OH3: Location Tab: badges not shown / icon missing but reaction on state change

Matthias_Kaufmann · February 3, 2022, 12:33pm

Dear community,

after some research, especially regarding the semantic model as well as the location tab of the overview page and the community I am stucked:

I try to get my semantic model working correctly. While actual temperature, set point temperature as well as humidity are working and proper badges and values are visible, I have issues with door as well as roller shutter status. On top I am not sure if the location structure is correct as it just shows a flat layout while screenshots in the community show a locations separated by floors, e.g.

Locations item file:


// Indoor
Group    gHaus                "Haus"                 <house>                                 ["House"]

// Untergeschoss
Group    gUntergeschoss       "Untergeschoss"        <cellar>            (gHaus)             ["Basement"]
Group    gWaschkueche         "Waschküche"           <washingmachine>    (gUntergeschoss)    ["LaundryRoom"]
Group    gWerkstatt           "Werkstatt"                                (gUntergeschoss)    ["Room"]
Group    gHobbyraum           "Hobbyraum"                                (gUntergeschoss)    ["Room"]
Group    gFlurKeller          "Flur Keller"          <corridor>          (gUntergeschoss)    ["Corridor"]

// Erdgeschoss
Group    gErdgeschoss         "Erdgeschoss"          <groundfloor>       (gHaus)             ["GroundFloor"]
Group    gWohnzimmer          "Wohnzimmer"                               (gErdgeschoss)      ["LivingRoom"]
Group    gEsszimmer           "Esszimmer"                                (gErdgeschoss)      ["DiningRoom"]
Group    gKueche              "Küche"                <kitchen>           (gErdgeschoss)      ["Kitchen"]
Group    gFlurEG              "Flur EG"              <corridor>          (gErdgeschoss)      ["Corridor"]
Group    gGaesteWC            "Gäste WC"             <toilet>            (gErdgeschoss)      ["Bathroom"]

// 1. Stock
Group    g1Stock              "1. Stock"             <firstfloor>        (gHaus)             ["FirstFloor"]
Group    gBadezimmer          "Badezimmer"           <bath>              (g1Stock)           ["Bathroom"]
Group    gSchlafzimmer        "Schlafzimmer"         <bedroom>           (g1Stock)           ["Bedroom"]
Group    gKinderzimmerNord    "Kinderzimmer Nord"    <bedroom>           (g1Stock)           ["Bedroom"]
Group    gKinderzimmerSued    "Kinderzimmer Süd"     <bedroom>           (g1Stock)           ["Bedroom"]
Group    gFlur1OG             "Flur 1. OG"           <corridor>          (g1Stock)           ["Corridor"]

//Dachgeschoss
Group    gDachgeschoss        "Dachgeschoss"         <attic>             (gHaus)             ["Attic"]
Group    gBueroMatthias       "Büro Matthias"        <office>            (gDachgeschoss)     ["Office"]
Group    gBueroManuela        "Büro Manuela"         <office>            (gDachgeschoss)     ["Office"]
Group    gDuschbad            "Duschbad"             <bath>              (gDachgeschoss)     ["Bathroom"]
Group    gFlurDG              "Flur DG"              <corridor>          (gDachgeschoss)     ["Corridor"]

// Outdoor
Group    gOutdoor             "Draußen"                                                      ["Outdoor"]
Group    gGarten              "Garten"               <garden>            (gOutdoor)          ["Garden"]
Group    gTerrasse            "Terrasse"             <terrace>           (gGarten)           ["Terrace"]
Group    gGarage              "Garage"               <garage>            (gOutdoor)          ["Garage"]

For the door I have disconnected the contact status from the channel and control this via simple rule and a toggle. Log output shows its changing state. I have defined it twice, once as contact with OPEN / CLOSED state and once as switch with ON/OFF state to double check. Interestingly both are changing state properly and the MainUI location page reacts but does not show the icon.

