Whining about (non)functional status of OpenHab

I am generally trying to avoid whining, but I have to share my current story of how openhab (not)works for me today.

I have around 30 devices:

some other things that are not helping

  • mqtt change broke all of my MySensors integrations, I used several hours to get one sensor back, but am yet to invest time to get them all to work
  • mqtt stopped sending events from openhab to the mosquitto, I am yet to invest hours in fixing node-red integrations
  • samsung tv binding stopped working, I decided to just give up on that. Even though plex is also having some issues with reliability.
  • myopenhab.org integration goes offline by itself, of course I notice it when I need remote access to check baby cam.

Basically, I can only use openhab to localy see babycam, and sometimes weather forecast, but even for that image on android app does not refresh ever if refresh period is more then few minutes, so I always see forecast for few days ago and have to manually refresh the app (I am yet to file a github issue on this)

As mentioned, this is pointless and non constructive whining, I understand that huge work is being done with migrating codebase and some things have to wait, but I had to share that until recently openhab was working great, and now is basically 90% unuseable for me since lights do not work (most obvious one), and temperature controll does not work completelly due to z-wave devices not working reliably.

Perhaps someone has more insight over when/if things might be resolved in newer updates. I have been waiting for months now without any usability from openhab in home automation, I am willing to wait a bit more, but it is challenging as I moved to openhab due to reliability.
Not sure if alternatives are any better and if I am willing to invest time into migrating from openhab, perhaps some commercial solutions like homeseer might be limited, but will at least work.

So to be clear.

You’re not complaining about openHAB2 or its bindings, just the Z-WAVE protocol?

I (for one) haven’t experienced ANY issues with openHAB2 (that I haven’t caused by misadventure), but I do have a completely wired infrastructure.

My clients, or client’s clients never complain about things not working either. (Once bugs in advanced logic are fixed)

Then.

Why are you streaming video content over a “free” service?
Which if you’re not the only person doing this, might explain why the service fails over, or hits usage limit ?

Surely a VPN or SSH Tunnel into your home network would be far better.

not quite, never had problem with z-wave per se, all devices are working fine, I think it is the binding that has issues with my specific device, since each z-wave binding update improves stability a bit. But since what I have is not commonly used device, I understand that fully supporting it is not easy/possible. I mean, I totally understand that supporting any binding/system is a huge task, and am very thankfull and am trying to contribute to both openhab and openhab foundation, but I cannot deny that it is not working for me, and I would think some other systems will work fine. Why shouldn’t openhab then?

About the camera streaming, it is not quite video streaming, more like one image every 2s, max 5s at a time, once a week.
Basically while I am in front of the house together with my wife, since we do not leave baby at home alone :slight_smile:
But I agree that if everyone is using the service it would add up, that is why I try supporting the foundation running myopenhab.org montly/yearly and with donations.

If this pushes the usage limit of the service, it might be smart to remove support for image/video streaming, or perhaps limit it

I am using openHAB with around 200 devices without problems. But i am not using zwave or tradfri. My tradfri devices are running via zigbee2mqtt.

You can restore mqtt functionality easily by installing the mqtt1 binding.

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You are stupidly running snapshot versions and complaining about breakage. The purpose of snapshots is so breakage can be discovered and fixed before release.
You should be running either the stable 2.4 version or the unstable milestone 2.5M1. I find the milestone build stable.
The OpenHAB developers designed this build level because they care about stability. I came here from another free system where this is not the case.

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well it is not exactly stupidly, that is the only version that (somewhat) supports my devices and was advised by the binding developer himself on the linked topic, as it should fix some of the problems, so… if I go with 2.4, then the stability is even worse

Sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place

But thanks for clarifying exactly what your issues are :slight_smile:

You’ve basically suffering the very thing that I predicted some years ago.

A prospective client complainted to me that some protocols “aren’t fully open”, by which he meant that he wasn’t free to buy hardware from whoever he wanted.

My reply was then, and still is now…

“Correct, protocols like KNX & Z-Wave are in the public domain and anyone who wants to (buy into it) can make hardware to that standard.
However, what happens is that manufacturer B doesn’t build their hardware to include (full) support for manufacturer A’s hardware, then manufacturer C doesn’t even bother learning about manufacturer A’s products.
But they all profess to be compliant with the common protocol.”

I wouldn’t dream of trying to fit a stock Ford part into a Bentley.

