HACS Expander Card editor UI redraws every 5 seconds

[jpravetz (Jim Pravetz)]

Conclusion:

The expander card in HACS is unmaintained. Consider instead using this more up to date fork of the expander card. It also has redraw problems, but the redraws appear to be less frequent.

Original Post:

When editing the dashboard, if I click on a card, the card will popup and open, but then will redraw/refresh approximately every 5 seconds. I don’t see anything in the browser’s developer console that would help me understand why this is happening. The result is that any changes you make get flushed before you can make a change, unless you can do it in under 5 seconds. I can work around this by editing the YAML in the same popup.

I’ve seen this problem before, a few years ago I think. Any ideas how to fix it? I’m surprised I’m not seeing other reports of the same problem.

I have added this gif, which is pretty low res because of the tool I used to create it. But I think you can see the two redraws anyway. I have a MOV file too (8.7MB).

• Core 2024.6.0
• Supervisor 2024.06.0
• Operating System 12.3
• Frontend 20240605.0

[tom_l]

What type of card are you putting in the grid card?

If it is the tile card then I can not reproduce this issue.

Must be a third party frontend resource you have installed.

[jpravetz (Jim Pravetz)]

I was thinking it was a general problem, and my bad for not posting the YAML. I see now I have a lot of HACS updates pending. Extra malo for letting my memory slip, due to being away from HASSIO for quite a few months.

BUT, even after updating everything in HACS, I still have the problem.

This example does the redraw.

type: grid
columns: 1
square: false
title: Experimental
cards:
  - type: custom:expander-card
    gap: 0.5em
    padding: 0.5em
    overlay-margin: 1em
    child-padding: 0em
    button-background: transparent
    expanded: true
    title-card-button-overlay: true
    title-card:
      features:
        - type: fan-speed
      type: tile
      entity: fan.master_bath
      state_content:
        - state
        - percentage
        - timer.master_bath_fan
    cards:
      - type: grid
        columns: 2
        cards:
          - type: custom:mushroom-number-card
            entity: timer.master_bath_fan
            name: Timer
            icon: mdi:timer-alert
          - type: custom:mushroom-number-card
            entity: input_number.master_bath_fan_timeout
            name: Timeout
            icon: mdi:timer
            layout: horizontal

This example doesn’t.

type: vertical-stack
cards:
  - type: entities
    title: Apartment Lights
    entities:
      - entity: light.apartment_living_room
#  ... etc ...

[paddy0174 (Patrick)]

It’s the expander-card… It’s a known issue, there are some forks of the original (unmaintained) card, but all of them still have some issues, unfortunately!

Take a look at this feature request, there are the forks linked, so you can try, if one of them works for you.

Expander Card

You can already add it via HACS… it’s in the docs on the page you linked. It looks like the original author has given up on it so you need to try and find someone with the skill to fix it. Perhaps a Discord server would be a better place to find someone.

[jpravetz (Jim Pravetz)]

Thanks very much for this response. One less gremlin to hunt down.

[paddy0174 (Patrick)]

Watch this topic, someone seems to have picked up the development of the card. Can’t say for sure, but put it on your watchlist, maybe something comes up!