Group                   gBueroManuelaTuer                                  "Büro Manuela Tür"                                                <door>                (gBueroManuela)                           ["InnerDoor"]
Number                  BueroManuelaTuerBattery                            "Batterie [%.0f %%]"                                              <battery>             (gBueroManuelaTuer)                       ["Measurement","Energy"]         {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_manuela_tuer:battery"}
Number                  BueroManuelaTuerLinkquality                        "Linkqualität [%.0f lqi]"                                         <qualityofservice>    (gBueroManuelaTuer)                       ["Measurement","None"]           {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_manuela_tuer:linkquality"}
DateTime                BueroManuelaTuerLastseen                           "Letzter Aktualisierung [%1$td.%1$tm.%1$tY %1$tH:%1$tM:%1$tS]"    <time>                (gBueroManuelaTuer)                       ["Measurement","Timestamp"]      {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_manuela_tuer:lastseen"}
Switch                  BueroManuelaTuerAvailability                       "Verfügbarkeit"                                                   <switch>              (gBueroManuelaTuer)                       ["Measurement","Presence"]       {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_manuela_tuer:availability", stateDescription=""[options="ON=Online, OFF=Offline"]}
//Switch                  BueroManuelaTuerContact                            "Kontakt"                                                         <door>                (gBueroManuelaTuer)                       ["OpenState","Opening"]             {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_manuela_tuer:contact", stateDescription=""[options="ON=Geschlossen, OFF=Offen"]}
Switch                  BueroManuelaTuerContact                            "Kontakt"                                                          <door>               (gBueroManuelaTuer)                       ["OpenState","Opening"]            
Number                  BueroManuelaTuerVoltage                            "Spannung [%,.2f mV]"                                              <energy>              (gBueroManuelaTuer)                       ["Status","Voltage"]             {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_manuela_tuer:voltage"}

Group                   gBueroMatthiasTuer                                 "Büro Matthias Tür"                                               <door>                (gBueroMatthias)                          ["InnerDoor"]
Number                  BueroMatthiasTuerBattery                           "Batterie [%.0f %%]"                                              <battery>             (gBueroMatthiasTuer)                      ["Measurement","Energy"]         {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_matthias_tuer:battery"}
Number                  BueroMatthiasTuerLinkquality                       "Linkqualität [%.0f lqi]"                                         <qualityofservice>    (gBueroMatthiasTuer)                      ["Measurement","None"]           {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_matthias_tuer:linkquality"}
DateTime                BueroMatthiasTuerLastseen                          "Letzter Aktualisierung [%1$td.%1$tm.%1$tY %1$tH:%1$tM:%1$tS]"    <time>                (gBueroMatthiasTuer)                      ["Measurement","Timestamp"]      {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_matthias_tuer:lastseen"}
Switch                  BueroMatthiasTuerAvailability                      "Verfügbarkeit"                                                   <switch>              (gBueroMatthiasTuer)                      ["Measurement","Presence"]       {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_matthias_tuer:availability", stateDescription=""[options="ON=Online, OFF=Offline"]}
//Contact                 BueroMatthiasTuerContact                           "Kontakt"                                                         <contact>                (gBueroMatthiasTuer)                      ["OpenState","None"]             {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_matthias_tuer:contact"} 
Contact                 BueroMatthiasTuerContact                           "Kontakt"                                                                         (gBueroMatthiasTuer)                      ["OpenState","Opening"]            // {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_matthias_tuer:contact"} 
Number                  BueroMatthiasTuerVoltage                           "Spannung [%,.2f mV]"                                              <energy>              (gBueroMatthiasTuer)                      ["Status","Voltage"]             {channel="mqtt:topic:aqara_buero_matthias_tuer:voltage"}

Attached two screenshots where one can see the locations page reacting with extended background but no text / icons (green marked pixels). I also activated manually all badges in the settings with no difference.

Doors CLOSED / OFF

DOORS OPENED / ON

Flat location structure even though the locations are defined hierarchically.

Another behaviour I have seen: Some times I need to restart the system until the model is shown correctly. Is this a normal behaviour or a hint to a wrong configuration?

Not sure how to fix this!

Thanks and best

chrismast · February 3, 2022, 1:18pm

The structure looks correct as long as you did not edit the location tabs options themselves.
The semantic model does not automatically put in seperators (i.e. ground floor, 1st floor etc.), you need to do this manually (click the upper right corner edit button). LINK

On badges, did you make sure that all semantic properties are defined correctly? LINK

Matthias_Kaufmann · February 3, 2022, 1:56pm

Obvious => I never saw this. Maybe a good idea to add this to the documentation?

I doubled checked, obviously some bug still and no idea where to find!

The log output for the door looks like this, so it uses OPEN/CLOSE which is the correct state your link states.

2022-02-03 14:50:13.758 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item 'BueroMatthiasTuerContact' changed from CLOSED to OPEN
2022-02-03 14:50:31.711 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item 'BueroMatthiasTuerContact' changed from OPEN to CLOSED

I add the details via screenshots, maybe one of you can be so kind and double check - obviously stand by the line:

Thanks!

chrismast · February 3, 2022, 2:00pm

Have a look at your equipment Mathias Büro Door and try to make it’s semantics just Door and not InnerDoor.
Maybe that’s the small thing not aligned.

