Two Home Assistant Instances & Single MQTT + Single Frigate instance

Hi there,
I basically have an older 2023 HA instance that is heavily configured with everything working as intended. I want to move on to a new instance but I want to make sure that I can verify that everything works before I pull the plug on the older instance.

I was able to run the second Home Assistant instance with a new port, I made a copy of my configuration and pointed the docker volume to it. It was able to absorb pretty much everything. The only issue I am currently having right now is I cannot get the new (second) HA instance to talk to Frigate.

When I try to add the Frigate URL, it gets added but setup fails. I check the logs and I get this error:

2025-10-13T17:59:22.256756727Z 2025-10-13 13:59:22.251 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.config_entries] Error setting up entry homeserver.local:6060/ for frigate
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256809238Z Traceback (most recent call last):
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256820198Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/config_entries.py", line 761, in __async_setup_with_context
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256863069Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/config_entries.py", line 2589, in async_forward_entry_setups
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256829688Z     result = await component.async_setup_entry(hass, self)
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256837898Z              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256854059Z     await hass.config_entries.async_forward_entry_setups(entry, PLATFORMS)
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256846028Z   File "/config/custom_components/frigate/__init__.py", line 280, in async_setup_entry
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256879609Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/loader.py", line 1176, in async_get_platforms
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256871389Z     await integration.async_get_platforms(platforms)
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256887999Z     import_future.result()
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256920079Z     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256903989Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/loader.py", line 1176, in async_get_platforms
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256895729Z     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256912379Z     import_future.result()
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256936520Z     import_future.result()
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256927820Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/loader.py", line 1176, in async_get_platforms
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256944550Z     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256952730Z   [Previous line repeated 3 more times]
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256960930Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/loader.py", line 1164, in async_get_platforms
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256969150Z     platforms.update(self._load_platforms(platform_names))
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256977290Z                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256985830Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/loader.py", line 1089, in _load_platforms
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257002781Z                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.256994490Z     platform_name: self._load_platform(platform_name)
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257011231Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/loader.py", line 1263, in _load_platform
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257019601Z     cache[full_name] = self._import_platform(platform_name)
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257027161Z                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257034571Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/loader.py", line 1295, in _import_platform
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257042561Z     return importlib.import_module(f"{self.pkg_path}.{platform_name}")
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257050011Z            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257081792Z     return func(*args, **kwargs)
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257072251Z   File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/util/loop.py", line 201, in protected_loop_func
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257099062Z     return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257090172Z   File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/importlib/__init__.py", line 88, in import_module
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257107502Z            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257115622Z   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1387, in _gcd_import
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257124482Z   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1360, in _find_and_load
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257132842Z   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1331, in _find_and_load_unlocked
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257141762Z   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 935, in _load_unlocked
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257150043Z   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 1026, in exec_module
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257158983Z   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257168143Z   File "/config/custom_components/frigate/sensor.py", line 8, in <module>
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257176683Z     from homeassistant.const import CONF_URL, PERCENTAGE, TEMP_CELSIUS
2025-10-13T17:59:22.257184833Z ImportError: cannot import name 'TEMP_CELSIUS' from 'homeassistant.const' (/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/const.py)
type or paste code here

In the second instance of HA, I setup MQTT to have a unique discovery name, as well as client ID. I am using anonymous mode so no login needed. Both instances are able to see my Zigbee2MQTT devices, but for some reason I am unable to connect to Frigate on the second instance.

Is there a particular part of the configuration that I missed? I am assuming MQTT is able to talk to many clients, but I suspect something is causing the 2nd HA instance to not be able to talk to Frigate but I am not able to figure out exactly where that conflict is happening.

This is the final piece of the puzzle I need to ensure works before I sunset my old HA instance as I heavily rely on Frigate and need it to function.

Note: Everything is docker hosted via Portainer. All containers are hosted on the same server.

EDIT: Changing the Discovery prefix breaks the rest of MQTT devices since they are no longer showing up on the default one. It seems that there’s a conflict on the API level that’s causing this Frigate issue. Perhaps I am going about this the wrong way. One thing I would love to know is whether it is possible for ONE Frigate instance to be utilized across two HA instances.

Only thing I can try next is to temporarily disable the first HA instance and just run the second one alone and try to reconfigure Frigate. But I was really hoping I don’t have to do that.

Did further reading, would a Broker Bridge be a viable solution here? Where I run a second MQTT instance that acts as a bridge via MQTT Statestream? I don’t know if that is still supported in the configuration.yaml route since most of the options have now moved to the UI but it seems like it could potentially work? My worry is that this conflict is not MQTT related but rather API conflict but would need someone with more expertise to chime in here.

You have a version of the frigate custom component that is not compatible with the home assistant version. Update it.

1 Like

Wow… and to think I just spent an hour running in circles not realizing that due to the fact that HACS was broken, I never caught the fact that I was running an extremely old version of the integration.

Upon going inside the docker instance, manually installing HACS, re-adding it as an integration. It immediately flagged Frigate along with a bunch of other things that needed updating. I updated Frigate, restart, and voila, I was able to add Frigate, configure it and get up to speed.

Thanks heaps Pete!