@karenbobiv
I doubt it's related to the MySensors communication. Are you using a Dallas temp sensor? Could you check that the is actually connected to the dallas sensor by using isConnected().
When googling your problem I found a few hits on -196.6 which is the error code (DEVICE_DISCONNECTED) converted to Fahrenheit.
Start debug mode (Config.h) to see what the sensor actually sends.
@zboblamont OK, so experiments concluded that the return data from the latest version of Domoticz is a String whether it be V_VARx or V_TEXT.
I tried the dual declaration using the same CHILD_ID as intended and as VAR_X (using an RF24 - not sure of the relevance) and the actual value sent but failed to make any sense of abstracting the Ulong conversion or the string.
Only by presenting a fresh CHILD_ID and duplicating the send of data (water meter) as a V_VAR1 could I recover the last sent reading as a V_VAR1 from that fresh CHILD_ID, thence eventually arriving at 'strtoul' as a solution to restoring the last known value.
For clarity my Gateway and Controller run on a UPS, and I hope shortly to add the spare router to that UPS so I'm not left in the dark on what is happening in the dark on a battery powered laptop...
Hope this helps others trying to keep track of meters between relentless power cuts and reboots...
@mutantx, sorry for the late reply, but I was on holidays
I've no experience with this sketch code, nor the hardware build of this mp3 player.
Try to contact the author of this player or you can check the general documentation about the use of V_VARx / S_CUSTOM : https://www.mysensors.org/download/serial_api_20
Try to break up things in little pieces when accumulating knowledge about mysensors.
Big complicated sketches can be overwhelming.
I start always, when troubleshouting, with the cleanest version of the script, with minimum code required for operation. And then I build it up.
