Need help scraping a specific line of text from a website. The end goal is a scrape sensor that picks up this text so I can use it as a surf report (ocean conditions).
What would be the right “select” for this info?
URL: Salt Creek Surf Report & 15-day Forecast | South Orange County Surf Conditions
I can’t wait for some help! Thanks!
This might be a good start:
#RenderBodyContainer > div.row:nth-child(1) > div > div > div:nth-child(3) > div.panel > div.panel-body > span
Thanks for taking the time to help!
Buuuuuut… That didn’t work… haha
Here is my configuration:
# Surf Report
sensor:
- platform: scrape
resource: https://deepswell.com/surf-report/US/South-Orange-County/Salt-Creek/1026
name: Surf Data 2
select: "#RenderBodyContainer > div.row:nth-child(1) > div > div > div:nth-child(3) > div.panel > div.panel-body > span"
And I’m getting: “Entity not available: sensor.surf_data_2”
Any other suggestions?
Are there any error messages in your log?
No, I don’ see any 
If you are trying to configure an entity, but it isn’t added to the system, there is usually an error message in the logs.
Did you try restarting Home Assistant?
It could quite possibly be that my selector is incorrect. I only tested it in Firefox’s developer tools, I did not add a scrape sensor myself. However, if that’s the problem, there should definitely be an error message.
Ah! Dummy me… I found the error message… Does this mean that the output is too long for HA and the scrape sensor?
Logger: homeassistant.components.sensor
Source: core.py:1047
Integration: Sensor (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 1:22:59 PM (2 occurrences)
Last logged: 1:22:59 PM
Traceback (most recent call last): File “/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity_platform.py”, line 382, in async_add_entities await asyncio.gather(*tasks) File “/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity_platform.py”, line 614, in _async_add_entity await entity.add_to_platform_finish() File “/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py”, line 799, in add_to_platform_finish self.async_write_ha_state() File “/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py”, line 532, in async_write_ha_state self._async_write_ha_state() File “/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py”, line 679, in _async_write_ha_state self.hass.states.async_set( File “/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/core.py”, line 1361, in async_set state = State( File “/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/core.py”, line 1047, in init raise InvalidStateError( homeassistant.exceptions.InvalidStateError: Invalid state encountered for entity ID: sensor.surfdata. State max length is 255 characters.
Yes, that’s the problem.
States in Home Assistant cannot be longer than 255 characters. Attributes do not have this limitation, but I don’t see an easy way to provide the scrape sensor’s value as an attribute. Maybe the service you are scraping has an API? It is much easier to do this using a RESTful sensor.
Yeah… lack of an API is what started me down this path! Haha… Maybe I’ll just try to scrape a different part of the page with less text and the info I want.
Did you have a way your pulled that selector? Clearly my HTML/CSS skills are pretty sad! haha
I really appreciate your help though! And if I get it figured out I’ll let you know
When the text string is short enough this works great! Thanks for the help @ondras12345 I owe you one!
Try adding this to your sensor, it will trim off anything longer than 254 characters.
value_template: '{{ value[:254] }}'
How is your surf reporting going?
I’m looking around to see what is available and what has been done…
Ahhh nice.
Surfforecast.com was one of the sources I had shortlisted since it looked pretty free and scrapeable (in the absence of free APIs).
I’m also familiar with multiscrape.
So looks like you’ve done the hard work.
I’ll put this on my to-do list. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
