WTH: Automation doesn't run if one of its actions entity is unavailable

Archive Month of "What the heck?!" (2020)
1

The other day I had an issue that my notifications did not run.

Because of the latest iOS HA app update, the app reset itself. I reactivated it while my GF did not, resulting in a not running automation. I would have expected that I get the notification.

I do realize you don’t always want an automation to execute only a few actions, but maybe a choice would be nice, that’s especially good for actions that do not depend on each other like notifications.

2

There is a choice if you structure your automation with this in mind: Scripts - Home Assistant

Specifically:

This technique can also be used for the calling script to wait for the called script, but not be aborted if the called script aborts due to errors.

script:
  script_1:
    sequence:
      - service: script.turn_on
        entity_id: script.script_2
      # Perform some other steps here while second script runs...
      # Now wait for called script to complete.
      - wait_template: "{{ is_state('script.script_2', 'off') }}"
      # Now do some other things...
  script_2:
    sequence:
      # Do some things at the same time as the first script...