Notify.send_message in 2024.6

apachelance · October 31, 2024, 9:48pm

Many thanks!

DDvO · December 21, 2024, 2:57pm

This change is in general not sufficient. I still got, e.g.,

2024-12-21 13:51:21.354 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.automation.automation_2] automation 4: Error executing script. Service not found for call_service at pos 4: Action notify.power_data not found
2024-12-21 13:51:21.780 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.helpers.service] Referenced entities notify.power_data are missing or not currently available

Looks like since 2024.6 it is not more possible to specify the file location in configuration.yaml, e.g., using

notify:
  - name: power_data
    platform: file
    filename: power.csv

Instead, seems one is forced to use the interactive browser-based setup Link to Integrations: add integration – My Home Assistant which is inflexible and - as usual with HA - very poorly documented.
For instance, trying this out, the entity name happened to be automatically set to silly generic name notify.file (rather than the name that I’d have wanted to keep: notify.power_data).

Rather than spending more and more hours with trial and error after such crappy badly documented incompatible changes, I downgraded to HA 2024.4

Biscuit · December 21, 2024, 4:03pm

Yes the change happened six months ago, so the deprecated but allowed configuration.yaml settings have finally been removed for good.

Just remember, the ‘team’ are striving to make Home Assistant open and easy to use for those of us without a double Masters Degree in Computer Science and Information Technology (not that, in this particular case, you would notice). You can complete the new customer satisfaction survey here…

Biscuit:

The new ‘file notification’ integration now supersedes any notify.yaml to file configuration.

The old yaml setup still works, but will generate a warning message saying it is obsolete.

The new ‘file integration’ works, but needs

the file-path directory added to the allowlist_external_dirs (for each directory used by all file writes)

the file integration added (once) and a new target entity added (for each individual file you want to write to) Set this up as a notification, with the full file path-name, and optionally ‘use timestamp’

then use the new ‘file notification’ entity in your automations as the target

File notification is now done using the service call ‘notify.send-message’, and
to a target (the entity created under file notification)
service: notify.send_message
target:
  entity_id: notify.file_battery_event
data:
  message: Battery Full (at least 1 hour)
The target entity created as a new entry under the file integration [notify.file_battery_event in my case] now holds the platform (file) and the file pathname in its definition

{and if this all makes sense to anyone, would you be so kind as to explain it back to me so I can understand it myself. Thanks}

It is certainly worth adding the file directory access permission first, and also going back and renaming each file-notification-entity, otherwise you have no idea from the name which is which.

DDvO · December 21, 2024, 4:52pm

Yes the change happened six months ago, so the deprecated but allowed configuration.yaml settings have finally been removed for good.

For good? IMO, for bad.

Just remember, the ‘team’ are striving to make Home Assistant open and easy to use for those of us without a double Masters Degree in Computer Science and Information Technology (not that, in this particular case, you would notice).

In my view this goes in the wrong direction.
Being forced to mix programming-style configurations and and browser-based halfway-intelligent settings creates a non-maintainable mess, in particular for serious users who, for instance, want to version-control their configuration/setup.

Ok if you aim at providing a click-flashy UI, but this should not hamper using the classical style.

[quote=“Biscuit, post:23, topic:737177”]

The old yaml setup still works, but will generate a warning message saying it is obsolete.

I never noticed such a warning message.
Instead, it took me quite some time to partially dig out why the notification entities were no more found after the version upgrade and how to hopefully fix this.

the file-path directory added to the allowlist_external_dirs (for each directory used by all file writes)

The documentation of allowlist_external_dirs - as usual for HA - is poor.
It confuses files and directories and does not mention that relative paths are based on the config directory. It would be good to also add a reminder to Docker users that the paths are local to the container.

the file integration added (once) and a new target entity added (for each individual file you want to write to)
[…]

All that original and helpful info you quoted here is missing from File - Home Assistant

and also going back and renaming each file-notification-entity, otherwise you have no idea from the name which is which.

I did not find how to rename the entities to something useful before deciding in frustration to give up on using the 2024.6+ update.
Instead, users should be enabled to provide the names of their choice right away.

DDvO · December 21, 2024, 5:14pm

The programming-style configuration is extremely awkward to use not because it should only be for users with double Masters Degree in Computer Science and Information Technology.
It is a nightmare even for me, having a PhD summa cum laude in the area programming language semantics and theorem proving.
It is so mainly for three reasons:

It is a poorly designed mix of YAML and Python with counter-intuitive bloated syntax and weird semantics, resulting in badly structured and hard-to-maintain code.
Its documentation is pretty incomplete and of little actual help.
Its diagnostics output and debugging facilities are insufficient and partly non-digestible and or even misleading.

