Installation Trouble using Image to Raspberry Pi 3B+

I have been trying to install HA using the official image through the getting-started links. I have burned the image to the SD card using both balenaEtcher and Raspberry Pi imager.

On the Pi I have monitor connected to HDMI output and keyboard, with network cable to router and 5V power from 2.4A power supply (iPad charger).

But despite my efforts to install, nothing happens (nothing is even outputted to monitor, I believe HA logo or something should be shown during the installation on the monitor).

I have 32GB Transcend SD Card (which seems to work ok).
Now if I use Raspberry imager to install the Raspian or Raspian Lite - the installation (SD card) works ok (and monitor outputs the data and I can use keyboard to log in) → which would indicate that hardware is OK.

I have then installed the HA manually on the top of the Raspian, and the installation completes OK, and I can access the HA home page, and managed to install e.g. Samsung SmartTV interface.

But then I wanted to install Mosquitto MQTT broker following instructions from the below video

Now my problems started as my installation does not have the default folders as official Haspian is not installed. When I also came to start stop the HA server through SSH/local console, it asks password (and the default password does not work), and the folder structure is not the same. Hence my installation does not find the commandline commands such as ‘ha core start’.

My questions are as follows:-

  1. Any ideas why the official image would not install (tried also both 32-bit and 64-bit, downloaded multiple times to check that the image is not corrupted) ?
  2. Should official Haspian image output something through HDMI to the monitor?
  3. If the image install does not work, what is the recommended way to install the Home Assistant?
  4. What is recommended way to add Mosquitto Broker (links from instructions take to GitHub without further advice how to install it).
  5. Can Mosquitto MQTT broker run on the same Raspberry Pi as HAS ?

Thank you very much for your help and time.

If you used the official install as you describe you should access HA with a browser on another machine on the same network, using the address http://homeassistant.local:8123. It won’t function as a normal pi.

I did not have any problems accessing HA via browser using :8123 after using manual install.

The official Haspian image does not seem to work for me, and it does not output anything on the HDMI channel.

I wonder if there is alternative (older) image of the official Haspian image that I could try?

Any suggestions how to run Mosquitto on the same raspberry?

That’s the thing. I don’t think it’s supposed to output anything to the HDMI channel.

Just can’t get the official image (hassOS) to install on Raspberry Pi. I have now tired two different images
hassos_rpi3-4.8.img.gz
hassos_rpi3-3.13.img.gz

I think the issue is that the Raspberry Pi does not connect to network when running the image. Both lights on the Ethernet socket remain OFF, indicating that the software on the image somehow does activate Ethernet physical layer.

When I image the SD card with Raspian Lite, the installation works straightaway, so I can’t think it is hardware. Probably have to go back to install Raspian Lite and install Home Assistant using the Manual instructions (have basic Linux experience).

Or would it make sense to try Docker with Raspberry pi? (have never used docker but maybe option)

BTW, the official install page should tell that there is no output to the HDMI from Raspberry when running image not to confuse novices. Also it would be nice if it explains that image installs hassOS that is ‘custom version of Linux with Home Assistant Python code’ if I have understood correctly…

Unfortunately never got it working… so going in hard way installing Raspian OS Lite and installing Home Assitant via venv - always get it working but managing all extensions is a bit more challenge to learn.