Homebridge-Homeseer4-plugin

[shahn]

Any help appreciated!

I installed homebridge-hs4 plug in and configured as instructed.

My homebridge log says:

[05/02/2023, 23:20:37] [HomeSeer] * warning * - Unable to connect to Homeseer ASCII Port: 11000. Fatal error

[05/02/2023, 23:20:37] [HomeSeer] To enable ASCII Port, see WIKI "Enable the HomeSeer ASCII Commands Interface Port" entry [05/02/2023, 23:20:37] [HomeSeer] * Warning * - ASCII Port closed - Critical Failure!. Restart system if failure continues.

[05/02/2023, 23:21:07] [HomeSeer] At tempting to re-start ASCII Port Interface, Attempt: 36”

I have HB running on a raspberry pi on a different subnet (Ip 10.0.2.5) from hs4 (Ip 10.0.1.254) but I added 10.0.2.0 as a local subnet in the network settings. I can confirm that when I connect to hs4 from 10.0.2.x, I am not prompted for any log in Credentials.

any suggestions?

thank you!!! zz0.6y32mk0404izz

[windracer]

And you DID enable "remote control using ACII commands" on the Network setup tab in HS4, right?



If you do a 'netstat' on your HS4 box, do you see it listening on port 11000?

07:43:49 ~:$ netstat -a | grep 11000
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:11000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 homeseer.home:11000 homeseer.home:55584 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 homeseer.home:55584 homeseer.home:11000 ESTABLISHED
​

In my case I'm running Homebridge as the same RasPi as HS4.

[shahn]

Definitely yes to enable control using ASCII commands.

I ran netstat and go back "TCP 0.0.0.0:11000. Office:0 LISTENING". Not sure what that means. Should the 0.0.0.0 be my HS4 local IP address (10.0.1.254 in this case). If so, how do I change that?

Thank you!

[kenm]

0.0.0.0:11000 means port 11000 on all interfaces. What do you get back when you telnet to 10.0.1.254:11000?

[windracer]

0.0.0.0 should indicate that it's listening on all local addresses, so that's fine. Any firewall or anything that might be blocking traffic from the the Homebridge RasPi to the HS4 machine?

Another thing you can try is "telnet 10.0.1.254 11000" from a command-line to prove that you can connect to that port via telnet. I did this from my Windows PC and got messages back:

C:\Users\windracer>telnet 192.168.1.15 11000

DC,350,10645.136261,10643.933484
DC,352,83629.804281,83628.600191
DC,350,10645.940943,10645.136261
DC,352,83630.607867,83629.804281
DC,350,10647.143923,10645.940943
DC,352,83631.811866,83630.607867​

edit: apparently kenm beat me to this while I was writing up my reply.

[AutomatedJim]

I have everything working on my phone but can't get another family member added. We have tried:

Inviting the family member through the home app.
Having the family member scan the QR code.
Inviting and having the family member scan the QR code.

No matter which of the above we try, all the devices show up in the home app on the family member's phone but all show 'no response'

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,

Jim

[AutomatedJim]

I have everything working on my phone but can't get another family member added. We have tried:

Inviting the family member through the home app.
Having the family member scan the QR code.
Inviting and having the family member scan the QR code.

No matter which of the above we try, all the devices show up in the home app on the family member's phone but all show 'no response'

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,

Jim

An update. I am able to invite another family member successfully. It's only the one. So I guess an Apple issue?

[kenm]

An update. I am able to invite another family member successfully. It's only the one. So I guess an Apple issue?

I feel your pain. It's been several years since I set this up but I remember these kinds of issues. I don't remember for sure but check to see if the one having the problem has the Home app enabled for iCloud. Also, is this person part of your family sharing? Again, I don't remember if this was required or not.

In the end, I ended up creating 3 instances of homebridge and had each person connect to their own bridge. It's extra work to maintain 3x config.json files but this has worked flawlessly for a couple of years now.

[AutomatedJim]

In the end, I ended up creating 3 instances of homebridge and had each person connect to their own bridge. It's extra work to maintain 3x config.json files but this has worked flawlessly for a couple of years now.

Did you create child bridges or 3 different instances? I've been looking at the child bridge option and I'm not sure if that is the correct way band-aid the issue.

[kenm]

I run 3 distinct instances. I'm running homebridge on Linux so this may be a little different for Windows. I created a user named "homebridge". In "/home/homebridge" I created 3 folders named "homebridge1", "homebridge2", and "homebridge3". I then copied a config.json into each of those folders. I had to edit each file to make the bridge definitions unique.

Finally, I created 3 unit files for systemd with each pointing to a different sub-folder in /home/homebridge.

Let me know if you need more details.

[AutomatedJim]

I run 3 distinct instances. I'm running homebridge on Linux so this may be a little different for Windows. I created a user named "homebridge". In "/home/homebridge" I created 3 folders named "homebridge1", "homebridge2", and "homebridge3". I then copied a config.json into each of those folders. I had to edit each file to make the bridge definitions unique.

Finally, I created 3 unit files for systemd with each pointing to a different sub-folder in /home/homebridge.

Let me know if you need more details.

Interesting. I am running on Linux too, RPi3. I also run MQTT bridge on it. Not sure if I'll have enough memory to run 3 distinct instance though.

Thoughts?

Do your 3 instances have different port numbers and logins too?

[kenm]

Yes, unique name, username, port, and pin for each instance.

Memory usage is between 630K-690K per instance. I'm running this on a Zotac C320 Nano with 4GB of RAM.

[AutomatedJim]

Yes, unique name, username, port, and pin for each instance.

Memory usage is between 630K-690K per instance. I'm running this on a Zotac C320 Nano with 4GB of RAM.

Sorry for all the questions.

When I installed Homebridge, it created /home/homebridge There are 1 folder in /homebridge, .npm ,but config.json is not in the folder or sub-folders.

[kenm]

Hmm. It's been a while since I set this up but I'd suggest:

1. cd /home/homebridge
2. mkdir homebridge1;mkdir homebridge2;mkdir homebridge3
3. Download https://github.com/jvmahon/Homebridg...g.complex.json as a starting point.
4. Rename to config.json and copy into each homebridgeX folder.
5. Tweak the bridge settings to make them unique.

Run the first instance in the foreground with the following command:

/usr/local/bin/homebridge --user-storage-path /home/homebridge/homebridge1

If all looks good, hit ctrl-C and repeat for homebridge2 and homebridge3.

Once all is good in the foreground, you'll need to create 3x unit files for systemd.

Here's a sample of what the homebridge1.service would look like:

[Unit]
Description=Instance 1 - Homebridge
After=syslog.target network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=homebridge
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/homebridge --no-qrcode --user-storage-path /home/homebridge/homebridge1
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
KillMode=process

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target​

Then create homebridge2.service and homebridge3.service.

Let me know if you need a hand getting these setup in systemd.