no consistency or pattern as to which part of the flow fails ... most times the flow performs perfectly many times in a succession but sometimes it will fail for no apparent reason early in the flow ... other times for no apparent reason it will fail at completely different points in the flow.

Anyway, my question to you Martin is, could you please explain the functionality behind the "Emergency Stop" message, under what conditions will it be triggered and what could I do to prevent this from happening.


My phone is a rooted Galaxy Note 3 with no other modifications.


Thanks in advance,

Steve

[Martin]

Hi

The automatic emergency stop is a feature to prevent that a flow executes too many actions/conditions in a short amount of time which would often cause battery drain. It's often caused by accidental loops in flows or triggers that are executed more often than expected.
Automagic by default allows to execute max. 60 actions/conditions per minute in one flow. You can raise this limit in the preferences of Automagic (see Automatic emergency stop).
You can also raise this limit for only one particular flow by opening the flow: Menu->Options and switch Automatic emergency stop to Specific and by raising the value.

Regards,
Martin

[stevek]

Thanks for that clear explanation Martin ... based on your info, I should now be able to track down and rewrite the part(s) of my flow responsible for the Emergency Stop being triggered.

Steve