Edit: on the other hand I just saw that it should also work with InnerDoor…

chrismast · February 3, 2022, 2:07pm

It is actually documented here.

Matthias_Kaufmann · February 3, 2022, 7:31pm

I took a break for better reading and testing.
I also recorded the behavior dynamically via gif (see below) and tested it with just a lightbulb, once via items file and once via main ui with separate items names. Also restarting openhabian was involved.
As I assume this shall not happen anyhow, I posted a issue here.

Innerdoor location card while toggling state

Lightbulb location card while toggling state

I hope we can find and solve the root cause.

rlkoshak · February 3, 2022, 7:41pm

There is a ton of stuff to read through and the screen shots are too small to understand so I can’t offer much. But what I can offer is what works for me.

Each door has an Equipment Group. I use “BackDoor”, “FrontDoor”, “GarageDoor”, and “SideDoor” to tag these Groups based on which door is represented. This Group is a member of the Location Group.
The door sensor is represented with a Contact type Item. This Item is a member of the Equipment Group.
The door sensor is tagged with “OpenState” as the Point and “Opening” as the Property.

With these, when a door is open in a location it is shown on the Locations card as a badge.

Matthias_Kaufmann · February 3, 2022, 8:14pm

The animated gifs show the location cars reacting on an item state change. In my opinion this behavior of just extending the distance of the text does not make sense. My assumption: The symbols of the badges should be visible but do not appear due to some bug. But just an assumption of course!

Thanks for the help - it confirms what I tried to use. I set up a dedicated test location with equipment and point as follows:

Group gTestlocation "Testlocation"  ["Room"]
Group gTestequipment "Testequipment" (gTestlocation) ["FrontDoor"]
Contact Testdoor "Testdoor" (gTestequipment) ["OpenState","Opening"]
Switch testswitch "Testswitch"

To be able to operate the door contact, I use the following rule:

rule "test"
when
    Item testswitch changed
then
    if (testswitch.state == ON) {
      Testdoor.postUpdate(OPEN)
    }
    if (testswitch.state == OFF) {
      Testdoor.postUpdate(CLOSED)
    }
end

When toggling the testswitch the testdoor changes state if I trust the log output while nothing happens on the location card:

2022-02-03 20:57:07.865 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemCommandEvent      ] - Item 'testswitch' received command ON
2022-02-03 20:57:07.870 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item 'testswitch' changed from OFF to ON
2022-02-03 20:57:08.044 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item 'Testdoor' changed from CLOSED to OPEN
2022-02-03 20:57:18.813 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemCommandEvent      ] - Item 'testswitch' received command OFF
2022-02-03 20:57:18.818 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item 'testswitch' changed from ON to OFF
2022-02-03 20:57:18.826 [INFO ] [openhab.event.ItemStateChangedEvent ] - Item 'Testdoor' changed from OPEN to CLOSED

I have done a second test and removed all things, items and rules and restart openhab. I then only copied the files above => same behavior.

I have done a third test: I removed again the items file and configured the items manually via main ui with identical setting => same behavior.

Absolutely no idea what the problem is!

chrismast · February 4, 2022, 1:22am

Just to share with you for completeness, below some screenshot of my setup which works (I was on mobile yesterday):

I still, even after looking through your screenshots the 4th time, cannot find anything wrong.

Matthias_Kaufmann · February 4, 2022, 6:48am

Dear all,

thank you for the intensive support and energy! It took me the night thinking about the problem: As the UI reacts on the item state shown with the gif images above, I was thinking: Maybe the icons are just not there (even though for temperature they are). As I reinstalled the latest openhabian freshly, I did a quick research and found this older issue.

With the following command from Kai in the karaf / openhab console the issue is fixed:

feature:install openhab-iconset-classic

Issue solved but I think a fix is needed => I’ll update the github issue.

Thanks anyhow - great support on finding and solving the problem!

chrismast · February 4, 2022, 7:07am

Good that it works for you now!

Matthias_Kaufmann · February 4, 2022, 7:35am

Correct, anyhow I hope in case somebody has similar issues one can derive a solution.
It actually does not make a difference if it is windows, door, innerdoor etc. All work now. Even it can be a switch item with state ON/OFF or a contact item with state OPEN/CLOSED. I decided for contact as it feels more correct.

And I could learn something - not too bad

sirupflex · June 26, 2022, 11:57am

Hi everyone,
Not sure if I am running into a similar issue or if I’m making a simple mistake. I have a door contact that has been verified to show the correct values in the item (Closed, Open) but I do not manage to have it represented on the badge of the location. I have the temperature and humidity of the room on the badge but no door sensor.

