Can't Access Home Assistant GUI

After not being home for a half year and coming back home I realised something has happened with my Home Assistant setup. I can’t reach the UI via either my domain I set up or the IP number. My Z-Wave stick on my Raspberry Pi was dead, no light.

I reset the Raspberry Pi and the Z-Wave stick started to light again. But I still couldn’t reach the Home Assistant interface from the browser. Very strange.

It’s possible to access the Raspberry Pi from command lines, ssh [email protected]. So the Raspberry Pi is connected to my network. It just seems to be something wrong with the Home Assistant installation.

Can’t use the “ha” command
It’s weird, cause I can’t use the ha command in command lines. I have been running the upgrade command for Home Assistant and that worked after some struggle. But still. The ha command doesn’t work and the interface doesn’t exist. So I’m not even sure if Home Assistant really exist or not or why I can’t access it.

It was a while ago I worked with this and I’m not comfortable with command lines and I don’t remember everything I did. I don’t even remember all the commands. So to help you help me, can I somehow see what kind of HA installation I have first? I guess you would like to know that to further help me?

Or does anyone have any idea how to go further?

Skärmavbild 2020-04-12 kl. 15.23.00

Especially since you’re likely about 6 months behind in updates, I’d highly suggest a clean install. Since you have SSH access to old system, you should be able to retrieve and save your config.

Get a brand new uSD card.
Install supervisor-based HA (formerly HassIO).
Get it to boot with default config.
Restore your config.
Take a snapshot and copy it off the uSD card for safekeeping.

pi@hassbian says you’re using the old Hassbian install method, like this.

You never had the ha command. Upgrade as explained here. However…

The advice from @brahmafear is likely the best for you. That’ll give you something that requires very little in the way of command line.

I have upgraded. I don’t understand. Why isn’t anything working? Isn’t there anything that can be done without re-install the whole thing? I remember that was a pretty big process for me. I followed a lot of youtube videos with some guy. I really wish I would have written all the steps down.

Are you using Hassio? If so, if you have backups you’ll be running it in no time, if not, it is definitely going to take a few hours.

According to the screenshot, he is running hassbian. Hassbian is deprecated. Best he can do is copy his configuration and follow brahmafear’s advice.

Would you phone a car garage and simply say why isn’t my car working?

We have nothing to work with. Run a config check and tell us what the problems reported are. Consider going over to the Discord server where you can get more interactive help (in the #core channel).

Hassbian is, but the installs there will still run just fine. My own install is basically Hassbian :wink:

Some times solution is to delete database and make restart…

Why would it not work to use the same setup that worked a half year ago? Isn’t it a local software? And also, what kind of setup should I have today if not Hassbian?

@Tinkerer Thats why I asked how I’ll get to know more information so that you can help me. All I know is that I can’t access Home Assistant GUI. And that “ha”-commands doesn’t work. To tell me run a config check is an example of a good answer.

Anyway, I’m now stuck in a new problem. I can’t even login to the pi. I run SSH [email protected] and gets this:

ssh_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer

How do I fix this issue?

Edit:
Okay so I finally succeeded to connect. I just removed the power from the Raspberry Pi and put it in again. So back on track, I ran the upgrade but it dind’t work since I have an old version of Python:

Peters-Air:~ peterwesterlund$ ssh [email protected]
[email protected]’s password:
Permission denied, please try again.
[email protected]’s password:
Linux hassbian 4.19.66-v7+ #1253 SMP Thu Aug 15 11:49:46 BST 2019 armv7l
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Sun Apr 12 15:18:57 2020 from 192.168.10.230
pi@hassbian : ~ $ sudo -u homeassistant -H -s
homeassistant@hassbian : /home/pi $ source /srv/homeassistant/bin/activate
(homeassistant) homeassistant@hassbian : /home/pi $ pip3 install --upgrade homeassistant
Collecting homeassistant
Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/homeassistant/homeassistant-0.108.4-py3-none-any.whl (6.9MB)
100% |████████████████████████████████| 6.9MB 46kB/s
homeassistant requires Python ‘>=3.7.0’ but the running Python is 3.5.3
(homeassistant) homeassistant@hassbian : /home/pi $

Okay so maybe the best would be to just try to get that config file and then try to flush the system and install Home Assistant with hass.io instead. Is that what I should do? Can I ask here during the process if I have any questions? Will you try to help? Is there any way to use my laptop’s keyboard and trackpad to the raspberry pi?

But first, how do I get the config?

Btw, I also found the videos I followed 2018 when I set up my current HA installation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIz6XqDwHEk&t=248s

Another sidenote: My Raspberry Pi is the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

Okay so I found that I could access the config files from Finder on my mac by the remote folder:

So I have copied all the files except the super big db-file to a local folder. So I’m ready to switch to hassio! How should I do this properly? Do I install hassio while hassbian is on the RPi or do I somehow clean the whole raspberry? What is the way to go?

As long as that included all the hidden files/folders :+1:

I’d start next with a new SD card, flash the Home Assistant image to it if that’s what you want, and go from there. You’ll be able to copy your files back once things are running.

When you say “flash the Home Assistant image”, do you mean the hass.io installation? That I should download and put on a SD card?

What should I do with the hassbian installation that is currently on my Pi?

Yes

After copying off the config, pull the SD card and put it to one side.

So I should keep the hassbian installation and have both hassbian and hassio installations on the Pi at the same time?

No

  1. Back up your current config
  2. Remove that SD card and put it somewhere safe, just in case you discover you missed something
  3. Buy a new SD card
  4. Flash a Home Assistant image to the new SD
  5. Boot, and work through the onboarding
  6. Copy your old config to the new system
  7. Run config checks and fix all the things that are broken
  1. Back up your current config

Does that include deleting the whole current setup after I backed up the config? That’s the only part I don’t understand. What do I do with the current installation?

And why do you say “Flash a Home Assistant image” and not “Flash a Hass.io image”? I feel like I misunderstand something. I thought Hass.io was the other way to install Home Assistant and Hassbian was this other option.

Would be glad to get an explanation so things could be cleared out.

Copy all the files out, then remove the SD card from the Pi. That is your current installation. You’re removing it, and storing it away in case you need something you forgot about. You’ll be doing your new install on a different SD card.

Things have changed a lot since you last read the docs. There’s three official install options now:

  1. Home Assistant (was once called Hass.io)
  2. Docker on your choice of OS (Linux being highly advised)
  3. Python venv on your choice of OS (which is what Hassbian was)

Copy all the files out, then remove the SD card from the Pi. That is your current installation.

Omg I had even forgot how I set up the Raspberry Pi. I see now. I have my noobs SD-card in the Raspberry Pi all the times. That’s how it works! So the idea is to take that out and keep somewhere and buy a new SD-card and flush hassio on that. That’s all I need? I don’t need to install an OS on the Pi before?

Also, I feel like I don’t need to keep the hassbian installation. I would rather use that SD-card for hassio. The files from homeassistant is copied to a folder on my mac. I don’t see why I would need anything else. Why save an old installation that doesn’t work?

So what is the proper way to clean this SD-card to start fresh? Just simply put it in my Mac and go into Finder and the card folder and delete all the files?

If you flash a home assistant image over it, the contents of the old installation are automatically deleted (overwritten)