Maybe it’s enough to touch the core of the system? You want to make new features - ok, everyone is welcome, but the old and tried engines die along the way, for example today after an update the screenshots mechanism with go/rtc dies, and were is a lot of such examples !
You are like Microsoft - every update only does worse!
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Don’t update then. It won’t stop working if you don’t update.
Or as an alternative read the release notes, you will then know the breaking changes.
The rest of us who choose to update and have no issues, like the progress and changes. And
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Maybe, the best way is do not kill popular and useful features?!
Snapshots are working fine for me, fully up to date on all fonts. Did you have a specific issue that you need help figuring out, or just the need to vent?
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Unless something has changed, I do not believe this is possible.
There was a thread about this some time ago where it was discovered that some dns servers were hard coded and a bunch of other stuff came out as a result of that.
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Ah grasshopper, not everything is change - a lot of it is bug repairs.
Expecting stability on the world of home automation is like collecting unicorn droppings - ain’t happening.
Learn to expect it, go with the flow, otherwise hire a maid/butler to push all the buttons for you.
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That’s something of a condescending attitude. Not everyone WANTS to spend all their time fixing, tinkering and adjusting…some just…want…stability. And things that worked to continue working.
We all understand that bugs crawl in. Merde happens. But it shouldn’t be induced by core-to-the-system updates.
As much as I enjoy HA, the whole Z-Wave JS / Z-Wave JS-UI nonsense was just that…nonsense, IMO. Instead of screwing with the systems and using the same name…either FIX Z-Wave so it can run more than one hub…or … something. I’m not a programmer and I can’t afford a maid. And I don’t want to spend all my time fixing HA so it works.
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Rule No 1: Read the release notes!
Rule No 2: If in doubt - don’t update!
Rule No 3: If you update - make a back up first!
And if this isn’t your first negative experience with an update then simply stay one update behind the latest to check if someone else is reporting issues that might hit you too?
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Rule #4. Wait. Let somebody else find the bugs and report them.
Cutting edge, not bleeding edge.
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Rule No 5: To help insure that core updates don’t break your shit make a backup, join beta (this is key), and if your shit breaks file an issue in the appropriate place so that it can be addressed before the release… then restore your backup.
Rule No 6: If you have an issue (your shit breaks) figure out what broke and file an issue with the appropriate integration/app (formerly known as add-on).
In so far as I understand HA, core is the system.
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Rule No.6 just pay for an off the shelf system, that way it will (probably) just work.
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Well, I use Philips Hue (integrated in HA) and it does just work, yes. I don’t even know when it updates itself.
Personally I find it worrying that the gap is increasing between all of the efforts to bring in new users, to make setup and basic usage of HA easier, and the fact that keeping the system stable requires some technical mindset (and simply time).
Just recently I’ve had a friend asking about HA (or rather I was again telling about various nice little things I was able to have thanks to HA), and honestly, that person is not technical, and I’m not sure I’m doing them a favour explaining how to setup HA. I can imagine in a year they will either not update at all, or run into something in an update that will break things and they’ll spend hours with an AI trying to fix it.
While it’s inevitable that bugs will happen and that some things simply must change, I have an impressions that the scope of changes is often underappreciated by HA devs (or rather, by people steering this whole ship). It seems breaking changes happen regularly and are not even really discouraged. While they should be the last option, if everything else is really not feasible.
Having said that, my overall experience with HA updates is not that bad. I learned not to use custom themes and to only use custom dashboard cards sparingly, when necessary. Those things break the most easily with updates. I have also with time removed some integrations from HA, because using them was subpar to whatever I originally use to control the devices.
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But honestly the best things about any open source software is the draw of messing about and solving issues. It really is never going to be a consumer product whatever it is. The bigger the project the more often there will be changes. HA being one of the biggest if not the biggest and most versatile open source project there will always be many changes. If you are not one for tinkering open source will almost certainly be a step too far, no matter what it is.
I would not recommend any open source software to a non technical person, even to many who claim to be technical. This is why commercial software exists. If you get frustrated when something does not work then its not going to be for you.
And to be fair I have had very few issues in the 7 years I have been using HA, there have been issues i was expecting as I read the docs and knew it would happen. A couple of issues over the years I didn’t expect were easily fixed by restoring the backup.
Well, alright, that’s your thinking. But I don’t think that’s how people driving HA look at it. There’s a lot of effort (and money) poured into making it easier for new, non-technical people. Automated dashboards, moving things to UI etc.
And yes, I agree, it’s not like every update break things - but this is the only software my wife is using, where reading a changelog is recommended, if not obligatory. Speaking of that, it is one of my biggest worries around HA - what is going to happen when I’m not around and my non-technical family has to deal with HA themselves.
Their development process is quite chaotic. They’re always rushing out new releases.
I only update mine in the last week of each month, skipping the .0, .1, .2, and .3 releases.
I think they should have two branches:
a) Weekly releases (as they do now);
b) Annual releases, with only bug fixes in between.
But it’s not a popular opinion. People get defensive when you bring it up.
It is what it is, and we just have to accept it.
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Open source does not imply what you are saying. I know projects that are pro-grade, stable, maintained and developed for decades. And are still open source.
It’s not about whether the code is open or not. It’s about how the project is maintained, about chosen strategies, architecture and development culture.
Stop using “open source” term as an excuse for everything. it has very little or nothing with product quality or release cycle.
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This made me laugh, i understand your pain but its not gonna happen. For HA to grow theres allot of breaking changes needed
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Weird.
I can still open a .doc file from 1997 on a modern version of Word without issue, nearly 30 years later.
The issue is one of mindset. If that many breaking changes are needed, that means the initial implementation was poor. OK, fine, this happens.
But to think it’s acceptable, and to continue operating with a mindset of “oh, well, we’ll just go ahead and break this”… That is not acceptable.
Imagine if every website had to rewrite all their code every time Google decided to update chrome.
Preposterous.
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@exx How much did you pay for that Word licence back then until today? How does that compare to a community project like Home Assistant? See a difference?
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Nope, I sure don’t.
Open office is capable of doing the same thing.
See the folly of your argument?
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