But I understand that “some people” do it with ease. :wink:

Could be, but I am not that sure this is exactly the case here to be honest. Perhaps with Ikea binding where Ikea probably changed something in their api/protocol.

I have some other z-wave devices that work even without controller directly with each other, and there is a case of Ford-Bentley, but that part is working fine as expected.

I am not sure z-wave is the problem here, device is working as the standard expects it (I think), I see activity in logs, it is waking and giving some data to openhab, but, if I understood it correctly, the way openhab communicates with them/controller/z-wave itself is very difficult to solve, and I understand that completelly. I am suspecting that it might work fine with homeseer f.eks. (just that I am not yet in a mood to try it out, mainly due to lack of time)

Often it is possible to use Openhab 2.4 Stable and to use the 2.5 snapshot bindings on it or even older version bindings if they work better. However you need to check with the binding developer what they meant as it is possible their binding only works on the newer Openhab. Often it will be said to use 2.5 snapshot and users will assume that means the whole lot needs to be upgraded. Since I don’t use the bindings you mention I cant comment further or assist other than the below…

Trådfri seems to be able to be restarted via a rule without restarting openhab. Restarting a single binding is possible and it should not interferr with another binding when you do that. Do you find that does not work? You could always discontinue the use of the 6 Trådfri lights until that bug is fixed if it means no more restarts allows the zwave to keep working.

It sucks when you get hit with a stumbling block, I do feel for you and hope someone can assist with a helpful solution for you.

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You can update bindings separately and, in fact, the zwave developer recommends that frequently.
I am running 2.5M1 but have a newer snapshot zwave binding to get support for my devices. I am also running a snapshot version of the darksky binding that will be in 2.5.
What snapshot bindings do you need?
Since I am experimenting with the REST API I am not using snapshots because the API documentation is currently broken.

On this topic. The only thing I can’t explain is that I seem to be very stable with tradfri. After following steps posted in the linked thread, I lost connection once since the update. This appears to be due to another update. I agree improvements to the binding could be made, but it seems stable to me. I wish I could explain why some have problems still.

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Even after reading the tradfri thread I didn’t understand which version you are running. All I can say is that Tradfri is rock solid for me with every recent snapshot. My gateway is on 1.8.26, I use PaperUI configured bridge and things.

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Quoted for truth, I agree, I am running stable 2.4 with snapshot zwave binding

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Folks, can we please avoid language like this? Conversations break down really quickly when people start tossing around insults unnecessarily (even in jest).

@Bruce_Osborne, I’m not trying to single you out. I generally agree with what you wrote about snapshots versus stable versions, and I just don’t want to see valuable advice get disregarded due to language choices.

I personally value the OH community because we focus on solving our friends’ problems in a positive way. In other forums, it feels more like people are looking for a fight…and that’s just exhausting.

Sorry to interject with something completely off-topic. @dakipro, I’m wishing you the best of luck in getting this resolved.

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I just said that because I expected a Sustaining Member to know more about the versioning system & OH stability than a Newbie like me.

I would encourage everyone to avoid rendering judgments based on expectations and personal opinions, particularly since we may not know the whole story. And I’m not saying that I’m better than anyone else at this–I definitely have my moments.

Again, I’m not trying to single you out, and I don’t want to lose the technical expertise you’ve demonstrated (which I suspect surpasses mine). I’ve just seen a few conversations devolve when people start getting into contentious back-and-forths that have little to do with the original topic–and often those arguments could have been easily avoided. Every time that happens, this community becomes a little less welcoming and engaging.

Years ago, I had a girlfriend who challenged me to ask myself “what if I’m wrong?” before saying things I might regret. The relationship didn’t last, but her advice did. It’s made me a better communicator and a better community builder, which is a good thing since that’s what I do for a living. :wink:

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Well as I said in the first post, this is just a non constructive whining about openhab today, I guess only purpose of this post could be to get attention from people steering the project, to get focus back on the stability. On the home page www.openhab.org it says “100% Open Source. 100% Reliable.” Not sure how it is measured, but I can certainly argue about reliability right now.
I could have just purchased homeseer (and then be mad at them as I paid for something not working etc) and not even care about openahb, but I didn’t, I care about the project and community and I think it should be said out loud that openhab right now is not 100% reliable and that this should be addressed much better
(I know this is binding issue not openhab, but oh is nothing without bindings)

This might sound sarcastic, but this is my actual system today:

My colleague asked me the other day about getting into the home automation, and I was all so proud to help him, so I told him go to ikea and buy few lights, here is raspberry pi and everything will work fine, just install… well… home assistant?

