PSA: Alexa Media Player v4.13.3 breaks all versions of Home Assistant

[petro]

Alexa Media Player v4.13.3 puts home assistant into a boot loop due to a memory leak.

EDIT:

Alexa Media Player pulled v4.13.3, Home Assistant will no longer block any version of Alexa Media Player. This decision may be revisited if instability with the integration continues in the future. More details here.

Home Assistant v2024.10.1 will block this version of Alexa Media player. Also keep in mind, 2024.10.1 will block all versions of Alexa media player below version 4.13.3. Any version released by Alexa Media Player that is greater than 4.13.3 will not be blocked assuming they fix the issue.

For all other users on older versions of HA, do not update to version 4.13.3 of Alexa Media Player.

For more details see this.

Also, if you’re wondering how we got into this situation, please check out the following thread

Alexa Media Player - Custom Integration - On Life Support - Help wanted

It has come to my attention that the custom integration Alexa Media Player no longer has an active developer fixing issues. The custom integration appears to be on life-support. Fixes will not occur without community member intervention. Please head over to Alexa Media Player and start assisting with issues if you can replicate them. It appears that the the current owner of the repository is only reviewing PRs and is not actively developing any more features or fixing issues. Lastly, do not…

[diedrichg (Diedrich)]

This one is a nasty one. What’s up with these developers lately? The updates have been SUPER buggy.!

[talormanda]

thanks - updated this morning and was met with this because of that integration

[tbonafide]

Agree… seems like the last 3 of 5 updates have been buggy and this one takes down the whole system with a memory leak.

[petro]

Please take a look at the other thread I linked. You’ll notice that there is no developer. It’s just random people trying to make it work.

[Vlad (Vladislav)]

Downgrade Alexa Media Player to v4.13.2. HA will work fine.

• Core 2024.10.0
• Supervisor 2024.09.1
• Operating System 13.1
• Frontend 20241002.2

[CancunManny]

@petro

Home Assistant v2024.10.1 will block this version of Alexa Media player . Also keep in mind, 2024.10.1 will block all versions of Alexa media player below version 4.13.3. Any version released by Alexa Media Player that is greater than 4.13.3 will not be blocked assuming they fix the issue.

If I am understanding correctly, if I want to keep the current working version of Alexa Media Player v4.13.2 I shouldn’t upgrade to Core 10.1 since all versiosn under 4.13.3 will be blocked?

[jamespo (J.P)]

How could someone downgrade / remove / disable this version on HAOS?

Not an issue for me fortunately as I’m running it in proxmox and took a backup (now restored).

EDIT: would removing alexa_media dir from ~/config/custom_components be sufficient or cause other issues?

[petro]

Correct. 2024.10.0 or lower and 4.13.2.

[CancunManny]

I also used a backup to fix my issue, and in fact used my backup to trouble shoot. I was the first one to report the issue on the AMP github page Version v4.13.3 is making HA fail · Issue #2579 · alandtse/alexa_media_player · GitHub To re install the previous AMP version without having to restore the full back up you can use the HACS ingegration as shown bellow

You might not have enough time to do it before your system shuts down. What you could do is right after your system boots up, go to “devices and settings” select the Alexa Media Player integration, click the 3 dots, and select disable.

Once disabled I would reboot again, and at that point your HA should be stable, and you should be able to re install the previous version of AMP

[arganto]

@petro

Also keep in mind, 2024.10.1 will block all versions of Alexa media player below version 4.13.3

If going back to 4.13.2 is solving the issue from 4.13.3, why will 4.13.2 and lower be blocked?

[poudenes]

If you revert back to 4.13.2 everything is working again… No need to block!!

[petro]

@arganto

why will 4.13.2 and lower be blocked?

That’s just how the blocking mechanism in HA works.

[sweh (Stephen Harris)]

FWIW, if you just use this integration for announcements (or anything that could be triggered from a routine) and if you’re not afraid of self-hosting a skill then GitHub - sweharris/Alexa-Smart-Home-VirtualButtons: This lets you trigger Alexa routines using a HTTP API to press a "virtual button". Can be used, eg, in Home Assistant to get announcements ("Garage Door is Open", "Washing machine has finished") or anything else Alexa can do in a routine! might be an option. It’s a lot of work to set up but it works and uses official APIs.

But if you use AMP for more than that (eg to control/manage devices) then this will not meet your needs.

[jkeslar]

In the mean time, I just took the approach of disabling the AMP integration. That seems to have stopped the constant restarts…

[vaderag]

So this is installed pending restart for me
Is there any way to roll back at this point?

My ha restarts itself overnight so would like to fix this before I go to bed

Edit:
Okay, I’ve disabled AMP and I’ve found the redownload button and redownload the old version
It now says I have two pending restarts for AMP

Am I safe to reboot?

[vaderag]

How do you revert?