Entity is currently unavailable

Configuration
1

Hi,

I have configured my PV converter (SMA Sunnyboy 5) which works when it has data.
the sensor.pv_power (the current generated power) works when the device is actually generating power.
However, as soon as there is no more power generated, then i get an error: “Entity is currently unavailable: sensor.pv_power”
The day after, as soon as the device starts to generate power again, all is fine, until… sun down.

Since i use this value for calculating other sensors, these sensors also turn into this error state.

Any ideas on how to:

  • Debug this?
  • OR how to do error handling in the configuration.yaml file with calculated sensors? (then i could work around this issue…)

In fact, i noticed the same behaviour for all the other related sensors, as soon as sun down

image

image

2

You can set it to zero when unavailable will that do?

If so, use a template sensor like this:

sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      pv_power_corrected:
        friendly_name: "PV Power Corrected"
        unit_of_measurement: 'W'
        value_template: "{{ states('sensor.pv_power') |float }}"

If your sensor returns anything other than a string composed of numbers the floating point conversion filter | float will set it to 0.

Screenshot_2021-02-02 Developer Tools - Home Assistant
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1 Like
3

Many thanks! this does the trick!

4

Hello.
Today in Newest HA, this {{“unavailable”|float }} dosent work anymore.

Gives error:
ValueError: Template error: float got invalid input ‘unavailable’ when rendering template ‘{{“unavailable”|float }}’ but no default was specified

5

Yes there are many posts like this year old post that have been made redundant by changes to the core.

It is best to refer to the official documentation.

6

Can you help me, how i can use this now?

7

Here’s a good explanation of the changes required: