#Huge Delays in 'Left the House' automation

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

near shuttle
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I have had this automation for 3 years - through 3 differnt phones. The previous 2x Samsung Sxx phones always had a huge delay. The current Google Pixel 6 Pro was AWESOME at first. Here in the last 2-3 weeks, where I used to get 200-300 yard from home and I would get the chime I had setup on the phone and a pop-up message "Curtis has left the house". Now I never get it, or I get it miles and miles from home - or sometimes, after I have already come back home.

This is highly annoying, and as I said...up until 2-3 weeks ago, was working great. All Updates have been done (are done as soon as I get them) to the phone.

short abyss
inland arrow
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After you confirm the steps in the first link make sure to look at the location tracking history if you still see an issue

near shuttle
# short abyss Is the location updating and the automation not firing or is the location not up...

I have done all this. If I am in my car that has Android Auto - I put up the HA screen...and before I even get out of my subdivision - the "NOT HOME" comes up on the screen -- yet the automation has not fired. I have tried this with the app open, screen unlocked / screen locked...it just started this 2-3 weeks ago. The same when I come home - I get 300-400 feet from my house and the HA app in Android Auto will show me at HOME (under the navigation screen).

Still wish there was a way to make a dashboard specific to Android Auto - that had everything (my lights/locks and Home or Away on one screen). I am one of that tends to not take hands off the wheel too much while I am driving.

inland arrow
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if you are using android auto in teh car, the app should be getting updates every 30 seconds from GPS in the car. Check the history section like i mentioned to see if there is a failure

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you should setup android auto favorites to have all your entities in one screen 😉

inland arrow
near shuttle
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near shuttle
# inland arrow Color matches apple car play and active state matches what the frontend consider...

Sorry - I do not understand your comment....plus, I am using Android Phone and Android Auto. Can a dashboard not be created for "Car" that shows me what I want? with the colors I want?

I have gone though the help files. Cleared the cache on the Android Companion app - after FORCE QUIT. Looking at the 'troubleshooting' for sensor entries there are Background location and Single accurate location entries --- 100s of them. First a BG and 2-3 seconds later SA entry, over and over and over.... All have green check mark - filtered on Skipped (there are none) - and then filtered on Not Sent (there are 11 of them from 2 days ago, long after I had gotten home.

I am not willing to go through a FULL RESET - of the app, as I have done the in the past...and it did not help - and took a long while to get it all set back up.

Also, this section in the help files: Once you have set up the Companion app you will need to restart Home Assistant for the notify.mobile_app action to register. On iOS the notify.mobile_app_<Device_ID> action will be created provided you granted notification permissions during setup, on Android the action will appear after the restart. If you can't see this, force quit on iOS or force stop on Android. Then relaunch the Companion app and finally restart your Home Assistant instance. The action should now be listed in the Developer Tools > Actions panel.

I do not see any of those notify.????? entries. Also Developer Tools does not have an "ACTIONS PANEL".

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I tested this - and I got the message in 2 seconds. Granted I am at home and phone is right beside me.

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inland arrow
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for history updates, do you see a large time gap? and no failures?

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how frequent are you seeing single accurate entries? thos should only show up if a report was skipped for accuracy. Double check Single Accurate sensor settings and turn off "include in sensor update" option if you had it enabled

near shuttle
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near shuttle
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In the Companion App -- I have this - you mean turn this one off??