This results in HA having by far the worst programming environment I encountered in my 40 years of IT experience.
It is simply a mess. I sincerely regret having based on it my non-trivial solar battery automation solution with efficient control,
wasting countless hours and days with trial and error on needlessly weird issues and searching for solutions in forums like this.

Biscuit · December 21, 2024, 5:31pm

‘for good’ as in ‘for ever’ - colloquial English

See my followup post I agree that this particular change is unnecessary, unhelpful, and undocumented.

You probably missed the clunky inbuilt and enforced auto-change from yaml to integration at the time - lucky you!

Yes, the HA forum is a backstop for lack of good documentation. This is never a good situation, but of course being open community the solution is to contribute yourself.

Again, a balance between

‘yes this upgrade could have been done heaps better’

and

‘we don’t pay for this stuff, it is the work of individuals in the community, you are part of the community, the solution is “fix it yourself”’

I spent a lot of time and effort six months ago posting to this thread to try and help those that follow. I share your frustration over this particular change, however this is not a commercial product.

Here is the link to how to contribute. Since you have 40 years of IT experience you out-trump my 20 years of out-dated experience.

My solar automation solution has taken three years so far, and is ongoing, but I keep most of my work in Node-RED with one foot in the HA camp and one foot in Node-RED on a Raspberry Pi 5.

I was being sarcastic. Another horrible English habit. With the constant mess created by updates, HA will never ever go beyond the current niche market of experienced tinkerers.

DDvO · December 22, 2024, 8:41am

‘for good’ as in ‘for ever’ - colloquial English

I know (even not being a native speaker) - I was playing with words.

See my followup post I agree that this particular change is unnecessary, unhelpful, and undocumented.

I just read your post and very much agree, so gave it a heart.

Yes, the HA forum is a backstop for lack of good documentation. This is never a good situation, but of course being open community the solution is to contribute yourself.

Yes, unfortunately. It is very inefficient when users try to figure out in aftermath what failed why and how to fix all those issues and partly getting things wrong or at least incomplete because they do not have sufficient insight.
It is mandatory for every serious development that those who do the features and changes also document them right away in sufficient detail.

I spent a lot of time and effort six months ago posting to this thread to try and help those that follow.

Thank you very much, also in the name of all other users struggling with those issues!

I share your frustration over this particular change, however this is not a commercial product.

Being commercial or not, any serious product/project must be well-designed and well-documented.
Otherwise people, both contributors and users, will turn away from it and do better elsewhere.

Here is the link to how to contribute.

Thank you, but I had already tried contributing early this year, raising issues and discussing them and replying to posts - with nearly no tangible success.

My patience with HA and the time and energy I am able and willing to spend on my HA project is coming to an end. I will just brush up, publish and document(!) what I have so far in the hope that it will also be of help to others. My SolBatHome project site so far contains just part of that, namely the reporting aspect (which uses the now broken file integration) and basic battery charge and discharge control automations.

I was being sarcastic. Another horrible English habit. With the constant mess created by updates, HA will never ever go beyond the current niche market of experienced tinkerers.

Ah, I did not get this (but was assuming you were trying to support their wrong way).
I also do not see good future in Home Assistant, both for my own use and in general,
with even seasoned users having overly hard times with it.

The more experience one has with IT development, the more you see when things go wrong and should be done much better right from the beginning when the major conceptual decisions are taken.

tom78 · February 23, 2025, 2:35am

Hi,
I use an automation every day at 0:00 that writes only 4 values into a csv file as described above. All is fine. I write the file to /www/ directory, so I can download it via a button :url action. The problem is, even if the file has been written sucsessfully (I can see the values in HA file editor), when I download the file with the button :url action, the values are out of date and the last line often is not present. If I download the file via file editor, all is fine.
What can be the problen here ?
I use URL action
and
http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8123/local/exportcsv/output.csv

CaptTom · February 23, 2025, 11:57am

Browser cache?

Sorry, that’s my best guess, since I’ve never tried to open files that way.

tom78 · February 23, 2025, 12:19pm

Hi,
this i possible. is there any way to work around this ?

parautenbach · February 23, 2025, 1:01pm

I don’t think you can template that field, so try the custom button card instead and add something to the URL like the current time or a UUID.

Also, always show your config. Is your URL an external URL or relative location?

tom78 · February 23, 2025, 2:44pm

Good idea, thank you. It does the trick. The file is not cached now…

BruceCleghorn · March 4, 2025, 9:54am

Thanks for your help
This has been confusing me for days
All working now
THANKYOU