Hub load is severe - Maker API? Bad Hub?

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 10:18pm

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with my Hubitat, and I figure something must be wrong. Can anyone help me out?

I got my Hubitat C5 a few years ago, but the interface and how the device worked never really fit how I like to use my home automation devices. I then found out about HomeKit and I was hooked. So, I used the HomeBridge-v2 custom app from a member on here which was great

Then I would get messages that "Hub load is severe" and it may shut down radios (Which IMO, is crazy. The entire point of this device is to be a radio, at least for my use case)

When I'd look at the app stats, the Homebridge app was always the problem, so I started looking for replacements for the app, or Hubitat entirely

That's when I finally got into HASS. I run it in a VM, and I was able to move all of my WiFi and cloud (Nest, garbage like that) directly into it. I now have virtually unlimited resources and I could take the load off of Hubitat

I also then linked Hubitat to HASS with the Maker API, so I can use Zigbee and Z-Wave devices in HASS. I thought all my problems were solved! Great easy to use Hubitat as the radio with no silly USB sticks etc, and then HASS for getting it all into one place and presenting to HomeKit

But today I log into Hubitat, and yet again, Hub load is severe!

How do these numbers look?

I really don't have many devices at all. The vast majority are smoke detectors and water sensors

What's going on here? If this is the limits of the device, how is everyone even able to use it for their entire home?

bravenel · September 3, 2022, 10:37pm

You should check out the new built-in HomeKit integration, available in 2.3.3 now in beta. You can join beta to get the release.

It sure looks as though something is beating the hub to death via Maker API.

LibraSun · September 3, 2022, 10:44pm

I had never looked at the "Stats" page before (b/c I was unaware of it), but if it helps you at all to know, all but two of my many Devices show 2% or less -- the majority are in the low decimals -- of "Busy".

Interestingly, the two biggest hogs in my case are, surprisingly, "Roku Connect" (a User app for interacting with a Roku TV) and "Dining Room Light" (an older in-wall dimmer that requires Z-Wave Polling, so it's polled all. the. time.).

Paradoxically, my primary reason for having Maker API installed at all was to allow Multi-System Reactor (MSR) -- running 24/7 on my Synology NAS, inside a Docker container -- access to all of my Hubitat ecosystem. MSR had been my secret weapon for leaving (escaping) a retiring Vera Plus hub. Without it, rebuilding my Z-Wave setup in Hubitat would have been extremely painful. Now, MSR just sits idle, because there's literally nothing left for it to do once I made that transition.

Side question: Are you sure you need all of the extra bells and whistles afforded by HASS, or has time shown you that Hubitat (as in my case) can handle everything?

csteele · September 3, 2022, 10:53pm

I don't use maker much, so my comment isn't directly on point... however, I do work in a similar way.. that is, I too have "an external engine to augment Hubitat" -- in my case it's Node-Red on a Mac Mini (not a VM, but that's not any kind of factor.)

I also use the HubConnect version of Dan.T's Homebridge. As you probably know, he created both a MakerAPI version and a HubConnect version. The difference is that the HubConnect one uses an already existing EventStream, instead of adding a MakerAPI instance. It's probably a bit of a factor. EventStream is unfiltered and thus the filtering has to be done on the external cpu. In my case, again, Homebridge is running on the same Mac Mini, using the same NodeJS install.

Said another way.. I have five connections: two to an external processing cpu.. for Node-Red and for HomeKit / HomeBridge and 3 more (again using EventStream) to other Hubitat hubs. It's likely that my "load" is higher, given I have five and I have 160++ devices on that hub.

Yet my numbers are quite a bit lower.

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 10:54pm

If it was around 3 months ago, I would have gone for it. But now I'm utilizing a lot of things in HASS, and I'm completely happy with it

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 10:56pm

Quite the opposite sadly, HASS has shown to be completely stable but Hubitat the opposite. It seems at any point it could turn off all the radios when it decides hub load is severe, rendering the entire device a paperweight

The only thing I can think is that one of the devices is causing an issue, but they are all pretty standard devices

tony.fleisher · September 3, 2022, 10:56pm

Without context (either "Time since this page's stats were last reset" or "Percentage of uptime spent on each app"), all we can tell from the stats is that Maker API is the only app that has done any significant work since the stats were reset.

tony.fleisher · September 3, 2022, 10:58pm

Have you actually had problems with radios being shutdown, or are you just seeing warnings from time to time?

csteele · September 3, 2022, 10:58pm

You might also take a look at the logs page and let it run for a minute or two... then count the number of events your hub is processing, per minute.