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inland arrow
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no click on it and look at hte settings

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thre is one labeled "include in sensor update" which should be off by default

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its been known to cause issues for some users

near shuttle
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ah yes give it some time ad hopefully its back to normal 🙂

near shuttle
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I still want to be able to make my "Own Dashboard" - like I am trying to do for tablets I intend to use in my home.

inland arrow
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so the colors are intended to match Apple Carplay, the active state is taken from HA fronted code

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you can create your own dashboard with the entities in favorites and re-arrange them

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you wont be able to view your actual dashboard, the buttons is what android auto allows

near shuttle
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What is this 'Proximity" sensor that I am seeing?

inland arrow
near shuttle
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I was thinking it had something to do with BLE and stuff like that -- I still want to be able to use my phone as with sensors (presense) that I want to put into every room - to know where I am. Think like ST:TNG - "Computer Locate Captain Picard." --- 🙂

inland arrow
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ah we have BLE stuff like the transmitter and monitor for that 🙂

near shuttle
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Still having severe delays in the Companion app when I leave. It is a little better. Instead of 3-4 miles from home, now triggers 1.5-2 miles from home. 😦

inland arrow
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and your using android auto right?

near shuttle
# inland arrow and your using android auto right?

Not following. Google Pixel phone and it connects to the car AndroidAuto - and the HA companion app does show there. If that is what you mean. I have a notification setup to send to my phone when I leave (I get a sound and a message on the phone). I use it as a reminder that anything which I might have left open or unlocked -has been closed/locked. The sound is part of the automation. If I don't get the sound - or it is severely delayed, makes me wonder did things 'actually' happen.

inland arrow
near shuttle
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There are no failures - checked this multiple times. It worked flawlessly for months - then all of the sudden stopped. I have heard there are other ways to trigger "away" things to happen - but never understood why I would need them - if the app and HA had the ability to know when I was "Not Home"

inland arrow
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so are you seeing time gaps in the log?

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im talking specifically about the history log mentioned in the first link shared in this thread

near shuttle
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They show (granted I am at home all day) but when I look at the logs - there are location updates ever 10-15 (sometimes 20) seconds.

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That is from the Troubleshooting in the COMP APP

inland arrow
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what about when in the car and phone is connected to android auto?

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the logs go back 48 hours so you should be able to see that there

near shuttle
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Not looked at them - tend not to touch the phone when in the car.

inland arrow
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look now though if it happened today is what im saying 🙂

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those lgos are 2 days long so should give enough time to troubleshoot

near shuttle
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The last time I left the house - I was in the other car that does not have Android Auto or anything like that.

inland arrow
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when you have location being requested from another app like when android auto starts and you are at google maps....those updates should come every 30 seconds

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like right now if you open google maps on your phone youll immediately see an update in the device tracker

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we can really only troubleshoot based on the logs

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i have seen an issue on Googles own tracker where some users see the updates stop after the september update

near shuttle
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YES - when I touched the "target" icon - It shows a Background Update

inland arrow
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the reason why i ask about the time gaps is because that tells us what the issue is....time gaps mean google did not send the app an update

near shuttle
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Scrolling through the logs - all the way back to the beginning - the updates happen every 5-15 seconds (the largst gap)

inland arrow
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on your pixel device, have you updated to android 15 yet? it may or may not help the situation

near shuttle
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Not pushed to me yet

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VZ customer

inland arrow
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if you really depend on home/away to be very fast i recommend using more than just the apps tracker but maybe your router? or even trying to use the wifi connection sensor

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personally i use a combinaton of a few things and not the device tracker solely

near shuttle
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I am not super concerned 'that it is fast' - but that it happens. LOL -- I want to be able to rely on that if I get more advanced with automations - that 'things happen' when I leave...etc. I would like to get it working that when I get close to home - outside lights come on (for the driveway automatically) and doors unlock. Right now, that is about 50/50. The same when I leave - that I can put the house into "Away" mode.

inland arrow
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if your not ok with a few minute delay then id work on making it faster

short abyss
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Does the same delay occur whether you're walking or driving?

near shuttle
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OK - Drove the Camaro last night - put AA into HA mode and enabled the Navigation screen - watched as I left home to see how far away I was before it said I was "Not Home". I was more than a mile (nearly 2) before it changed...and it only changed because I 'woke up the phone'. It changed in like 1 second after I did that. On the way home, when I was about the same location as the "leaving" exercise - I put AA into HA Navigation and watched for "Home" to show. Did not touch the phone the entire ride home. When I was in my subdivision (probably 200 feet inside the radius of the HA (home boundaries) - and about 100 feet from my house, the Navigation in HA on AA changed to Orange/Home. Just about where it normally does this - and in an acceptable area (I can see my house at this point). So the "HOME" stuff, 'seems' to be accurate - it is the "AWAY" stuff that is not.

inland arrow
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ok now what does the history section show during that time period? time gaps or failures?

