Starting a websocket connection in async_setup_entry via hass.async_create_task causes long startup

[Nir]

Hi,

I am working on a new light integration that gets push updates via websocket. The way I have implemented this is by starting the websocket connection in async_setup_entry in light.py, creating it as a task on the event loop via the hass.async_create_task. This works well with regards to light functionality. The issue I am facing though is that it makes the HA starting time very long with HA saying “Wrapping up startup, not everything will be available until it is finished.” for 3-5 minutes. I assume it is waiting for this task and eventually gives up. Start up time is fast when I don’t call the websocket. HA doesn’t give any warnings about the integration loading time (i.e. saying it takes more than 10 seconds, etc.).

Is there a better way to start the websocket function without causing such a long starting time?

Thanks.

[msp1974 (Mark P)]

Post a link to your code to help people help you better.

I suspect async_create_task is awated and therefore blocking async_setup_entry returning until some timeout. It is often better to use call later with a small delay to stop this hapening.

[Nir]

Thank you Mark. I prefer not to share my code currently - I am not a programmer and my code is incredibly messy and goes against all rules and regulations (the shame!) (but it works).

I think you are right and I am happy to call it later but I don’t know how or from where. Any suggestions?

All I have in light.py are async_setup_entry, class MyCoordinator(DataUpdateCoordinator) and the entity class. So I am not sure how I call it once async_setup_entry is finished.

[Nir]

It is similar issue to this one:

Hass.async_create_task

I have created a custom component that reads the location from a gps device (it’s similar to the gaps integration but without the dependency on package gpsd). In async_setup I create a task with hass.async_create_task that periodically reads from the gps and updates state variables with the current location. This work - EXCEPT homeassistant.bootstrap takes forever to start and eventually times out. How can I start the task without interfering with homeassistant.bootstrap? For completeness, h…

However, in my case the connection needs to stay open all the time to wait messages so Mark’s solution in that other case won’t work.

The relevant parts of my code are:

async def async_setup_entry(
    hass: HomeAssistant,
    # config: ConfigType,
    config_entry: config_entries.ConfigEntry,
    async_add_entities: AddEntitiesCallback,
    discovery_info: DiscoveryInfoType | None = None,
) -> None:

    ...

    hass.async_create_task(
        pixie_websocket_connect(
        applicationid,
        installationid,
        javascriptkey,
        devices_list[0]["sessiontoken"],
        devices_list[0]["userid"],
        devices_list[0]["homeid"],
        devices_list[0]["livegroup_objectid"],
        coordinator,
        hass,
        )
   )

async def pixie_websocket_connect(
    ApplicationId,
    InstallationID,
    JavaScriptKey,
    SessionToken,
    UserID,
    HomeID,
    LiveGroup_bjectID,
    coordinator,
    hass,
):

     ...

    while True:
            try:
                ws_update = await websocket.recv()
            except websockets.ConnectionClosed:
                _LOGGER.warning("websocket disconnected, reconnecting")
                break

            ws_update = json.loads(ws_update)
            # print(json.dumps(ws_update, indent=4))
            # _LOGGER.info(ws_update)
            if "op" in ws_update:
                if ws_update["op"] == "update":
                    if "deviceList" in ws_update["object"]:
                        devices_list = pixiepluslogin.parse_ws_data(
                            ws_update,
                            ApplicationId,
                            InstallationID,
                            JavaScriptKey,
                            SessionToken,
                            UserID,
                            HomeID,
                            LiveGroup_bjectID,
                        )
                        coordinator.async_set_updated_data(devices_list)

[Nir]

Using asyncio.create_task instead of hass.async_create_task seems to work, based on:

Creating persistent async tasks

I’m developing an integration where the api uses asyncio and requires an event loop in the form of a Coroutine to be called. I had attempted to use hass.async_create_task to generate a task and run the event loop however because the task doesn’t complete until the api is shutdown the startup of home assistant gets stalled in async_block_til_done. The work-around is to create the task outside of home assistant’s APIs (e.g. using asyncio.create_task) however this doesn’t seem like a good solution. …

[msp1974 (Mark P)]

You can add a listener to wait for home assistant to have started and use this to call your routine to start you websocket. The developer docs has a great example of how to do this here.

Using Events | Home Assistant Developer Docs

However, instead use homeassistant_start as the event to listen to.

[Nir]

Thank you, will give it a try.