Newbie Issues with MQTT Item

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
1

I am attempting to define my first item, which is a MQTT item. I’ve installed and configured the MQTT binding, item & sitemap, but in the Basic UI it only shows the icon and the label, it does not show the message.

The broker is Mosquitto running on the same Diskstation as openHAB. I am able to publish and subscribe to that broker from/to a RaspberryPi running a Python script and MQTT.fx on Win 10.

Item file

String GarageDoorStatus "Garage Door" {mqtt="<[mosquitto:home/garage/#:state:default]"}

sitemap

sitemap mysitemap label="Test1"
{
  Text item=GarageDoorStatus label="Garage Door"
}

mqtt.cfg

mosquitto.url=tcp://192.168.0.102:1883
mosquitto.clientId=OpenHAB
mosquitto.user=MqttUserid
mosquitto.pwd=HomeAutomation

![image|643x500](upload://2VDMWHIQRzRzIT2Hj7fNxWTxh9D.png)
  • Platform information:
    • Hardware: Synology 1812+
    • OS: DSM 6.1.6-15266 Update 1
    • Java Runtime Environment: Java 8.0.151-0014
    • openHAB version: 2.2.0010
2

Add spaces at the begining and end of the binding:
Sometimes the binding parser can be very picky

String GarageDoorStatus "Garage Door" { mqtt="<[mosquitto:home/garage/#:state:default]" }

Also, what messages do you get on the topic home/garage/# in mqtt.fx?

3

Thanks for your help., I just found the issue - for MQTT the status needs to be specified in the label on the sitemap in square brackets. This sitemap works.

sitemap mysitemap label="Test1"
{
  Text item=GarageDoorStatus label="Garage Door [%.s]"
}
4

You can do that in your Item:

String GarageDoorStatus "Garage Door [%s]" {mqtt="<[mosquitto:home/garage/#:state:default]"}

And your sitemap becomes:

sitemap mysitemap label="Test1"
{
  Text item=GarageDoorStatus
}

Try to be consistent in you item definitions and sitemaps.
I define everything in the item files and the sitemap is very bare except for mappings