Why isn't this alert triggering?

Set up what I thought was world’s simplest alert to test notification types - using an input boolean to trigger a test alert. Why is this not triggering?

The switch:

input_boolean:       
    debug_trigger:
      name: Input Trigger

I’ve confirmed in dev tools that input_boolean.debug_trigger toggles between “on” and “off”.

Here is the alert:

alert:
  debug_alert_test:
    name: Debug Test
    done_message: Debug test resolved
    entity_id: input_boolean.debug_trigger
    state: "on"
    repeat: 30
    can_acknowledge: true
    skip_first: false
    notifiers:
      - html5
      - smtp

I can toggle the input_boolean, confirm it switches to “on”, but no mater what the alert stays “idle”. I’ve tried all manner of things to no avail. Pulled the form and syntax straight from offical docs example.

What am I missing???

It looks fine aside from there being no “message:” to go with the alert. That might not be an issue but I always have one.

The other thing is did you actually set up the html5 and smtp notifiers?

Thanks - unfort I’ve tried w/ and w/o the message. The notifiers are set up but the HTML5 is not working - tried taking it out and still nothing though :frowning:

Could it be that the HTML5 notifications need SSL?

notifiers:
      - html5
      - smtp

This section here points to the name of the notifier I believe.
see: HTML5 Push Notifications - Home Assistant

If I remove html5, it still does not work (actually used to work on a different alert just like that - the html5 is failing somewhere in Google land I think).

Its like the alert does not even get that far - the input_boolean is not triggering the alert. I also tried creating a boolean sensor and binding it to the input boolean, then letting the sensor trigger the alert - that did not work either (even though the input successfully controlled the sensor).

I cannot get the state of the alert.debug_alert_test to read anything but “idle”

Bad you were right - my email notifier is defined as:

  • platform: smtp
    name: email_notify_dan

I’ve been using “smtp” as the notifier in several alerts for YEARS and its been working fine. Somewhere along the way I guess an update broke that method - switching to “email_notify_dan” resolved it (the HTML5 notification is just plain broken and I’m discarding it because it can’t seem to stay fixed).

Surprised that this prevents the alert from even flipping to true - but its working now - thanks!

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