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ill asusme time gaps since you said it came when the screen turned on

near shuttle
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I left the house at 17:26 - and there is an entry here that says 'zone exited' - that is probably about the time I picked up and unlocked the phone. From my driveway to the entrance of my subdivision is 5 houses (at 25mph it takes me less than a min to make to the entrance).

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short abyss
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Are there logs between 17:26 and what you posted here? And what does your logbook or similar show you for that? Was the location actually changing?

near shuttle
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They all look the same - I wanted to capture the 'zone exited' message. As I have stated the logs are exactly the same - for hours and hours (as I work from home). Every 5-15 or so seconds there is a 'background location' message (many of those "Too many updates" messages too.

inland arrow
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The app sent a location update to the server 30 seconds before the zone exited message so if the server did not detect you are away then that seems to be correct

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Those logs look to be expected. The too many updates message comes 1 second after a successful background update and we do indeed skip updates that close

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Have you considered adjusting the home zone radius? That may help if you think it needs to be smaller to trigger faster

near shuttle
# inland arrow Have you considered adjusting the home zone radius? That may help if you think i...

The 'Home' radius is set to the default. I did play with that at one time, nearly 50% bigger...did not seem to make any difference. At that size it included the entrance to the subdivision. I believe it is at 100 meters? Any suggested size? It now seems that 'radius' is an invalid variable in 'configuration.yaml' --- and I cannot resize the circle either. I commented out all of the variables in the 'configuration.yaml' and restarted. I now have the GEAR for the "Home" Zone....but I cannot adjust the size of the circle. If I move the point from finger to hand it only moves the entire circle not even the edge lets me change the radius.

inland arrow
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100m is the default going larger means teh radius is bigger and will trigger less frequently as you need to travel out of bounds or in teh zone to trigger it

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a smaller radius may lead to more updates

near shuttle
inland arrow
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for the home zone i think you can only make adjustments in YAML unless something changed there

short abyss
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They did make a change to make it adjustable through the UI a while ago, but if you have any properties set in the YAML related to your home's location then it won't let you resize it in the UI I believe

near shuttle
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I have no settings in the 'configuration.yaml' any longer. I left them in there, but commented them all out. The GUI was telling me I could not change anything until I removed those and restarted. Which I did. Still cannot adjust the circle around my home.

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short abyss
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Is there anything under a zone heading in the YAML?

near shuttle
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But the 'zones.yaml' file is blank. Sorry
-- Old C.O.B.O.L. Programmer in me. I build my .yaml files with 'includes' and call them.

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short abyss
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That's fine, I do the same thing. The zone should only be uneditable if it's defined in the YAML under the zones area, so it's weird that it's showing up as uneditable for you when it's not there.

near shuttle
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zones.yaml

# Location required to calculate the time the sun rises and sets```
near shuttle
short abyss
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Is there a pencil next to the zone name?

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The home zone always shows as blue for me, but the others are orange

near shuttle
short abyss
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Does the cog do anything when you click on it? I can see the grab handle is missing

near shuttle
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Takes me here -- Ican edit them all - but you hit UPDATE takes you back to Map

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short abyss
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Ooh, question: Did you clear your browser cache after restarting HA?

near shuttle
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Same as if you hit EDIT LOCATION

short abyss
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Because it could be cached that it can't edit it

near shuttle
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I always CTRL+F5 after a restart.

short abyss
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Try Shift+Ctrl+F5

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Just in case

near shuttle
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Notice when I choose 'Dad' -- I have the drag handle

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I have even tried a completely differnt browser

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Same thing on my HOME zone. No Drag Handle.

