Easy foolproof Hass.io first installation not working

I’m really keen to try out Home Assistant and see how it works, however I’m unable to even get past a basic install.

I’ve had 3 attempts to get this to work, and I’m hoping this great community may spot an obvious oversight on my part?

  • Followed these hassio installation instructions
  • using a Pi Zero W
  • configuring wif-fi settings in /system-connections/ as per instructions after flashing.
  • Turn on the pi and wait 20, 30, 45 mins.
  • Nothing loads at http://hassio.local:8123 - just error: can’t connect to the server.

Good news is that the pi zero w connects to the network, as seen here in list of connected devices. Found using $ arp -a

Hass.io seems to be installed ok on the SD, as seen in this image of a load screen, on a tft connected to the pi.
io load screen

I know this is user error, or lack of skills, or all of the above. What I think is strange is that I was able to install the virtual environment version, and get HA running, but had issues with autostart on reboot, and loads of python library errors, and config errors from the default setup. I should be able to get the more “user friendly” hass.io installation running, right? It is easier, right?

I tried, but failed, get Hassbian working. The SD saved the wifi config file only, but was never visible on the network. The wifi config file was missing when I inspected the SD after a few trys.

The solution maybe a Pi 3 (which I’ll have to buy) with an normal ethernet cable, unless there is something blindly obvious i’m not doing right.

I do find these “hope and pray” 30 minute, blind faith, flash-and-load cycles exhausting when there is no definitive progress feedback. Just silent fail.

Other than that, I’m afraid to say it’s back to the easier to use OpenHab2 for me. I found that even with the limited documentation, I was able to get it running first go. I was shocked and pleased.

A Pi Zero will be great for testing, but I’d not run a full install on it - it’s quite underpowered. Similarly running your HA system on WiFi can lead to delays (just the nature of WiFi).

That said, have you tried http://10.0.0.101:8123/?

@Tinkerer

I have now, no luck on 10.0.0.101:8123.

When I restart a Hassbian install, is HA meant to autorestart?

Hassbian is not Hass.io - Hassbian is Rasbpian plus Home Assistant, where HassIO is Docker based (using ResinOS).

Troubleshooting a failed Hass.io install is tricky, and failures like yours aren’t common. If you can, heading over to the Discord channel #hassio will likely help you track this down faster.

If that fails, getting you up and running with a manual virtual environment install should be simple enough. That’s what I run, and most issues are simple to fix (usually coming down to not installing packages inside the virtual environment, or installing the virtual environment as root).

I had a similar issue where my install was stuck on the loading screen forever. Can’t say what will fix it, but first I used an 8gb SD card (which installed Volumio just fine) but that didn’t work. I switched to a 32gb SD card and that seemed to do the trick, after the third image reflash. If you’re not connected via ethernet, I would do that to get rid of that possibility.