A terrible week

Installation Home Assistant OS
1

OK, I need to explain what has happened this week, so that everyone can explain what I have done wrong and hopefully I can get back to a fully working system.

The beginning

I have had hassio running in a docker environment on Xubuntu on a old laptop for around 6 months (after going through 2 SD cards on a Pi3B+ over 18 months previously). It was working ok, but I found I needed to reboot the laptop around once a week otherwise it would lock up and crash (think there was something wrong with the RAM, it was an old laptop). So on Tuesday it locked up and when I did a hard reset of the laptop, when hassio came up, I could ssh in, and I could see the samba shares but the front-end didn’t come up. I tried all the cli commands - hassio ha restart, stop even the update etc. and they all returned with a blank error message - 'error: ’

So crazy me went and bought a new laptop but with some mod cons, ssd drive, 8gb ram, and after much annoyance with USB keys and UEFI/BIOS options I finally got the same version of Xubuntu (18.04) installed in a partition and went through the standard installing of docker - which wouldn’t work.

Eventually I used snap to install docker rather than apt-get and then I tried to install (using the docker pull) portainer and that just wouldn’t install, eventually I found a mention in a github issue that i686 architecture machines are not supported. But this doesn’t seem to be listed on any of the docker information.

I tried to use the Hassio installer directly (https://github.com/home-assistant/hassio-installer) and it would do all the right things and say [INFO] Run Hass.io but it didn’t appear on localhost:8123 or as a docker container or anywhere else, and I could find any files that in /share I thought it might create so I gave up on this as well.

But I got HA running in the docker environment but I really want to use HASSIO, while I get it that people want to control everything, in the end the ease of using add-ons etc. and my setup for the last 2 odd years has been in Hassio so I don’t want to give that up. And as I wouldn’t have portainer to help manage the docker environment I just don’t want to invest the time in setting up and managing all the containers myself. (I am running appdaemon and node-red and duckdns etc.)

So I switched back to the original windows on the new laptop (I left it in its partition when I installed xubuntu) and installed Hassio in a virtualbox instance with lots of ram and a few cores, and it worked. But when I then restored any of my snapshots, it did not (guessing as they were in a linux/docker setup and the new machine was in a virtualbox linux environment). So I gave that up and just brought my config from github back, reloaded my addons and cleaned up some of the ip addresses, and everything seemed to work, but when I do a restart it is taking 25+ minutes to restart! I eventually after again commenting out and removing parts of my config I found that it is google calendar that is causing it to take so long, so I have commented that out, but it is still taking 5-7 minutes to restart and I was using the calendar to trigger and control various parts of my setup, that I am now missing.

So if you have made it this far, you are probably feeling as frustrated as I am, but hopefully you have spotted all the things that I did wrong and can give me a critique of what I should do to get some things working as expected. As to me it seems crazy that a modern laptop is less capable than one 5 or 6 years old with dodgy ram.

On the bright side at least I have my lights back working.

Any ideas, thoughts, instructions, pity or condolences welcome,

2

If you want to run Hass.io on a generic Ubuntu install, I have a guide HERE that will help you do exactly that.

It uses the instructions provided for a generic install on the HA website, as well as a bunch of other information to help make the install easy.

I’m not sure why you would use a brand new laptop to run HA though, you would be better just using an old PC, or even a RPi3 with an SSD attached via USB.

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3

I have followed some very good instructions from @kanga_who to set up my NUC when I moved form a Pi.

I just looked at the guide on Google Docs (linked above) and have downloaded a copy for reference. A small request would be to include the source of that guide in the guide itself. I would always look for an updated copy of any on line guide before I followed it but having the guide itself tell me where to look is useful.

Thanks for writing it…

4

I’m running Intel nuc and followed this

Never ever got problems with it

5

@thundergreen as I noted, my guide references that from the HA site, but also adds a lots of extra info to make the setup easier - to assist someone who has not used Linux much, or at all in the past, with embedded links to the software to use like Etcher, WinSCP, Putty etc.

6

Thanks @klogg.

The link I provided is a shared folder which also no includes instructions for a similar setup using a Pi, so that shouldn’t change. If you ever want an update and can’t find the shared folder, hit me up on here.

I’ll only update the doc as needed, which probably won’t be often.

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7

OK, Thanks for that guide, It is very complete and takes you through all the pieces that are required, and it is exactly how I setup my original old laptop, the one that recently died.

But, as described above on the new machine I had issues at every step, for whatever reason the i686 architecture really didn’t want me to run portainer, hassio downloads but doesn’t want to run. I am at a loss.

I think I might get the old laptop out and have a go at rebuilding it, with this guide and find something else to use the new laptop for.

Again thanks for the guides, I will be using it for the rebuild.

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8

Not too familiar with Xubuntu, but isn’t i686 architecture the 32 bit version? Perhaps using a 32 bit OS with 8GB RAM hardware is causing the performance issues.

9

^^

What he said. Install amd64 version of xubuntu (although really unsure why you don’t use server, or a laptop at all).

10

Stick to Ubuntu server if you can, not Xubuntu.

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11

Thanks for that insight, I will grab the latest amd64 version and see if I can get that to work.