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Making sure that Edit is working. I changed the name

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Anyone got a number for Rod Serling ???

short abyss
near shuttle
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Based on the 'indenting' -- possibly only

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short abyss
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Try commenting that out, I suspect that's the issue. You should be able to customise that sensor's unit of measurement through the UI now.

near shuttle
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No idea how. That was something someone wrote for me to track when to change my HVAC filter (based on usage) - there are other lines in 'configuration.yaml' that I never could figure out how to put those into another .yaml either. But I can try commenting them.

short abyss
near shuttle
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No Go --- Commented out the lines - restarted - CTRL+F5 and no drag handle.

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I so wish I could have multiple sections of HA open at the same time - like separate tabs (I know I can have differnt tabs in the browser) - but would be nice "within" HA.

inland arrow
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i tihk if you have the homeassistant block defined that might be the cause but I cant fully recall if thats teh case

near shuttle
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Now I am getting this again. I went back and looked at the 'configuration.yaml' and there was an error, because there was "nothing" in it. Told me "missing object" (I am using Studio Code Server) which helps with fomatting and errors. I added in 1 line - and the error went away. I REBOOTED HA this time and refresh cache -- now getting the 'cannot edit' error.

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short abyss
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Bingo! Try just adding debug and setting it to false.

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I've just checked, I do have customise in mine, and the allowlist_external_dirs. But that's it.

near shuttle
short abyss
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Odd! Maybe just put customize back for now then 🤣

near shuttle
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No go with that either - removed debug: and moved the customize: up to the top and did not enable anything under it..

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That is some 'impressive' file - would take me a year to figure that code out. 🙂

near shuttle
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@short abyss - I wanted to thank you for the guidance and hanging in there with me. I am actually building a brand new HA as a VM on Proxmox, and was keeping this one alive so that hopefully I can just move some of the .yaml files over and a few other things and keep things working. Still confused as to why the HA thinks that I have .yaml objects for configuring "Home" when there are none.

short abyss
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You can just do a backup and restore! Though in this case it may bring that problem with it. I suspect there's a remnant of something configured and removed long ago floating around, you'd have to go into the "not supposed to be edited by a user" files and dig around to find it and remove it (if you can find it), so as you're migrating to a new machine I would go ahead with your plan.

Just don't put anything under the homeassistant key in the YAML except your customize section 🙂

near shuttle
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I tried that before and it brought some stuff over I did not want to. Old trial and errors stuff. If I build it this way and move over what I want to keep - I can 'clean house' (perform an exorcism 👻 so to speak). lol

short abyss
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It's a good idea if you have the patience for it!

near shuttle
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OK - Here is what I have now -- in 'configuration.yaml' rebooted and cache cleared browser.

Still no grabbie handle for 'Home"

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short abyss
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I'm going to stick with my theory of "there's a ghost in the machine". Something that was configured a long time ago is still being seen as configured by HA preventing editing the zone in the UI

near shuttle
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There is

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lol

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and he don't fix it either.... lol

short abyss
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Hehe. Franck did an amazing job making spook, but even that friendly ghost can't do everything!

near shuttle
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That ghost keeps finding 'valid' things and reporting them as broken.

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Like this one.... a HACS add-on

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Which I guess will go away when I move to the VM, as no S.M.A.R.T. HDD monitoring from a VM (at least not accurate).

short abyss
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Interesting. I've not seen that issue. Clearly at the time Spook does its inspection the entity isn't there, but I wonder why!

near shuttle
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🤷‍♂️

near shuttle
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@short abyss I wanted to personally thank you for your assistance. I still cannot get the radius to change in my HA. I brought the Proxmox one back online (I had kinda put that on back burner) - and fully updated it. In there I can adjust the radius of 'Home' - but it is not yet setup to do anything.