I'm seeing 36 events per minute.. or 1.6 events per second. That's pretty low volume.. I'm guessing yours is above 4 per second.

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 10:58pm

Wow, your numbers sure are low!

There has to be something going on then, as clearly you are utilizing it WAY more than I am. Maybe I should start excluding devices from the Maker API and see what changes

I'd be very tempted to just toss it and make everything WiFi, but the smoke detectors and water sensors are the sticking point

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 11:00pm

Unless I'm missing something, my logs are INCREDIBLY low

I've had this up for a few mins and nothing

This is what past logs looks like

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 11:01pm

Just warnings, but given the fact a few devices in here are critical to my automations, its not reassuring

Is there a hard limit for radios being shut off that I can see how close I am to?

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 11:02pm

Does this help? I checked all the boxes

csteele · September 3, 2022, 11:02pm

I can't see how WiFi makes anything better... you're still processing events.. the radio used.. ZWave, Zigbee, WiFi, BlueTooth, Matter, LoRa.... on and on.. isn't going to change the NUMBER of events. All things being equal.. and of course they never are...

You could be sending power readings 3 per second, for example..they get processed, found to be below a threshold of your automation and thus discarded... so it fools you into thinking you don't have much going on.. yet the hub is processing 3 per second.

bill.d · September 3, 2022, 11:02pm

A few points:

Hubitat has evolved quite a bit over the past couple of years. You should probably bring yourself up to date on the capabilities. They've really tried to make automations better and easier. About the only thing Home Assistant does better out of the box is dashboards + a few IP integrations (IMO).
The Hubitat beta HomeKit integration is truly beta. Lots of issues in the first couple of rounds. If you are easily frustrated wait for a while.
It looks like you are using
[RELEASE] Homebridge Hubitat v2.0
That's the one that seems to be actively maintained now, which is good. Make sure the device you are running Homebridge on is totally up to date
If you are only using Hubitat to connect 'Z' devices to Home Assistant you may find it easier to move them to Home Assistant directly. Their Zigbee and Z-Wave integrations have improved a lot in the recent past.

csteele · September 3, 2022, 11:04pm

YEA.. that's the answer.. % of total. In 35 days you've seen 183,000 events... snooooore.

Poor hub, it's rebelling at you. so little to do !! LOL

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 11:05pm

WiFi makes things better because its relying on redundant AP's in my house (So no single point of failure like a Z-Wave Radio) and then the information goes into HASS in a VM, which is running on an extremely powerful host with redundancy at every level

The odds of WiFi devices becoming unreachable past a device failure is super slim. Even if HASS completely takes a dump, I can restore a backup in less than 5 minutes to a new VM

I have zero automations on Hubitat. The only automations I have relying on sensors presented via hubitat are to alarm on Smoke/CO or Water

Then just the switches are part of an automation to to turn on with light levels (Light level is all in HASS, not Hubitat)

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 11:09pm

Even if Hubitat were perfect, I really, really, really don't like relying on a hardware device. Without having a spare on-site, it would be a nightmare if the hub failed and I was doing all my automation on it. With my HASS setup, the device cannot fail as its protected by vSphere HA

I'm 100% happy with the Home Assitant HomeKit integration, so no need to even look at the Hubitat one. I'm also now using devices that can't be added easily into Hubitat, so it would be a step backwards

I'm not using the HomeBridge app in Hubitat anymore, just the maker API to get it into HASS

I'd love to move them to HASS directly, but since I'm running HASS in a VM, its kind of a pain to get radios in. I was very happy getting Hubitat to feed into HASS for a radio, best of all worlds IMO

sean5 · September 3, 2022, 11:10pm

So do you think there is something up with the hub in that case?

csteele · September 3, 2022, 11:27pm

Doubtful.. certainly the Apps side is pleasingly low...

Can you do the same for that Device Stats tab??