Template sensors are unavailable or unknown state on HA restart problem

[petro]

Not sure what to tell you. The template is correct in regards to what has been shown from you. Did you try 123s?

[koying (Chris B)]

@enry86cami

availability_template: "{{ value.split(',')[1] | is_number }}"

If think it should be

availability_template: "{{ 'online' if (value.split(',')[1] | is_number) else 'offline' }}

Per the doc of “availability_template”

To determine the devices’s availability result of this template will be compared to payload_available and payload_not_available.

[123 (Taras)]

This.

I missed that important detail; the default values for reporting availability/unavailability aren’t true/false but online/offline.

@enry86cami

Use either the corrected template posted by koying:

      availability_template: "{{ 'online' if value.split(',')[1] | is_number else 'offline' }}"

or this one I suggested earlier:

      availability_template: "{{ 'online' if value.split(',')[1] | int(-1) > 0 or 'offline' }}"

The only difference between the two is that the second one will also reject negative values. So if a negative value is received it will make the sensor unavailable and the negative value will not be reported. If you want it to report any negative values received, use koying’s version.

[enry86cami (enrico)]

@123

availability_template: "{{ 'online' if value.split(',')[1] | int(-1) > 0 or 'offline' }}"

thanks to all for the support.
with this code:

    - platform: mqtt
      name: mqttenergy
      state_topic: home-assistant/sensor03/messaggio
      value_template: "{{ value.split(',')[1] }}"
      availability_topic: home-assistant/sensor03/messaggio
      availability_template: "{{ 'online' if value.split(',')[1] | int(-1) > 0 or 'offline' }}"
      device_class: energy
      state_class: total_increasing
      unit_of_measurement: "kWh" 

the sensor works, but the peaks in energy module remains…
a strange thing:
when I reboot the sensor shows for few seconds this value:

and after the correct value:

I see this value also there:

…maybe i found the problem:
there was only one value retained. so at each reboot, HA sees the “retained wrong value” 4932783.
so the peak is the result of 6060304-4932783…
I suppose…

[123 (Taras)]

@enry86cami

so at each reboot, HA sees the “retained wrong value” 4932783.
so the peak is the result of 6060304-4932783…

I don’t know why you refer to it as a “wrong” value because, based on the last screenshot in your post, it’s clear that the energy module is actually publishing it. In other words, it’s not due to any fault of Home Assistant misrepresenting the information; it’s what is actually being received.

You should be investigating the energy module to determine why it behaves the way it does.

[petro]

TBH the value in general looks off to me. Houses average 893 kWh per month and enry86cami is sitting at 5 million kwh. In general, I think the sensor is being miss understood and used.

[123 (Taras)]

It’s an aluminum smelter.

[petro]

Cheese and rice, how many tons is this thing making… 300 tons?

[123 (Taras)]

I suppose you could filter out any value greater than a given threshold. For example, this will report the sensor is available only if the value is between zero and ten thousand (adjust it to suit your needs).

      availability_template: "{{ 'online' if 0 < value.split(',')[1] | int(-1) < 10000 or 'offline' }}"

[enry86cami (enrico)]

with the software MQTT.fx, after connected to the MQTT broker I always had this first value retained:

but is an old value.

with the software MQTT EXPLORER I removed this value and now I don’t have a value retained.
with MQTT EXPLORER I found other old sensor with retained values. these are old sensor actually disconnected to the LAN. So I performed a clean of the “OLD MQTT PACKAGE” in my lan.
In fact now, by MQTT.fx I don’t see anymore a retained value:

But I don’t know how could be happened that some value had retained…

So I suppose that my problem was this old value “in pending” into the lan…

[123 (Taras)]

In your latest screenshot, it’s reporting over 6 million kWh. Is that correct?

If it is correct, what is this sensor monitoring?

[enry86cami (enrico)]

Yes, it is correct but the unit of measurement is Wh, so it is 6.000kWh. About one year of my home electric consumption.

[123 (Taras)]

@enry86cami

but the unit of measurement is Wh

The unit_of_measurement you specified in the sensor’s configuration is kWh. I suggest you modify the sensor’s value_template so it converts the received value, in Wh, to a reported value in kWh.

      value_template: "{{ (value.split(',')[1] | int(0)) / 1000 }}"

[enry86cami (enrico)]

you’re right, my conf works only because the HA energy module works with differences

[aperezva]

Hi

Having the same problem but with awatewr comsuption. I have a sensor taht starts with 0 when I restart the HA and seconds later recover last values.

• platform: template
  sensors:
  diario_agua_disponible:
  friendly_name: “diario agua available”
  entity_id: sensor.diario_agua_con_acumulado_estimado_duplicated
  value_template: “{{ (states(‘sensor.diario_agua_con_acumulado_estimado_duplicated’) | float ) | round(2) }}”
  availability_template: “{{ not is_state(‘sensor.diario_agua_con_acumulado_estimado_duplicated’, ‘unknown’,‘0.0’, ‘0,0’ ) }}”

I can observe taht sensor starts as a Unknown for a seconds , after that change to 0.0 and after that to the correcta value.

Impossible to keep it unavailable till have the correct value.

Any recomendation?