Zigbee2MQTT Won't Start | Home Assistant | Page 1

dark ore Nov 26, 2025, 1:04 PM

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So I updated the firmware on my Zigbee coordinator though that may be coincidental timing, since then trying to restart Zigbee2MQTT has resulted in this error:

Starting Zigbee2MQTT without watchdog.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
            READ THIS CAREFULLY
Refusing to start because configuration is not valid, found the following errors:
- availability/active must have required property 'timeout'
If you don't know how to solve this, read https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/configuration
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Failure page is available at http://0.0.0.0:8099/```

But this is wrong, the config file DOES have this in it - relevant section:
```availability:
  active:
    backoff: true
    timeout: 10
  enabled: true```

So what is going on here?

warm wren Nov 26, 2025, 6:21 PM

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Can you share the whole config file? Feel free to censor things with the same amount of random chars.

dark ore Nov 27, 2025, 11:04 AM

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warm wren Can you share the whole config file? Feel free to censor things with the same am...

Sure.

    enabled: true
mqtt:
  base_topic: zigbee2mqtt
  server: mqtt://localhost
availability:
  active:
    backoff: true
    timeout: 10
  enabled: true
serial:
  port: >-
    /dev/serial/by-id/usb-ITEAD_SONOFF_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus_V2_20220802201931-if00
advanced:
  homeassistant_legacy_entity_attributes: false
  legacy_api: false
  legacy_availability_payload: false
  log_syslog:
    app_name: Zigbee2MQTT
    eol: /n
    host: localhost
    localhost: localhost
    path: /dev/log
    pid: process.pid
    port: 123
    protocol: tcp4
    type: '5424'
  channel: 25
device_options:
  legacy: false
devices:
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Kitchen Window
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Cellar Climate
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Front Door
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Coffee Machine Plug
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Lounge Plug
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Cellar Detector
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Outside Climate
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Outside Detector
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: Hallway Detector
  'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx':
    friendly_name: 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
frontend:
  enabled: true
  port: 8090
  host: 0.0.0.0
  url: http://10.0.0.11```

warm wren Nov 27, 2025, 11:17 AM

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Looks okay to me: https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/blob/master/lib/util/settings.schema.json
Does it stop complaining if you remove the availability section? Maybe a addon config overrides it.

dark ore Nov 27, 2025, 11:31 AM

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warm wren Looks okay to me: <https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/blob/master/lib/util/se...

Nope, same error 🙁

warm wren Nov 27, 2025, 11:31 AM

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So it clearly doesn't come from that config file.

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Check the add-on settings. Also what is the file path of that file?

dark ore Nov 27, 2025, 11:33 AM

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I'm using the File Editor addon to edit the file and it just says the path is /homeassistant/zigbee2mqtt/configuration.yaml

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The addon's config page doesn't have anything to do with Availability.

warm wren Nov 27, 2025, 11:37 AM

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Hmm 😐

dark ore Nov 27, 2025, 11:45 AM

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I've actually bought an SLZB-MR4U to migrate everything to now anyway, but I do still need to find the old IEEE address of the old controller to migrate which requires this being up, from what I can tell.

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For what it's worth, the addon config looks like this (by using the 3-dot edit YAML option)

socat:
  enabled: false
  master: pty,raw,echo=0,link=/tmp/ttyZ2M,mode=777
  slave: tcp-listen:8485,keepalive,nodelay,reuseaddr,keepidle=1,keepintvl=1,keepcnt=5
  options: "-d -d"
  log: false
mqtt:
  base_topic: zigbee2mqtt
  server: mqtt://10.0.0.11:1883
  user: addons
  password: addons
serial:
  adapter: ember
  port: >-
    /dev/serial/by-id/usb-ITEAD_SONOFF_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus_V2_20220802201931-if00
  rtscts: false
force_onboarding: false```

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Which also looks fine...

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I see the issue

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The File Editor addon is completely useless

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I have no idea what that file even is. If I log in via SSH I can see the REAL config file in.... addon_configs/45df7312_zigbee2mqtt/zigbee2mqtt/configuration.yaml

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And we're up

dark ore Nov 27, 2025, 12:38 PM

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That file editor is less than helpful, lol. I can't even get to where the real config files are with it.

warm wren Nov 27, 2025, 8:51 PM

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I prefer Code Server or SSH myself. I was about to suggest you to run find / -type f -name "configuration.yaml" for example.

#Zigbee2MQTT Won't Start