What is up with all these breaking changes?

[amelchio]

@stiansoevik

Another (and maybe more problematic) source of frustration, is the direction this project is going in. Several people (myself included) fear that it is moving from text-based and “self maintained” installs, towards GUI configured and “automagically installed”.

HA is just getting too complex to maintain everything by hand and actually one common source of breaking changes is that the self-maintained YAML cannot be automatically upgraded when new features appear.

However, command-line/text tools could be made that would make it possible to maintain HA without the mouse clicking (and without having to write pages of YAML).

[anon34565116]

@stiansoevik

I understand your frustration. As far as I know, this lack of focus on backwards compatibility and speed of change is not due to the nature of either Home Assistant or open source, but that Home Assistant is currently on version zero.

Except they have provided a Hass.io Add-on that checks your configuration against the latest version so you can AVOID breakage, It would have been easier for the developers to just break people, especially if they are spoiled enough to complain anyway without checking first.

It appears to me the developers are aware of backwards compatibility Otherwise they would not have provided the configuration checker and made a special section in the Release Notes for breaking changes.

[dmulcahey (David F Mulcahey)]

won’t be .89… missed the cutoff. will be .90

[speedmann]

Snap. But as long as it works for now, i indeed do not need to update. Even if i do not like to be on the development branch.

Thanks for the feedback and all the time you spent fixing zha

[anon34565116]

How is zha broken? I am just starting out but have the USBZB-1 wihch supports zha. I currently have no Zigbee devices though.
I assume I should wait for 0.90 or later before testing?

I have been testing some zwave devices but zigbee are less expensive, generally.

[speedmann]

After the latest change some lights (For me, only ikea tradfri) stopped working after around 120 minutes.
I also was not able to pair them with 0.88.
But as far as i understood, other devices should work right now.
My Philips Hue lights work flawless. Also the Xiaomi Sensors work kind of (Which is no issue with ZHA but xiaomi)

[finity]

@anon34565116

How is zha broken?

I was wondering the same thing.

I use a HUSBZB-1 on v88 and my lights all work as expected.

EDIT: Ah never mind. I have all Sengled bulbs.

[aidbish (Adrian)]

@stiansoevik

Another (and maybe more problematic) source of frustration, is the direction this project is going in. Several people (myself included) fear that it is moving from text-based and “self maintained” installs, towards GUI configured and “automagically installed”.

And that’s not a bad thing. Everything they have included to make it easier for people by using the GUI can also be done via config files, so i can’t see why is problematic or a cause of frustration.

[anon34565116]

@finity

I have all Sengled bulbs.

That’s a good Zigbee choice bulb then? What about their Zigbee socket?

[finity]

@anon34565116

That’s a good Zigbee choice bulb then?

I’ve never really had much trouble with them and I’m pretty sure the issue that i did have was with the hub not the bulbs. They are the Sengled Classic.

@anon34565116

What about their Zigbee socket?

Sorry, I don’t have any experience with that.

[anon34565116]

So you are using the buls with a hub and not directly to HA. I have a zwave/zigbee stick connected to HA.

[finity]

My “hub” is the zigbee stick (HUSBZB-1).

[anon34565116]

Same as mine then. Thanks

[zarthan]

One of the problems with not upgrading every time is that when you do upgrade, you must go through ALL the breaking changes between when you last updated and the current one. Sometimes that is much harder.

[awarecan (Jason Hu)]

As a developer, backward compatibility always is one of the important design restraint. Trust me, I hate to break your system like you did.

[speedmann]

Thank you for confirming this again

I finally managed to do something which has been long overdue.
I created some kind of continuous integration which will be triggered as soon as you guys push a new version to pypi… This will check my config for any errors and let me know before i update if i have anything to do.

Also a benefit, i can check my config changes if i break anything before i deploy it to my installation…

[tmjpugh]

Un

@speedmann

You don’t have to update.

Unfortunately, sometimes i have to. My present situation is:
0.86 has broken harmony and homematic
0.87 fixes harmony hub
0.87 breaks ZHA
0.88 fixes homematic
0.89 hopefully fixes ZHA (I have checked out the development branch with changes from @dmulcahey which for now work very good)

Not to pile on but if 0.85 was working I think everyone keeps inferring you should have stayed there.

Why you upgrade to version that bit working for you?

I still using 0.84.6. not cause new versions broke but because this version worked and no new feature in later version that I will use

[Joseph_Jose]

This is beta software with atleast 5 components being added on every update. Since its beta, there are changes which need to accomodate those new components or bug fixes where the endpoint that was coded initially ends up being the problem and needs to be addressed. This ends up with breaking changes. I wanted support for smarthings and this came in .8x which was a blessing, so everyone is benefiting despite the changes.

[Tekki (Rolf Stöckli)]

Just wanted to write that I rarely have troubles with updates, and now I read this:

@speedmann

Unfortunately, sometimes i have to. My present situation is:
0.86 has broken harmony and homematic
…
0.88 fixes homematic

For no special reason I didn’t update for a longer time and yesterday I upgraded to 0.88.2. If we can learn anything of this, it is that you need a lot of luck to update in the right moment.

[anon34565116]

… or use the Hass.IO configuration checker against the latest version before upgrading, That can avoid a lot of grief.