In terms of those questioning my choice of hardware or particular software, I would hope that everyone here is cognisant of the fact that we are all working within limitations of time, budget, knowledge and physical space in their homes for this enterprise of automation. And while I know more than some on some few subjects I am very sure that I know much less than the majority on a whole host of things. Therefore I respectfully thank you for your help, but will select those tools that I have access to, or am comfortable using as it gives me some confidence that I may be able to keep up with you all.

Again thanks for the help, I am off to finish rebuilding the old and start rebuilding the new with the various operating systems so that I may hopefully be able to get my system back to what it was last week.

And if nothing else, if this works, then if someone else ever tries to build a new 64bit machine with a 32bit operating system, then maybe I can short cut their frustration with this set of posts.

12

Yeah I think docker in particular has real difficulties with 32 bit OS.

Laptop does have advantages, eg a battery can act as a form of UPS.

As for Xubuntu/Server either will work, but most people run their home assistant headless, therefore making a desktop unneeded clutter and unnecessary cpu cycles/memory.

However I do see a choice of limited space and doing all your admin directly on the machine if you do have a laptop, so every choice is legit, sorry if we made you feel otherwise.

13

No one is having a go at you about hardware/software, I hope you don’t take it that way. More-so, trying to make suggestions based on experience and knowledge about a good way forward for you.

My current machine is an old (circa 2011) Dell Optiplex 990 SFF, Core i5 2400, 8gb ram, SSD and HDD. I paid $105 for it on eBay, plus the cost of a new SSD ($40). So all in for $150.

That machine currently runs everything in docker;

  • Hass.io
  • Portainer
  • PiHole (hass.io add-on)
  • Unifi Controller (hass.io add-on)
  • Zigbee2mqtt gateway (hass.io add-on)
  • Google Drive Backup (hass.io add-on)
  • Plex media server
  • Transmission
  • Radarr
  • Sonarr
  • HA-Dockermon
  • Shinobi (CCTV - 6 cameras connected)
  • OVPN
  • MQTT server

You will see from this you can achieve a lot with old hardware, running HA and a variety of other pieces of software.

Unless you have a very specific need to have a desktop version of the OS, it is better to run a server version, less resources running and installed means less CPU/RAM usage. You may be limited on the old laptop if it is 32bit only, perhaps try running it with only 4gb RAM.

Keep asking questions if you have them, there are plenty of people happy to give options and feedback.

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14

Many thanks again, yes it appears that most of my problems stemmed from installing the same version of linux from the old machine to the new, when I should have got the 64bit version.

Following the normal processes has got me to a working docker with portainer front-end to manage it, and I am using the Google Drive Backup to restore my version of the system from Tuesday morning. Hopefully it won’t freeze up like it did that started this whole 'adventure.

I really do appreciate all the help, and do understand that people are just providing advice, I didn’t take it personally as such, just trying to make sure that other new people to the community see that it is a community and that we all working together to get to an automated future together and that there are many routes, and if you aren’t an expert in all the parts (hardware, software, programming, interfaces, etc.) that there is support to get you over the line.

The reason that I went the new laptop route was that I have quite a complex system (for me) running in the house and when it just stopped the wife and kids don’t appreciate when the lights don’t work, the electric blankets don’t turn on and the various messages about weather, bins, buses and whose turn it is to cook don’t get sent after getting use to it for a number of years, I just needed to get it up and running asap. I did like being able to log in and manage the old laptop, so a quick trip to jb for a mid range laptop was just my go to.

As I have now got a system that is over specced, hopefully it will run hassio for the foreseeable future.

I am going to restart the router to update my port forwarding, and see if my snapshot has restored. Cross your fingers for me.

15

Its Alive!!!

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Thanks everyone!

So still not sure why it crashed in the first place but definitely ensure you are building the right OS for your machine.

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16

Congratulations.

What have you done to get it going, helps to let others know who may find this thread in the future.

17

Thanks Jason,

So step 1

Install the right version OS (64bit) (this was what I was getting wrong)

step 2

Follow the steps from your Guide to get docker/portainer & hassio installed and working

step 3

setup the google drive add on for snapshots (Hassio Google Drive Backup) and upload the last snapshot from google drive back into hassio

step 4

switch back to the snapshots view and do a wipe & restore of the snapshot file that I uploaded

step 5

go through and clean up and update any integrations etc. that may have got mixed up (I had to reconnect smartthings).

Many thanks to those that put forward ideas and solutions, very relieved that I don’t need to start from scratch.

Simon

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18

Great you got that working :slight_smile:

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19

I’ve tried a few different options. Mainly Rpi 3 with SD cards (lost count of how many I’ve tried) and also a mini PC running Ubuntu.

I’ve now got it running rock solid on the Raspberry Pi running Raspbian and Hass.io but this time I’ve got it booting from an industrial grade SSD.

Super quick boot, reboot, update times etc and it will happily run for weeks with no errors. I say weeks but probably longer if I hadn’t rebooted it for some reason (updates or changing config).

I also run PiHole addon for network wide ad blocking.

20

boggles my mind why anyone woulld use docker ,hassio…

install python venv, type. python3 -m pip install homeassistant
nd its all done. updating is essy as well… python3 -m pip install --upgrade homeassistant…

so dang easy… all this docket hassio stuff is funny