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Automation being broken by a disconnected light timing out?? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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I have an automation that when triggered turns on a scene that sets my lights a specific way. Then the automation waits for a second trigger.

I noticed that the automation doesn’t continue after the second trigger, so I looked at the trace, and it looks like the scene setting step of the automation times out: “error: Timed out when calling async_turn_on for bulb xyz: <class ‘TimeoutError’>

It looks like this bulb xyz was dropped from my zigbee network, which isn’t always the most stable. So it’s not exactly uncommon.

So how do I safeguard my automations from being broken by a single piece of a scene being offline?

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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

You can try adding

continue_on_error: true

to the scene action so it doesn’t kill the entire automation. Note that if later parts depend on this action then they’ll fail in weird ways. The best thing is to fix the Zigbee network so the device doesn’t drop off but I know that’s not easy.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago

    I might give this a try while I work on the actual underlying cause. The rest of the automation isn’t impacted. It just turns the lights a color when it starts, then resets the color when the automation finishes.

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    • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I would look at making your ZigBee network reliable, as changing the automation is just fixing the symptom not the cause.

    I would move your WiFi channel from 1 to 6 or 11 and see if that helps?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Also, since zigbee is a mesh network, the fix could be as easy as adding a smart plug halfway between the controller and the light. Every zigbee device not running on battery works as a repeater too

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    FYI: not all mains powered devices are routers, I have some light switches that are end devices only.

    But in general, yes most mains powered devices are routers and will help with getting the network to reach

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I think I've mostly run across that with "no neutral" switches FWIW. It was confusing for a bit when setting up my garage.

    Also very frustrating info to try and track down when buying sometimes.

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