Keep an open mind please.
Are there any limitations in device names or labels - or maybe recommendations to stay away from when it comes to certain characters?
I have devices with names AND labels that include stuff like:
(gen 1)
/
"
An example:
or
I ask this because I have rules and tiles and apps that I'm not confident in.
History - last year I in frustration I reverted to 1.66 or whatever and stopped updating firmware. Things got really solid and I went months without device issues anywhere.
Then - being on vacation recently I thought, well. lets update again. That was a bout 3-4 weeks ago. Since then my environment has just gone nuts. This was the same behavior that caused me to revert back to 1.66 last September.
I've replaced numerous older devices - contact sensors and motion sensors mainly.
I removed as many apps as I can prune off without loosing necessity tools.
I run resets, and daily cycles.
I reboot my hub at least weekly. WITH DB repair.
The behavior that goes wonky is all over the board. The most common is motion sensors that don't drop back from Active. I have outlets thats go on but don't go off.
I currently have a nightly recycle rule that I'm reworking and the testing of it just looks like a simple timing issue. but it seems to only get strange when I run against devices with names with parenthesis in it and/or a quote string. Somehow that causes the execution to not actually fire the commands - thats all I know so far.
I know I'll be asked to show the rule, but my QUESTION is about - are there any caveats or gotchas, or recommended 'I don't do blah' related to special char in names and labels?
thanks.
So with an open mind, i dont think special characters are an issue in this case. My evidence for this are the default driver names of some default drivers.
Examples:
Aeotec Door/Window Sensor 7 Series
Generic Z-Wave Plus Smoke/CO Detector
Considering you have removed / replaced devices in an attempt to resolve the issue, but didn’t mention removing special characters from device names or labels i’m not entirely convinced that you think it’s a special character issue either, BUT it is a possibility that can be confirmed or eliminated.
If you backup your config, then remove the special characters from device names and labels then backup your config again and then upgrade… does your environment still go nuts? If, Yes we can rule out special characters being a contributing factor. Plus if you want to restore to a config w/ the special characters intact you still can.
very valid points. I'm not convinced, your right. I'm flailing on this and can't find rythme nor reason.
I have about 125 devices - and I'd guess at least 40 have some form of parenthesis, slash, hypen. I thought maybe it was only in certain rule parsing, but I've ruled that out.
Now I'm tearing out mains switches. I've a dimmer that simply won't rejoin - but it joined immediately to HA. more digging.
From what you have posted in this thread, the issues sound more like zigbee mesh / interference issues. So i went back through your post history and it seams like i’m not the only one.
I didn’t see enough solid updates to confirm, so bear with me if you have already checked this, but it sounds like you might have an active zigbee radio on a HE C7 and an active zigbee radio through HA and probably some 2.4ghz Wi-Fi in the mix too.
While most users never need to check this, but have you checked that your gear is not interfering with your other gear? IE in my home my 2.4ghz wifi is set to channel 1, my c7 zigbee channel is 26 and thread in on 25. Even with all that i have several BT devices that were mildly unstable and i found that lowering the AP 2.4ghz power to 50% made my BT devices considerably more stable.
Am i on the right track about your network? Do you have your 2.4ghz transmitters spread out across different channels / frequencies to minimize possible interference from your other gear?
These hubs are a ~$125-150 inexpensive consumer grade appliance. I don’t anticipate my hub to stay up for weeks/months on end without running into issues with memory allocation etc etc.
Therefore, I schedule a weekly hub reboot (at 1 AM on Sundays). Doing this has given me a worry free, and rapid-response, automation experience.
Have you considered including a scheduled weekly reboot to improve your automation experience? I reckon it is likely to be more useful than changing your naming convention.
@aaiyar interesting comment - there was a time I did it weekly. then so many community members said 'thats silly, its not necessary anymore'. and here I am discussing it again.
I just really have not had great success with my HE. Everyone talks about how rock solid - I must just be an idiot then. I've removed devices that others have even hinted as being problematic, removed every extra driver, and extra apps - cleaned and cleaned - it just hasn't bought me to a decent place.
I'm back here after spending a full hour just trying to get a mains switch that had never failed, to reconnect. I need to step away from this for a while and go back to pushing the buttons on the wall for a while.
and whomever it was that wanted to comment about versions:
it was 2.4.2.160. as you can see from my backups, I was fine with that until like a fool I upgraded my version last month. Been in problem mode ever since -
Currently I have two motion sensors locked in Active mode, a fan that is on, but HE says it's not and I'm sure if I wait 15 mins something else will take a dump too. Sorry, just whining. Its a love / hate relationship.
No, as someone with over 20yrs experience with troubleshooting IT issues. It’s HARD and incredibly frustrating. If it weren’t for the money and that sweet, sweet dopamine hit… I think i’d rather be in waste management.
This AM, while drinking my morning java - I was making notes for myself about what to do today. One item was to check my NAS and do some updates on a few of my servers.
I pop open one, HomeAssistant. and what did I find? HA had 'picked up' the mains power switch I struggled with yesterdday and joined it to my HA environment.
Before you point and say 'all your problems explained!' - my HA environment is 3 items - a motion sensor, an outlet, and the antennae. I was certain (I'm not any more) that HA was set to 'no autodiscover' but somehow my config was overwritten and autodiscover was no longer disabled in HA. ONLY this 1 device, the mains switch that went sideways yesterday was added to HA. None of my devices connected in HE are listed. BUT. Knowing the little I know about bands and such it's possible some issues I have are with running two meshes. My test environment with HA will be shut down - and my environ left a few days to see if somehow all this crazy crap improves.
I originally built the HA as a way to bridge to features in Amazon echo's not supported by HE drivers (clock, temperature). I found the HA ridiculously robust, but overly complex and set it aside a few months ago BUT didn't shut it off.
Anyways I felt it appropriate to share my discovery of this self inflicted wound. I don't feel it explains much, but it does explain some.
