Ring Cameras Behaviour is Inconsistent

Configuration Frontend
1

Hi

I am building a new house and most of the intelligent products are there while I am still living in a rental home where the HA server is situated together with other intelligent devices (Sonos). I am using dynamic DNS between the two properties to enable full two way communication and it all works.

I have various Legrand items from lights to sockets and roller shutters. I also have Ring items (alarm and cameras) at the new house and Sonos at the rental property. Home Assistant lets me see everything from both properties and control them.

However, I appear to have some inconsistencies between my mobile (iPhone) app and my Mac OS desktop app when it comes to the Ring cameras.

When I open the same view on both items, the iPhone shows me live views from each of the 6 cameras (one in the doorbell). However, the equivalent view on the desktop of the Mac only shows blank entries.

Here is the phone:

IMG_A81A4307494B-1
IMG_A81A4307494B-11125×2436 282 KB

and here is the Mac:

Screenshot 2025-02-12 at 11.32.24
Screenshot 2025-02-12 at 11.32.241920×1426 218 KB

It is the same view running off the same server (HAOS running in UTM virtual desktop on the Mac at the rental property) so I do not want to fiddle with the settings and lose the phone images. Also, I suspect it is a software issue in the HA app on the Mac that is the cause of the issue.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Can anyone suggest a solution?

Are there any logs I should post?

Cheers,

Geoff

2

Hmmm.

43 views and no offers of help?

No one else experiencing this?

Geoff

3

I did more research and found suggestions to install Ring-mqtt which I have now done followed by rebooting the server (running on a virtual machine on my Mac).

Do I need to open any additional ports for this to work?

Still getting the same result with no live view or preview image on the Mac.

G

4

From the MQTT log:

2025-02-17T09:29:11.920Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] Requesting an updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:29:12.204Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] Successfully retrieved updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:29:12.204Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/5c475ee7558f/snapshot/image <binary_image_data>
2025-02-17T09:29:12.205Z ring-attr [6 Indoor] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/5c475ee7558f/snapshot/attributes {"timestamp":1739784552,"type":"interval"}
2025-02-17T09:29:12.415Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] Successfully retrieved updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:29:12.415Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/90486cf22804/snapshot/image <binary_image_data>
2025-02-17T09:29:12.416Z ring-attr [1 Front Gate] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/90486cf22804/snapshot/attributes {"timestamp":1739784552,"type":"interval"}
2025-02-17T09:29:41.926Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] Requesting an updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:29:41.928Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] Requesting an updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:29:42.306Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] Successfully retrieved updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:29:42.306Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/5c475ee7558f/snapshot/image <binary_image_data>
2025-02-17T09:29:42.307Z ring-attr [6 Indoor] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/5c475ee7558f/snapshot/attributes {"timestamp":1739784582,"type":"interval"}
2025-02-17T09:29:42.646Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] Successfully retrieved updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:29:42.646Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/90486cf22804/snapshot/image <binary_image_data>
2025-02-17T09:29:42.646Z ring-attr [1 Front Gate] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/90486cf22804/snapshot/attributes {"timestamp":1739784583,"type":"interval"}
2025-02-17T09:30:11.933Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] Requesting an updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:30:11.935Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] Requesting an updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:30:12.212Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] Successfully retrieved updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:30:12.212Z ring-mqtt [6 Indoor] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/5c475ee7558f/snapshot/image <binary_image_data>
2025-02-17T09:30:12.213Z ring-attr [6 Indoor] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/5c475ee7558f/snapshot/attributes {"timestamp":1739784612,"type":"interval"}
2025-02-17T09:30:12.618Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] Successfully retrieved updated interval snapshot
2025-02-17T09:30:12.618Z ring-mqtt [1 Front Gate] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/90486cf22804/snapshot/image <binary_image_data>
2025-02-17T09:30:12.619Z ring-attr [1 Front Gate] ring/072175a0-6f6f-4991-9953-3a63938be863/camera/90486cf22804/snapshot/attributes {"timestamp":1739784613,"type":"interval"}

So the MQTT add-on is seeing at least two of my six cameras and downloading interval snapshots but they are not displaying on the dashboard view.

Any suggestions please?

5

Well I have read and read and researched and researched and still Cannot find a solution.

My cameras work in the home assistant iPhone app and also through a web browser login to my HA account but refuse to work in the OSX based version of the home assistant desktop app.

Can nobody help me here please?

6

Much as I now like using Home Assistant I am really disappointed that nobody on the forum has offered to help me resolve this problem.

It is incredibly frustrating to have the camera views available on my iPhone and through a web browser yet not be able to see them in the Home Assistant application.

It may be an incompatibility issue with Mac OS but I cannot find out why it is not working.

Is there no-one out there interested in helping me resolve this please?

7

Few people here will have Ring & a Mac and will be able to reproduce the problem in order to help you.

I don’t own either, so the below is my best guess.

Never heard of the Mac OS desktop app for HA before - most people just use a browser to access HA on a desktop.

Have you checked if you experience the same issue if you use Safari or Chrome on the same Mac?
Asking because I suspect it could be a h264/h265 video codec incompatibility in the desktop app, or it could simply be that the app requires permissions to be enabled to show video.

8

Thanks Shadowfist,

Apologies for the delayed response but I am pretty full on finishing my house.

I tried google chrome and it could not even see the internal address of the server.

# This site can’t be reached

http://192.168.1.200:8123/test-by-area/0 is unreachable.

ERR_ADDRESS_UNREACHABLE

I do not use chrome so have no idea what settings to change on it so have left it.

I will leave it for now as the web interface works even if the app dopes not and I now have the name of the app developer so will try to pursue it through his discord chat group.

Appreciate your response.

Geoff