Assistant Not Working after 2025.8 update (error during intent recognition)

[hasty sorrel]

Updated to 2025.8 last night. I decided to rework some of my automations. While making sure my sentence triggers were working, I tried the voice assistant. "Unexpected error during intent recognition." I thought it was my formatting so I double checked, tweaked, and tried again. "Unexpected error during intent recognition." I tried a sentence from a different automation I hadn't touched. "Unexpected error during intent recognition." I try switching to typing it. "Unexpected error during intent recognition." I tried switching back to the default assistant and typing it again. "Unexpected error during intent recognition."

I tried deleting my voice assistant and setting it up again. "Unexpected error during intent recognition." I tried deleting the assistant and the add-ons that make it work, then setting it up from scratch. Now I don't see any choices for Speech to Text or Text to Speech (Forgot to go into devices and services and set up the services. The choices are there again. It didn't help though.) Now, when I try to talk the command, it just sits there and does nothing. If I tap the microphone to end it, it puts "..." on my end of the conversation and the assistant doesn't respond.

Thought I'd visit the debug option on the assistant, but I don't fully understand it.

Do I just need to wait for everything to have updates? I just set this up a couple nights ago, and my wife freaking loves it. I don't want to have to tell her there's nothing I can do.

[red maple]

what are you using as a conversation agent?

[hasty sorrel]

Home Assistant

[red maple]

is this pipeline definetly the one that is selected when your seeing the error?

[hasty sorrel]

Yes. It's also set as my preferred assistant.

[red maple]

if you go to the pipeline debug what does it show?

[hasty sorrel]

`stage: done
run:
pipeline: 01k23eetg76gegmjq05xsa3zgj
language: en
conversation_id: 01K23FM1BXS8GR9GPERFM333DK
runner_data:
stt_binary_handler_id: null
timeout: 300
events:

• type: run-start
  data:
  pipeline: 01k23eetg76gegmjq05xsa3zgj
  language: en
  conversation_id: 01K23FM1BXS8GR9GPERFM333DK
  runner_data:
  stt_binary_handler_id: null
  timeout: 300
  timestamp: "2025-08-07T23:59:49.117324+00:00"
• type: intent-start
  data:
  engine: conversation.home_assistant
  language: en
  intent_input: turn the lights on
  conversation_id: 01K23FM1BXS8GR9GPERFM333DK
  device_id: 896267c2660274a25bb2eb7545e9c7e1
  prefer_local_intents: true
  timestamp: "2025-08-07T23:59:49.117344+00:00"
• type: error
  data:
  code: intent-failed
  message: Unexpected error during intent recognition
  timestamp: "2025-08-07T23:59:49.124246+00:00"
• type: run-end
  data: null
  timestamp: "2025-08-07T23:59:49.124265+00:00"
  intent:
  engine: conversation.home_assistant
  language: en
  intent_input: turn the lights on
  conversation_id: 01K23FM1BXS8GR9GPERFM333DK
  device_id: 896267c2660274a25bb2eb7545e9c7e1
  prefer_local_intents: true
  done: false
  error:
  code: intent-failed
  message: Unexpected error during intent recognition`

[red maple]

ok so... this is super odd, I haven't seen it error like that in this type of config before.

[hasty sorrel]

Oh? Really?

If it helps make any sense, I had HA running on docker in an LXC core before making a backup, setting up HAOS on a virtual machine, and using the backup to restore all my settings. Not sure if that would cause anything weird. (The switch happened about 2-3 months ago.)

[red maple]

it seems the default assist agent is failing.
is there anything in the core logs?
have you added any custom intent stuff anywhere other than in automations?

[hasty sorrel]

I've been wanting to add custom intent stuff, but I'm not quite there yet. (I might not actually need custom stuff, I'm more interested in how to to , say, have a sentence look for a color for a certain word and the exact action would depend on the color that was said. I'll probably ask that in a different thread once this is done.)

Um... core logs... (shouldn't be hard to find)

I found this:
`Logger: homeassistant.components.assist_pipeline.pipeline
Source: components/assist_pipeline/pipeline.py:1267
integration: Assist pipeline (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 4:20:22 PM (14 occurrences)
Last logged: 5:06:49 PM

Unexpected error during intent recognition
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/assist_pipeline/pipeline.py", line 1267, in recognize_intent
conversation_result = await conversation.async_converse(
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
...<8 lines>...
)
^
File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/conversation/agent_manager.py", line 112, in async_converse
result = await method(conversation_input)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/conversation/entity.py", line 55, in internal_async_process
return await self.async_process(user_input)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/conversation/entity.py", line 68, in async_process
return await self._async_handle_message(user_input, chat_log)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/conversation/default_agent.py", line 343, in _async_handle_message
if trigger_result := await self.async_recognize_sentence_trigger(user_input):
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/conversation/default_agent.py", line 1217, in async_recognize_sentence_trigger
self._rebuild_trigger_intents()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/conversation/default_agent.py", line 1185, in _rebuild_trigger_intents
for sentence in intent_data.sentences:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^`

File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/functools.py", line 1026, in __get__ val = self.func(instance) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/hassil/intents.py", line 238, in sentences parse_sentence(text, keep_text=True) for text in self.sentence_texts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/hassil/parse_expression.py", line 220, in parse_sentence seq = parse_expression(chunk, metadata=metadata) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/hassil/parse_expression.py", line 174, in parse_expression return parse_group_or_alt_or_perm(chunk, metadata=metadata) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/hassil/parse_expression.py", line 104, in parse_group_or_alt_or_perm item = parse_expression( item_chunk, metadata=metadata, is_end_of_word=is_end_of_word ) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/hassil/parse_expression.py", line 174, in parse_expression return parse_group_or_alt_or_perm(chunk, metadata=metadata) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/hassil/parse_expression.py", line 146, in parse_group_or_alt_or_perm item_chunk = next_chunk(seq_text) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/hassil/parser.py", line 187, in next_chunk raise ParseError( f"Unable to find end of {error_str} from index {start_index} in: {text}" ) hassil.parser.ParseError: Unable to find end of optional ']' from index 0 in: [condition(er|ing)|the office air [condition(er|ing) on

[red maple]

[condition(er|ing)|the office air [condition(er|ing) on
is this perhaps from one of your automations?