Or you can install openhab, figure out karaf console inside another ssl console, then install manually different version of binding, but not the latest one, get milestone 2.5m1, it should be stable. Also, for z-wave get this other version, but not the snapshot as you might have to restart everything then. But you can make a rule that will do a restart for you, but since you have it in the docker that might be difficult, you might have to build shell script to do that inside container. But do not just do that as then you might have to restart this other binding, and not that other as it misses the keys or the controller… Or just install zigbee2mqtt to avoid openhab bindings completelly. And btw remote access will just stop working without any notification due to some reason not openhab related, so again, restart everything then, and fix the keys and bindings manually, and hope for the best.
And also, even if you are always on the stable version, when upgrading from stable to stable mqtt might completelly brake your mysensors and other integrations, and some other things will certainly stop working, but you know, you can always manually install old not supported mqtt binding back. There is a workaround for everything, its opensource, its great, its huge…

I hope someone else also understands why this is not best user experience.

Being a developer for fifteen years I totaly understand that things are dificult/impossible to fix sometimes, I really do. I even discussed with my boss to give me more Java projects just so that I can actively participate in code contribution to openhab (well not just for that, but partly).

But I also know that all worked fine on my system recently, and after few updates it doesn’t anymore. For me openhab went from hero to almost zero.

And I understand that Ikea broke some integration and that sometimes workarounds are needed, like restarting bindings and installing different versions, and that is great. However, tradfri thread is open in april 2018, other z-wave thread is opened in sep-dec 2018. And I understand that this is opensource and noone is obligated to do anything, but it sort of pushes on the patience a bit as some other opensource (or not) systems have it working, why shouldn’t we as well?

@J-N-K thanks for looking into it, here is post with description of my system and version numbers Tradfri 1.8.25 - offline - communication_error Basically I run all on stable version 2.4 today, to avoid the mess I described above.

I know that Tradfri is working fine for majority of users, but on that post there are several people who are having the issue, so “it works on my machine” does not quite work here.

btw, you can be sustaining member of foundation without any technical knowledge about openhab, all you need to do is to donate two beers a year (or one beer if you are in Norway…).

Stability of the system should be there all the time, regardless if you are a newbie or experienced members with understanding of how things work, it should just be there.

Thanks for listening, I hope someone gets some inspiration out of all this whining :slight_smile:

The stable release is totally reliable.
The unstable release is fairly reliable.
The snapshots are not guaranteed to function correctly.
Unreliability with snapshots is expected. It is usually less broken than Home Assistant’s official releases.

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Unfortunately: no.
You haven’t properly described and dissected the problem yet (or did I miss that when reading ?) so you blame “openHAB” for everything. That won’t enable any developer help fixing your issue(s).
Most replies (including Tadfri and zwave users) state OH 2.4 or 2.5M1 are stable for them.
So your generalized statement isn’t true and there’s something specific about your setup.
Please be more specific. What is your problem ?
Is it the Trådfri binding only ? Does it crash OH ? Does OH work if you disable/remove it ?
Is it the ZWave binding ? Does it spit errors ? Does it just not support devices of yours (yet, in 2.4) ? Does it work beyond those devices ?

Frankly: while you admitted your post is non constructive whining - if you have the time to write longish posts like this you also should be able to invest that time into describing, debugging and hairpinning your problems, so please do.

It’s fine to whine about e.g. the Trådfri binding needing restarts or ZWave not supporting devices, but clearly it is not ok to call OH instable because of that.
I guess you know this post, please take #6 - #11 How to ask a good question / Help Us Help You for serious.

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Markus, I think you have to read and understand his messages in a general manner.
If a user runs openhab and one single binding (fx z-wave) and z-wave seems unstable. It´s logic and a totally human reaction to say, openhab is unstable. This is how I understand his message.

What you´re trying to do, is to get him to tell exact what is his problem. But you then show you fail to understand, that he got several problems. And in all, it comes down to openhab (the main core/main software) running unstable. Wether or not its binding issues og core issues… It doesn´t really matter, cause in the end, openhab runs unstable…

Thats how I read and understand his messages. And I´m pretty sure, this is what he is actually trying to tell us.

In my opinion, he is not wrong. I can understand that a user can get this feeling. It doesnt mean you´re wrong. But you´re going into details which is not the points with his whinings.

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