Error loading automation (500) in Web GUI

Configuration
1

Probably a n00b issue here, but…

I upgraded to 2021.4 yesterday and wanted to play with the new automation debugging feature. When I go to Configuration --> Automations, I get a list of my automations as expected. However, if I click the pencil icon on any of the entries, I receive an error that says “Error loading automation (500).” I can’t say whether this worked before 2021.4 or not, but it’s definitely not working now.

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2

Did you do a front end reload (refresh webpage with a single HA tab open) after the update?

3

No, but I just opened an incognito tab, logged in, and got the same error message. Is there a particular log file I should be looking at for details around this error?

4

Although I doubt things are shared between normal and incognito you could just reload the normal page. If that does not help, I would do a system reboot.

5

Just did a refresh and performed a system reboot earlier this morning as one of my first troubleshooting steps.

6

OK. I found what the issue was. I have a manual alarm with an automation that disarms it when I return home. I used the code from this site: Disarming a manual alarm control panel in automation with a code

Here’s what I have in my automations.yaml file for this:

- id: disarm_when_brian_returns_home
  alias: "Disarm when Brian returns home"
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: device_tracker.brians_iphone_12_pro
      from: not_home
      to: home
  action:
    service: alarm_control_panel.alarm_disarm
    entity_id: alarm_control_panel.house_alarm
    data:
#      code: !secret alarm_code
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.house_alarm

The problem is the line that I’ve commented out. I believe that this is a result of the 2021.4 upgrade where secrets are not allowed in other yaml files.

At this moment, we are unsure if this is a breaking change or not, so we list it, just to be sure.

We are now explicitly only supporting secrets inside your Home Assistant Core and Lovelace configuration files (and anything included from there). Secrets are no longer supported in other loaded YAML files.

This change should not affect regular users of Home Assistant, however, we have been made aware that some custom integrations may cause problems. If you are a user of Dwains theme, the HomeKit Infused theme or lovelace_gen, please make sure to update those or check with the upstream project.

2 Likes
7

Any idea how to have an alternative. I use the secrets file in my automation to stop having to change the same things in multiple automations. For example I have many different automations checking various sensor states. When I add or change which sensors need to be checked I just change it once in my secrets file. Here is the code showing the commented out line before the use of secrets and the uncommented line showing the use of secrets. Is there an alternative way of doing this?:

- id: '1609452279387'
  alias: Check Beam Offline - any
  description: Notify if the beam sensor goes offline
  trigger:
  - platform: state
   # entity_id: binary_sensor.set_input,binary_sensor.beam_input_2,binary_sensor.beam_input_3,binary_sensor.beam_input_4,binary_sensor.beam_input,binary_sensor.cowshed_beam,binary_sensor.alarm_input
    entity_id: !secret all_sensors
    to: unavailable
  condition: []
  action:
  - service: notify.all_devices
    data:
      message: '{{ trigger.to_state.attributes.friendly_name }} disconnected - possible
        tamper??'
      title: Offline Warning
  - service: persistent_notification.create
    data:
      message: '{{ trigger.to_state.attributes.friendly_name }} disconnected - possible
        tamper??'
      title: Offline Warning
  mode: single
8

The same thing with my automation file. I just remove the !secret password and it works.

9

I’m late to the party. I just uploaded to 2021.4 and tried implementing the Alarm Panel using !secrets. Obviously I got the same (500) error.

If I read this thread correctly am I to understand that if I want to use !secrets to hide my alarm code used in an automation I cannot have the Automations code in a separate automations.yaml file?

If so, can anyone explain the logic behind this decision? Or is it simply a bug that will be fixed at some stage?

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10

It has no sense… I think it should be fixed

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11

I also have the same problem and I think it is quite normal to use automations without entering sensitive data but using the file secret.yaml

12

I agree - anyone found a solution yet?
Most of my sensitive data from my automations that are created within several .yaml files are saved in the secret file.

13

I just run into the same problem. It does not make sense to me.

14

It seems like the !include function is causing this issue - not just the secrets inclusion. I broke apart my scenes.yaml file and created multiple scene files such as “scenes-kitchen.yaml”, “scenes-bedroom.yaml”, etc. These files work as expected, but you can’t use the GUI to edit them. Editing can only be accomplished within the text editor. Although I am running the latest install, I am surprise this bug hasn’t been fixed yet - it’s only been 2.5 years since the first reporting of it.

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