Running OpenHAB 3.2.0 on a QNAP NAS in a docker container.

This is what I have, related to the item (of course, there’s a Thing, other rooms, etc.):

Group gWohnzimmer “Wohnzimmer” (gErdgeschoss) [“LivingRoom”]
Group gTuere “Tuere” [“Door”]
Contact HM_Gartentuer_Wohnzimmer “Gartentuer Wohnzimmer” (gWohnzimmer, gTuere) [“OpenState”, “Opening”] { channel=“…” }

I also executed the install command for the iconset in the openhab console but the door does not show up on the badge.

When I click on the badge, I find it in the “Properties” tab of the room, together with the temperature and humidity.

Is there anything wrong with the definitions? Any other ideas?

sirupflex · June 27, 2022, 4:43pm

Finally made it work. This is the correct item definition:

Contact HM_Gartentuer_Wohnzimmer “Gartentuer Wohnzimmer” (gWohnzimmer, gTuere) [“Opening”, “Door”] { channel="…" }

The key part is to use [“Opening”, “Door”] and not have “OpenState” there. It is not relevant whether the item is in the group “gTuere” or not.

Is there any documentation that explains when to use “OpenState”, “Opening”, etc. … I know the lists on GitHub etc. but it’s not really explaining what and how to use.

rlkoshak · June 27, 2022, 5:00pm

This is one of the reasons I guide people away from trying to use the semantic model in .items files. There really isn’t any documentation. But, looking in the UI we see that OpenState is a Point tag and Opening is a Property tag.

So you could have “Door,OpenState,Opening”, or “Door,Status,Opening”, either of which make some sense.

If you are going to implement the model in .items files, you’ll need to use MainUI to see the list of the tags of each type: Location, Equipment, Point, and Property. That’s the only place they are listed right not that’s easy to get to.

Property tags always must be paired with a Point tag. The two work together. For example, a CO alarm might use “Alarm, CO” while a water leak alarm might use “Alarm, Water”

sirupflex · June 27, 2022, 5:56pm

Thank you very much for the quick and helpful reply. Good hint that I could look in the MainUI, I try to remember that. The most helpful sources for me were the Semantic Model setup thread, the linked list of properties, locations, etc. and the Design Specs of the Location Semantic Cards.

I’d love to stop using the config files but as long as there is no simple solution to the OpenHAB configuration backup challenge in the UI, I have no other option. I have everything, the whole semantic model, things, items, rules, persistence, etc. in the text files. It’s the only way known to me how I can easily rebuild the same working OpenHAB system with a fresh install if necessary. Had in the past issues with corrupted installations where not even a file system backup (which I also have in addition) helped with restoring a stable state. Such corruption often happened much earlier and you only realize too late, and there is no backup any more without any corruption, besides the challenge that you would not know when the initial corruption happened.

I still dream of a “Backup” button in the MainUI that saves the whole configuration, i.e. the OpenHAB base config (like timzone, etc.) plus everything you configure (semantic model, things, items, rules, services, persistence, list of add-ons, etc) in a file. Once you have that file, you would be able to do a fresh OpenHAB install, and then use a “Restore” button where you specify that backup file, and a few minutes later everything is up and running again exactly as it was before. I know, there are a lot of threads out there about it and it seems to be a sensitive and emotional topic. No need to discuss it here, just explaining why I still use those text files

Thanks again for your help, it is much appreciated!

hmerk · June 27, 2022, 6:10pm

Why is that ?
Config is stored under userdata/jsondb as plain JSON text files that can easily be backed up.

rlkoshak · June 27, 2022, 6:22pm

Unfortunately I don’t think either of those are kept up to date. Not that the semantic model has lots of changes to it recently.

I run in docker so I basically rebuild the same working OH system each and every time I upgrade the image and start the container. Like hmerk says, the UI configs are also just text files of a different format in a different folder. But they are still text files. I do nothing in text files (except my persistence which isn’t supported in the UI yet) and I even use git to configuration manage my OH setup.

It’s not in the UI but that’s exactly what openhab-cli backup does. It backs up everything, UI and text file configs and gives you one .zip file. If you are not using openHABian or an installed on Linux version of openHAB, there is a backup.sh/backup.bat script in the runtime/bin folder (and the corresponding restore scripts of course).

It’s only emotional because of how often it’s asserted that the UI configs are somehow different and standard backup and configuration control processes do not work. That is flat out incorrect and it’s frustrating to have to correct this misinformation over and over again. The fact that you have the impression that you can’t backup the config just the same as the text files in /etc/openhab is proof that the FUD is still alive and well.

As for corruption, very early on in 2.0 there were some very significant corruption issues. I haven’t seen any complaints about corruption in quite some time. The last problem was dealing with what happens when the file system fills up, which has already a fix merged into the baseline. There are other mitigations in place also.

sirupflex · June 27, 2022, 10:01pm

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. First of all, let me be clear that I am neither complaining nor accusing anyone or anything around the backup topic. I am an IT professional for more than 25 years and among the dying species that actually does RTFM. I spent countless hours during the past many years to learn about OpenHAB from all sources I could find. OpenHAB is definitely not easy to learn but it is extremely powerful and incredibly stable, this is why I like it so much.

Of course, you can now live your frustration about all the stupid idiots out there like me that are struggling with the backup topic. And it’s obvious that there are lots and lots of users struggling with it, as you recognized yourself. Or, well, you may want to recognize that there is a need for a large part of the OpenHAB user base to clarify and guide the backup topic more than it was done until now. This would be some effort but would in the long-term significantly reduce the amount of such discussions with the community.

When you open the page Introduction | openHAB, you will not find the word “backup” or “restore” at all. I believe it would be a game changer for this topic if, under the “Administration Guide”, there would be a section “Configuration Backup / Restore” that explains what you probably already explained in countless postings.

I am running OpenHAB in docker as well (well, the QNAP Container Station incarnation of docker) and I am backing up all the Persistent Folders (conf, add-ons, userdata) which currently cover all my text files, and the jsondb folder, too. The jsondb folder mainly covers Things, Items, Pages, Widgets, Rules, it seems, which is great. So the missing part would be general OpenHAB config (timezone, location, etc.), persistence and bindings, I guess. Would be great to have an alternative to the openhab-cli because on my setup this is not a preferred option. Is there another way to back general config parameters up? And is there anything that is not backed up at all?

So at the moment, to restore an OpenHAB installation, I would need a fresh install of OpenHAB, I’d need to enter the general config, add the bindings, and then I only need to copy back the jsondb folder, restart OpenHAB, and everything is back there and working (all things, items, widgets, rules, etc.)? And I need to manually config the persistence again (or have a copy of the related config text files). So we are with quite a number of manual steps already that are not necessarily straight forward for the average OpenHAB user. Hence, some clear guidance in the “Administration Guide” would be very helpful.

Even more, if openhab-cli can provide a full config backup and restore, why is it not possible to provide a backup / restore option in the MainUI itself that does the same? This together with some guidance in the “Administration Guide” would end this topic once and for all

rlkoshak · June 27, 2022, 10:22pm

Also rule templates, and custom widgets for MainUI.

Except for persistence those configs end up in /var/lib/openhab/config.

For the embedded databases, the data is in /var/lib/openhab/persistence. The persistence config is still in /etc/openhab/persist until the new REST API end points are added that allow config through the UIs.

For non-embedded databases (e.g. InfluxDB or MySQL you need to manage backup separately).

docker exec -it openhab /openhab/runtime/bin/backup

Just remember the location of the backup is from the perspective inside the container.

There is an option to do a full backup which will include cache and tmp but generally you don’t need nor really want those unless you are certain to restore on exactly the same version of OH.

Although, if you are running in Docker you should have two volumes mapped to /openhab/conf and /openhab/userdata. So a full backup would be to just tar up those two mapped volumes from the host and you are good to go. There is no config outside those two folders.

If you upgrade, the image entrypoint.sh will see that your config is for a different version of OH than the Image has and do any upgrade stuff for you (after first taking a full backup).

No, if you have a backup created using that backup script, or you have a backup created by just taring up the volumes you’ve mounted to Docker, everything is there. All you would need to do is restore (in the first case) or mount these folders to the new Docker container (in the second case). Everything will be restored, users, persistence data, add-ons (though if it wasn’t a full backup you might need to wait a bit for the add-ons to be downloaded and installed again).

Just one step, not many.

No, if embedded database like rrd4j you’ll have your config and the data. If external you’ll still have your config. It’s all there in userdata.

If you capture the conf and userdata folders, you literally have a full backup of openHAB. The backup scripts are a little choosier and skip the things you don’t really need to restore everything which can take a several gig backup down to a couple megs in size (it’s almost all text after all).

There is no REST API endpoint to do it.
It’s actually pretty complicated when you have to deal with as diverse systems as Linux, Windows, OSX and more.
No one’s implemented it.

That’s the same reason we don’t yet have an upgrade from MainUI too.

Sadly no, it wont because far too few actually read the docs. But adding more backup info to the guide is a great idea. I hope someone volunteers to do it. Just remember to cover all the supported operating systems, not just Linux.