Saving an automation kills all timers

Configuration
1

Newbie here. Searched first but forgive me if my keywords weren’t right.

My install is a few days old, so I’m on core-2021.3.4 running on a Pi 4.

When I save any automation, all of my other automation’s toggle off and on for a split second:

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To be clear these toggles aren’t caused by a server restart, but simply saving a single automation.

On the surface this is OK, except that many of the automation’s can be running with an active timer to shut off lights x minutes of motion stoppage. This means saving a single automation results in lights that don’t get shut off.

I’m migrating over from a semi-complex ST instance so there will be a lot of tinkering and automation saving in my future…I’d like to minimize driving my wife crazy if possible.

Any thoughts on mitigation strategies?

I first thought to asynchronously call a script upon motion stoppage so that the timer is run separately and not impacted by “the toggle”, but there doesn’t appear to be a good way to manage unique instances of said script to avoid collisions from different motion sensors.

Any other strategies to help keep automation timers running when doing a bunch of “saves”?

2

Use timers rather than setting times in automations.
Or I use automoli for automated motion controlled lighting.

3

Thanks! looks like I would have to create a timer for every motion sensor that would turn off a light, which is about 30 for me. I’ll look into automoli as well.

4

For an explanation saving an automation (via gui) causes a reload, it can’t reload just one automation so ALL automations need to be cleared and then reloaded.
This is also true in you reload via server controls.
All of my ‘timers’ are run from delays - ether in scripts or in automations - I’ve not had a problem with this.
My delays (generally) are short and germain to the automation involved.
I do have some lights that are to switch off after 5 hours but all such are run from scripts so not affected by an automation reload.

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5

But it’s possible to get rid of all those automations and use the timers and just one or two automations

6

Thanks. Curious to know how that architecture works, I have many zones of lights kicked off by zones of sensors in groups, so I can’t envision how to boil them down to one or two automations.