Service call does not work from developer tools

Configuration
1

The automation script below works fine to turn the light on when my garage door opens. But if I use developer tools->services to call the the same service light.turn_on with an entity_id of light.garage_light nothing happens. Same problem when I call the service from appdaemon. Am I doing something wrong?

- alias: garage_light_on_when_door_open
   id: garage_light_on_with_door_open
   trigger:
     platform: state
     entity_id: sensor.garage_door
     to: 
       - 'opening'
       - 'open'
   action:
     - service: light.turn_on
       entity_id: light.garage_light
2

Are you using yaml mode or UI mode in the services tab?

3

I don’t see any option to specify mode on that screen

Screenshot 2021-07-14 at 16.32.00
Screenshot 2021-07-14 at 16.32.001354Ă—912 47.8 KB

4

Which version of HA are you on?

2 Likes
5

don’t include the entity_id in the service data.

6

Screenshot 2021-07-14 at 16.40.26
Screenshot 2021-07-14 at 16.40.261178Ă—1592 122 KB

7

That version is 6 months old now, you’re going to need to specify it when starting support threads. Either way, if what I said above doesn’t work, you’ll need to post your logs

8

The entity_id in the service data gets populated automatically when I select the entity.
There are no log entries generated when I call the service.

9

Then home assistant thinks it’s working. What kind of light is this?

10

It’s MQTT. As I mentioned in my initial post, the same service call works from an automation script.

- platform: mqtt
  name: "Garage Light"
  command_topic: "shellies/shelly1-553B35/relay/0/command"
  state_topic: "shellies/shelly1-553B35/relay/0"
  payload_on: "on"
  payload_off: "off"
  optimistic: false
11

I could have sworn that the “entity_id:” needed to be there. Even now the example on the services tab show it in there.

Unless I’m misunderstanding what you mean.

12

I don’t remember, it was 6 months ago (Or however long ago). I was taking a stab in the dark.

13

actually to add…

I think in those older versions everything needed to go under “data:”

like this:

data:
  entity_id: light.garage_light
14

I couldn’t remember if it was passed outside the service data or not when the dropdown was present. There’s 3 ways to call a service now:

really old way

service: xyz
entity_id: blah

old way

service: xyz
data:
  entity_id: blah

and new way

service: xyz
target:
  entity_id: blah

all 3 still work, his version should only have the old ways working. Although there were a few versions where the new way worked but wasn’t advertised.

3 Likes
15

Thanks for this. It’s been quite confusing to me which form is to be used…

16

I’ve just upgraded to 2021.7.2 and tried the same thing again in both UI and YAML mode. Still nothing and no logs

17

Not sure what to tell you. The issue lies with your mqtt setup then. Unless your logs are filtered. Only you know that.

18

If it was a problem with the MQTT setup, the automation would not work either. I’ll keep digging, in the meantime thanks for trying to help.

19

That is true, which is why it doesn’t make sense that there’s no errors in your logs. When a service call fails, errors will appear. You haven’t posted any logs, so I have to take your word on it. 9 times out of 10 the user is omitting information or looking in the wrong spot. I wasn’t responding to you because I don’t know what you’re doing that’s different than everyone else.

20

I hear you. I’ve done my fair share of tech support. I’ve attached a log extract having tried to call the service at 19:50. The zigbee errors are to due to a separate harware issue. To be fair there is not much latitude for getting it wrong when you are selecting both the service and the entity from drop-down lists in UI mode.

Screenshot 2021-07-14 at 19.53.12
Screenshot 2021-07-14 at 19.53.122826Ă—654 242 KB