l have many cameras set up in HA but after l bring the app into view from the background the camera images do not show/refresh. I cannot find a way to refresh the app and end up closing and reopening it.
Is there a refresh facility in the app?
Thanks,
Matt
Yeah, I miss that feature too, maybe it comes in next updates
It was discussed somewhere else that they won’t add the refresh feature as it should work without. And the part that is preventing this to work should be identified and fixed instead.
That was a while ago. Not sure what are the current plans.
I really wish they would reconsider some sort of refresh option… I have the exact same issue as the OP.
It seems that if the app is left on a page displaying one or more cameras, after some time (likely when the access tokens expire/change), re-entering the app will show a grey box (broken link picture?) and the cameras will not be view-able until the page is refreshed, which is very easy to do in Chrome but impossible in the official app.
The issue happens with both my mjpeg camera streams (from Blue Iris) as well as my ESP32 camera stream (from ESPHome).
Indeed, I have the same with my cameras… I need to refresh sometimes…
Now indeed, I need to close the app
The frontend should load and be available in 1 second, if you guys are not seeing that then you should consider creating a frontend issue.
Here is the discussion that was done on this issue: https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant-android/issues/31
Indeed, maybe not related to this app, I had it also when I was using the home shortcut
I recently installed the companion app on my Android tablet wall panel (trying to move way from the WallPanel app). After an HA server reboot should the app auto refresh at some point? It’s been stuck on “Connection lost. Reconnecting…” for about 30 minutes despite other devices having reconnected. This is a scenario when I use the refresh option in the iOS version and in the Android WallPanel app.
What is the recommended way to refresh the Android companion app in this case.
+1
Every time i restart Homeassistant my tablet cannot reconnect again i need to restart de app
i noticed an setting in the profile setting page “automaticly close connection” , thats default enabled
maybe it helps disabling that one?
I have somewhat of a similar issue, but not with cameras.
I’ve updated the pictures in an entity card. In chrome, after a hard refresh the correct images show up, but in the HA app on android i still have the old pictures which i can’t seem to be able to refresh…
[edit]
Workaround for this is to go into the Android Settings, choose “Apps”, followed by “Manage Apps”.
There look for the Home Assistant app, select it and scroll down all the way to the bottom to choose clear data. My phone asked me to clear all data or cache only. Choosing cache fixed the issue after restarting the HA app…
I am using an old Galaxy Tab 3 Lite that I flashed with a 7.1 ROM in order to use the app. What I notice is that the app stops updating after some time. Specifically the temperature sensor displays the same value and a flat graph. I have a persistent connection enabled as well as disabled the auto-close connection in the settings. Yet it still gets stuck. I tried to set an automatic refresh using browser mod, but for some reason it seams that there’s no connection. So I have to close the app and re-open at which point it refreshes the dashboard. The tablet still has a WiFi connection as I’m able to send messages to it using other apps. I figured maybe it would work as a browser and respond to F5 key as a refresh, but no such luck. Has there been any update on the refresh functionality?
make sure that android system webview is up to date and also Googles version set as the default webview, also grant background access and any other power saving things samsung may have added
The tablet was set to AOSP WebView. I installed Googles WebView and tested both Chrome Stable and Google. Both of them had similar results, but when using the Google I kept getting a message that Home Assistant has stopped responding. I think it may be the tablet itself as it’s an old POS and getting LinageOS 7.1 installed on it helped it a bit at first and enabled me to actually run the HA app, but now it’s back to being a potato. The unfortunate thing is that there’s no way to refresh the app. Even using Tasker to simulate F5 to refresh does nothing. I restart the tablet every night, but often times even when the tablet screen turns on when I wake up it’s already stuck.
+2
If it worked without, or if it does for some or most, then those people could just not use that feature? But clearly it does need it, especially for cameras and sometimes with lots of or complex charts.
For anyone looking for a workaround, Fully Kiosk lets you (optionally) reload the page on pull down. IIRC wallpanel did too.
the reason why the official app will not add this is because the issues described in here are things that the HA frontend needs to fix instead of the app providing a workaround. So if you experience an issue that requires an actual refresh then you need to file a HA frontend bug and get it resolved there instead of depending on workarounds. If its a custom card having the issue then obviously you need to take it up with that author instead of HA.
Does anyone with live camera feeds NOT need this button? Its not even necessarily HA’s fault, it could be the underlying webview, ffmpeg or even the cameras, as I bet anyone using rtsp wifi cameras has encountered frozen streams with any just about any app, certainly web apps. I just tried a few dozen windows apps to live stream my cameras and Im yet to find one that never needs a refresh. Even VLC will drop the feed. Maybe Blue iris when I still used it.
I understand your logic, but its not realistic. Does your computer have a reset button? It shouldnt need it either, but it probably does have one, even if you only need it once per year. I need a refresh button in HA every frigging day, and opening the 10 thousandth ticket on streaming delays or freezes isnt going to magically solve it.
Android has its own built in features for this. For example long pressing the power button will reboot the device. Likewise universally for apps you can force stop and even clear data.
I already linked to the issue previously in this thread that goes into more detail on the reasoning.
Every android browser has a reload button or pull-down to reload.
Now there is a solution!
I have companion app opened on a tablet that is always on. When I exit screensaver back to the app it sometimes is stuck disconnected from HA instance.
Switching any elements doesn’t provide any result. It doesn’t refresh and don’t show “reload UI” prompt. The only solution is to close and open the app again. But by then you’re already spent a minute trying to switch the lights on and wondering why isn’t it working. Then you try to pull down to refresh, as you do in any web app on android and it doesn’t work either. Finally you come to this forum to search for some help and are only greeted with high-handed answer that it’s not a bug, but a feature.
You suggest everyone to file a bug for frontend, but how is it a frontend bug, if it only happens in companion app?