Time-Triggered Automation, not fire as should be expected

Configuration
1

Time-Triggered Automation, not fire as should be expected, I put an interval of 5 hours but instead, as you can see in the screenshot, he fire every day at 5 am and/or pm (wtf)

image

here the yaml:

id: '1676675534738'
alias: WebOS Dev AutoRenewal
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    hours: '5'
  - platform: homeassistant
    event: start
condition: []
action:
  - service: webhook_service.basic_webhook
    data:
      webhook: >-
        xxxxxxx
mode: single
2

Your automation is designed to trigger at 05:00:00 or when Home Assistant starts.

The screenshot you posted, displaying a list of times for the last 5 traces that were produced, shows that it triggered four times at 05:00:00, corresponding to the Time Pattern Trigger, and once at 17:20:15 which probably corresponds to when Home Assistant was restarted.

Check the trace produced at 17:20:15 and it will reveal which of the automation’s two triggers was responsible for triggering the automation. It’s likely to be the Home Assistant Event Trigger.

3

my fault, the 5pm one is a manual startup made by me😅, the problem still remains that instead of starting every 5 hours it starts every day at 5

4

That’s because you configured to operate that way.

Change it to this:

  - platform: time_pattern
    hours: '/5'

Reference: Time Pattern Trigger

1 Like
5

This trigger fires whenever the hour = 5

trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    hours: '5'

This trigger fires whenever the hour is divisible by 5:

trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    hours: '/5'

See: https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/automation/trigger/#time-pattern-trigger

1 Like
6

I created it via ui, it’s not exactly crystal clear to do it from the ui, however I will try :+1:

7

For future reference, creating automations with the UI doesn’t always support everything that Home Assistant’s scripting language can do. Even when the UI does support a given scripting feature, it might only support it partially and require that you switch to YAML mode to support it fully or assumes you already know what you can/can’t enter.

In this particular case, the UI doesn’t provide much guidance and assumes you are already familiar with the Time Pattern Trigger and know what to enter in the Hours field.

Screenshot_20230222-083106~2

8

This trigger fires whenever the hour is divisible by 5

You really need to take note of that statement. That is also confusing.

the trigger only occurs when the hour is divisible by 5 NOT every 5 hours.

so it will trigger at 00:00, 05:00, 10:00, 15:00, 20:00 then it will fire again at 00:00, etc…

At least I’m fairly certain that’s the case.

(Sorry Tom I didn’t mean to reply to you it was meant for the OP)

9

Yes that is correct.

10

Sorry I didn’t mean to reply to you. It was for the OP

11

Yeah, I was just letting you know that any doubts you had about what you were saying were unfounded.

The issue here is that 24 is not evenly divisible by 5. So a time pattern trigger won’t work. An alternative method is required. Maybe a timer.

12

Agreed.

This hours: '/5' will certainly get the OP closer to triggering every 5 hours than this hours: '5' but not completely; the final period of each day will be 4 hours owing to the way the Time Pattern Trigger computes repeating intervals.

13

Every five hours, at the top of the hour. Change the final 0 in the condition to line it up with the hour you want: can be any integer from 0 to 4.

trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    minutes: '0'
condition:
  - "{{ (now().timestamp()//3600)%5 == 0 }}"
1 Like
14

so summarizing there are no real “every x hours,” but a “every fifth/fourth/third/etc of day/hour/etc” right?

15

Here’s the way the documentation explains it:

You can prefix the value with a / to match whenever the value is divisible by that number.

In your case, the time interval you specified is hours: '/5' so that means it will trigger when the current hour is divisible by 5. What that implies is the current hour must be evenly divisible (no remainder) by the value 5.

0/5 = 0
5/5 = 1
10/5 = 2
15/5 = 3
20/5 = 4

So, like finity explained, it will trigger when the current hour is 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20. That’s 5 hours apart except for the period between 20:00 and 00:00.