Autmation enabled at startup not running

Configuration
1

Hi,

I have a binary sensor (motion sensor). It changes state when it detects movement (to “on”). I have an automation that runs to send notification to Telegram, and then resets the state of the sensor so it’s ready for the next motion detected. That works fine!

However, every time HA restarts it triggers this automation so I get a false alert. When more sensors are added they’ll probably all send a notification.

So, I’ve set the motion sensor automation to be “False” for initial_state.

Then I wrote a script to enable this automation at startup. The state changes as shown in the Front-End indicating the automation is enabled, but it doesn’t run. Although the state of the binary sensor changes state to “on” when motion is detected it doesn’t trigger the automation to send a Telegram message. Nothing is recorded in logbook. Yet the states in the front-end are as I would expect.

Any ideas?

automation:

  • alias: system_start
    trigger:
    platform: homeassistant
    event: start
    action:
    • delay:
      seconds: 10
    • service: shell_command.startup
  • alias: motionsensor1automation
    initial_state: ‘off’
    trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.motionsensor1
    to: ‘on’
    action:
    • service: notify.telegramdevice1
      data_template:
      title: “Sensor 1 Movement”
      message: “Movement detected on Sensor 1”
    • service: shell_command.resetmotionsensor1

shell_command:
resetmotionsensor1: ‘bash /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant/resetmotionsensor1.sh’
startup: ‘bash /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant/startup.sh’

These are the shell scripts:

startup.sh:

#! /bin/bash
curl -X POST -H “x-ha-access: APIPASSWORD”
-H “Content-Type: application/json”
-d ‘{“state”: “off”, “attributes”: {“friendly_name”: “Motion Sensor 1”}}’
http://IPADDRESS:8123/api/states/binary_sensor.motionsensor1

curl -X POST -H “x-ha-access: APIPASSWORD”
-H “Content-Type: application/json”
-d ‘{“state”: “on”, “attributes”: {“friendly_name”: “Motion Sensor 1 Automation”}}’
http://IPADDRESS:8123/api/states/automation.motionsensor1automation

resetmotionsensor1.sh

#! /bin/bash
curl -X POST -H “x-ha-access: APIPASSWORD”
-H “Content-Type: application/json”
-d ‘{“state”: “off”, “attributes”: {“friendly_name”: “Motion Sensor 1”}}’
http://IPADDRESS:8123/api/states/binary_sensor.motionsensor1

2

I had a similar issue with a switch and notification, what fixed it for me on start up was adding from: off in the trigger part of the automation. This way the automation runs only if the state is changed from “off” to “on” as opposed to “unknown” to “on”, which is what state devices are usually in when HA not running.

3

Sussed it.

Added in:

from: 'off'
to: 'on'

instead of only to: ‘on’

The state change stopped it from sending alerts at startup. Thanks for the input