[hasty sorrel]

Yes.

I added another sentence that was just "do something silly" and that didn't work. and even "turn on the lights" doesn't work.

[red maple]

it looks like that is causing the intent parser to fail so it cant do anything.

can you show me the sentence trigger from the automation in question?

[hasty sorrel]

So I made things too complex while tryint to fit 8 variations of a sentence in one entry.

[red maple]

perhaps the formatting is a off or something which is causing the parser to crash no matter what its looking for

this is a pretty bad bug if thats the issue, can you paste what you had there?

then maybe remove it and see if other stuff works

[hasty sorrel]

Sure,

turn (on the office air condition(er|ing)|the office air condition(er|ing) on) [please]

wait... OMG my original had left brackets where left paranthesis should have been

[red maple]

can you paste a before and after to clarify what you mean

i am trying to replicate

[hasty sorrel]

It looks like speech to text still isn't working (not reliably, anyway), but I read in someone else's thread that the speech-to-phrase devs are working on a fix.

Oh gosh, It's even worse than I thought. My syntax was just all off.

before
turn (on the office air [condition(er|ing)|the office air [condition(er|ing) on) [please]
after
turn (on the office air condition(er|ing)|the office air condition(er|ing) on) [please]

Oh, I think I know what I was trying to do. I was trying to make conditioner/conditioning an optional work so I could just say "turn on the office air"

But I think somehow I forgot the right bracket around "condition(er|ing)"

[red maple]

the fact a typo here can cause a full crash of the parser is a bit of an issue

[red maple]

i havent seen any issue raised for speech-to-phrase

[hasty sorrel]

I may have misread something, then.

Okay, holup, I'm gonna try the brackets to make conditioner/conditioning optional and see if it works when I actually have the right formatting.

[red maple]

can try disabling that sentence trigger and saving and see if assist works with other commands

you could check the log with this changed/updated/disabled to see if its failing on another sentence

i am thinking you may have some issues in some sentances and potentially the parser got an update and its not tolorating mistakes that were previous skipped or something

[hasty sorrel]

Okay, I got it to work correctly with the following sentence triggers
Trigger for ON:
turn (on the office air [condition(er|ing)]|the office air [condition(er|ing)] on) [please]
Trigger for OFF:
turn (off the office air [condition(er|ing)]|the office air [condition(er|ing)] off) [please]

Gosh, I feel like every time I ask for help, I realize it was me being dumb.

Other sentences are working as expected, too. "Turn the kitchen lights off," and "Turn the bedroom A C on" worked as well.

[red maple]

to be fair i would have expected it to just fail with this intent specifically which would have at some point lead you to check this and figure the issue. it taking down the entire assist parser is bad

[hasty sorrel]

Oh, so I helped find a bug?

[red maple]

yeah, i would consider it a bug tbh

[hasty sorrel]

Okay, is there anything else I can send to help debug it?

[red maple]

i am messing with replication now

to confirm: so you had this automation before the update. and stuff worked (well except maybe this one?) but then post update everything stopped working until you fixed this one?

i can replicate the issue, just trying to work out of its specific to 2025.8

[hasty sorrel]

Everything worked before the update. However, beforehand, I didn't use any formatting that nested alternatives or optional words inside other alternative or conditional word formatting.

I had an automation for Office AC and one for Bedroom AC, and while looking at them, I deleted them to just do them over from scratch. I started with Office AC, and after writing out the sentence triggers, I wanted to test to make sure they worked. But, while writing out the sentences I wanted for the on and off commands for Office AC, I ended up messing up the conditional word formatting on conditioner/conditioning by forgetting to close the bracket. (I had felt like a genius for getting the number of sentences in a trigger down from ~6 to just 2.)

So, while testing the sentences, I would get the "Unexpected error during intent recognition" error. I tried using voice commands for the lights to make sure those worked, and I got the same error, making me believe something was wrong with the assistant. I even tried to add "do something silly" to the list of sentences for the on trigger. But saying "do something silly" returned the same error. It all started working fine once I realized I had bad formatting and fixed it up.

I cannot confirm or deny if my bad formatting would have had the same affect in 2025.7 or earlier since I didn't mess up the formatting until today. However, as you said, if formatting on one sentence is bad, it shouldn't bring down the entire intent engine.

[red maple]

right i got you

just spun up a test vm and rolled it back to 2025.7.4 and the same error happens

[red maple]

@hasty sorrel I raised an issue here - https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/150244
it will perhaps just be closed as not planned and just labled a user input error but more important people than me will see it and make that decision.

I definitely feel like its an error that should be handled better and therefore a bug but I cannot say for certain that others up the food chain will agree with that.

[molten spruce]

I have a similar problem. Everything on my system is up to date. You don't even need to use the VA, just ask from the browser, and the error still occurs. It's true, it's less common.