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Phantom devices

PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 2:15 pm
by berkinet
When creating a new Indigo Hubitat device, In the available HE device list, I see a few HE devices that no longer exist. That is, they did exist in HE at some point, but were removed. These devices do not appear in the HE device list and are not published from the HE MQTT app. I have rebooted both devices several times. Obviously, something, somewhere, is caching the information.

This is certainly not a big problem. But, it seemed worth reporting.

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 4:39 am
by berkinet
Looking at the MQTT stream, it seems these phantom services are being propagated by the HE MQTT plugin. I will check with Kevin.

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 4:50 am
by autolog
Have you gone in and edited the MQTT App settings to remove the devices?

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 5:04 am
by berkinet
autolog wrote:
Have you gone in and edited the MQTT App settings to remove the devices?
Yes.

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 5:40 am
by berkinet
After emailing Kevin, I shut everything down (HE, broker (Mosquitto), MQTT Explorer, and the HE plugin and then restarted. Problem gone.

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 6:10 am
by FlyingDiver
Those discovery messages might have been tagged as "retained", so the MQTT broker was saving them and re-transmitting. Restarting the broker would have cleared that.

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 6:44 am
by berkinet
FlyingDiver wrote:
Those discovery messages might have been tagged as "retained", so the MQTT broker was saving them and re-transmitting. Restarting the broker would have cleared that.

In that case, would the option to control retention, if it exists, be somewhere in the HE MQTT app?

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 8:15 am
by autolog
berkinet wrote:
In that case, would the option to control retention, if it exists, be somewhere in the HE MQTT app?

Yes, retention is specified by the App doing the publishing AFAIK.

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 8:38 am
by FlyingDiver
I can sorta see why they might want to discovery messages to be retained, so a client gets an immediate list of devices without waiting for them to advertise themselves again.

If they do that, then they should also be sending out a (retained) message when they shut down to cancel the previous message. It's possible that the broker is sending those shutdown messages again but the plugin isn't acting on them.

Or, it's just broken. ;)

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 8:46 am
by autolog
FlyingDiver wrote:
.... It's possible that the broker is sending those shutdown messages again but the plugin isn't acting on them.. Or, it's just broken. ;)

Quite possible on both counts ;)

Re: Phantom devices

PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 8:48 am
by FlyingDiver
autolog wrote:
FlyingDiver wrote:
.... It's possible that the broker is sending those shutdown messages again but the plugin isn't acting on them.. Or, it's just broken. ;)

Quite possible on both counts ;)


I was referring to the HE app. :)