Help With Room-Assistant

So I have my HA instance running on a Pi-4 under Home Assistant OS (I’m kind of confused by all the name changes that have gone on around the different versions but basically I have Core 2021.1.5 and Supervisor 5.10).

I have a MQTT broker running on a separate Pi-zero W (this is used by Sonoff switches on which I have Tasmota installed so I know it is working correctly).

I installed the room-assistant add-on on my HA instance so that I could track the presence of my Iphone and Apple Watch. Had a few issues with the configuration but I now have one that seems to work and the room-assistant add-on starts. My configuration is as shown below:

> global:
>   instanceName: familyRoom
>   integrations:
>     - homeAssistant
>     - bluetoothClassic
> homeAssistant:
>   mqttUrl: 'mqtt://192.168.xx.xxx:1883'
> bluetoothclassic:
>   minRssi: -20
>   hciDeviceId: 0
>   addresses:
>     - 'xx:8c:43:47:xx:xx'
>     - 'xx:e4:ab:b1:xx:xx'

The mqtt URL is the internal network address for the Pi that is running the mqtt broker while the ‘addresses’ are the bluetooth IP’s given for my phone and watch.

When room-assistant starts I see three new items appear in Home Assistant:

  • switch.familyroom_bluetooth_inquiries
  • sensor.familyroom_cluster_leader
  • sensor.familyroom_cluster_size

It isn’t clear to me from the documentation what these are or how I’m meant to use them. I was expecting to see a sensor appear for both my phone and watch but they don’t appear to be there. The room-assistant log shows the following:

[s6-init] making user provided files available at /var/run/s6/etc…exited 0.
[s6-init] ensuring user provided files have correct perms…exited 0.
[fix-attrs.d] applying ownership & permissions fixes…
[fix-attrs.d] done.
[cont-init.d] executing container initialization scripts…
[cont-init.d] done.
[services.d] starting services
[services.d] done.
[12:06:36] ERROR: Got unexpected response from the API: Service not enabled
[12:06:36] INFO: Starting room-assistant
*** WARNING *** The program ‘node’ uses the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer of Avahi.
*** WARNING *** Please fix your application to use the native API of Avahi!
*** WARNING *** For more information see http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/avahi-compat.html
*** WARNING *** The program ‘node’ called ‘DNSServiceRegister()’ which is not supported (or only supported partially) in the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer of Avahi.
*** WARNING *** Please fix your application to use the native API of Avahi!
*** WARNING *** For more information see http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/avahi-compat.html
2/10/2021, 12:06:40 PM - info - IntegrationsModule: Loading integrations: none
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - NestFactory: Starting Nest application…
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: AppModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: ConfigModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: NestEmitterModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: IntegrationsModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: HttpModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: DiscoveryModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: PrometheusModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: ClusterModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: TerminusModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: ScheduleModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: EntitiesModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - InstanceLoader: StatusModule dependencies initialized
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - RoutesResolver: EntitiesController {/entities}:
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - RouterExplorer: Mapped {/entities, GET} route
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - RoutesResolver: StatusController {/status}:
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - RouterExplorer: Mapped {/status, GET} route
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - RoutesResolver: PrometheusController {/metrics}:
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - RouterExplorer: Mapped {/metrics, GET} route
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - ConfigService: Loading configuration from /usr/lib/node_modules/room-assistant/dist/config/definitions/default.js, config/local.json
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - error - ClusterService: Failed to start mdns discovery (dns service error: unknown)
2/10/2021, 12:06:41 PM - info - NestApplication: Nest application successfully started
2/10/2021, 12:06:43 PM - info - ClusterService: 6e66619d-room-assistant has been elected as leader
2/10/2021, 12:06:43 PM - info - EntitiesService: Refreshing entity states

As you can see there are a few ‘error’ entries in the file but it’s not clear whether these are fatal or not. For example, does the error:

ClusterService: Failed to start mdns discovery (dns service error: unknown)

indicate that there is some failure or shortcoming on the Pi-4 that is preventing Room-Assistant from broadcasting the messages that it uses to detect the devices? I’ve seen other log files which contain a message to the the effect that “mDNS services are starting”).

Can anyone shed light on what I need to do to my system in order to get room-assistant working properly.

I hear you, however there is a room-assistant add-on for Home Assistant, albeit a community developed one.

read the article - in full

Would be helpful if you could provide a little more clarity regarding why you highlighted this article in response to my post. I’m assuming that you believe that my post isn’t in accord with the various issues discussed in the article however it would be helpful to me, in editing the post, to understand exactly what issue you have a conflict with.

Thanks

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I did!

After reading it I posted my question to Third Party Integrations on the basis that this may be a more relevant category than the Configuration category.

Good luck.

Hint: But I do not sense you are understanding the replies. Try reading sections 8,9,12 also.

Hint: Check your r-a configuration.

Hint: Setup, logs, config files, networking, running in docker? docker config files.

etc.etc.

So much missing.

Super unhelpful responses!

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