components/ephember: Cannot connect to EphEmber

[Hamzah-z]

The problem

I'm getting the following error in my logs:

Logger: homeassistant.components.ephember.climate
Source: components/ephember/climate.py:76
integration: ephember (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 10:10:23 PM (1 occurrences)
Last logged: 10:10:23 PM

Cannot connect to EphEmber

I've checked that:

• Ember credentials are correct
• Configuration is valid
• Setup steps in documentation are followed

The integration was working fine a couple of weeks ago and suddenly stopped unprovoked, with this error.

Please let me know if you need any more info!

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2024.9.0

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Container

Integration causing the issue

ephember

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ephember

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

Logger: homeassistant.components.ephember.climate
Source: components/ephember/climate.py:76
integration: ephember (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 10:10:23 PM (1 occurrences)
Last logged: 10:10:23 PM

Additional information

No response

[home-assistant]

Hey there @ttroy50, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (ephember) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

Code owner commands

Code owners of ephember can trigger bot actions by commenting:

• @home-assistant close Closes the issue.
• @home-assistant rename Awesome new title Renames the issue.
• @home-assistant reopen Reopen the issue.
• @home-assistant unassign ephember Removes the current integration label and assignees on the issue, add the integration domain after the command.
• @home-assistant add-label needs-more-information Add a label (needs-more-information, problem in dependency, problem in custom component) to the issue.
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ephember documentation
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[SquishyMucus]

I was looking for the same fix, looks like someone did the fix but had issues merging the PR. #103388

[Hamzah-z]

@SquishyMucus Thanks for your comment, I'm happy to make those changes and submit them but the problem seems to be more than that:

I got bored of waiting so I set up the HA Core repo locally and went through debugging the ephember integration. Looks like:

1. Auth works fine with the underlying pyephember library. We get a successful response.
2. The list_homes function in pyephember is successfully able to get the gateWayId from the API.
3. The get_home function where we fetch info using the gateWayId param is where the failure happens.

It looks like the "zones/polling" endpoint of the API returns the following response:

'{\n\t"data":null,\n\t"message":"WiFi device is not online, please check and try again.",\n\t"status":32,\n\t"timestamp":1727635760448\n}'

This is incorrect because the device is infact online and functioning through the mobile app. This issue is more and more starting to look like the one reported here #46223

It seems some more reverse engineering of the API will be required to update the pyephember package to get it functioning again.

[mchugh19]

I'm now seeing this issue was well in the last few days. Everything was working fine up until now.

EDIT: Solved. Looks like my issue was a home assistant update which broke python library loading: #127966

Adding PYTHONPATH=/config/deps to my podman command restored ephember connectivity.

[Jesus-M]

Hi @mchugh19

I'm having exactly the same issue, and I am very new (2 days new) to the whole HA world. I am using HAOS running on a 'generic x86_64' machine.

Where exactly should I add the line PYTHONPATH=/config/deps you mentioned to fix the issue?

And apologies for the so newbie question.
Thanks

[Jesus-M]

is there any update on this? any workaround? Or any alternative integration?

Thanks

[Zaduvalo]

is there any update on this? any workaround? Or any alternative integration?

Thanks

It seems like it is a dead end. An active investigation was started in 2021 and hit some technical reverse engineering issues. Eph Ember integration should be removed from supported lists.

#46223

[Jesus-M]

Yeah, I saw that, but since @mchugh19 seemed to have found something I was hoping for some fix or at least work around.

Were you able to figure something out? I saw you created a repo for it ...

[Zaduvalo]

I'm now seeing this issue was well in the last few days. Everything was working fine up until now.

EDIT: Solved. Looks like my issue was a home assistant update which broke python library loading: #127966

Adding PYTHONPATH=/config/deps to my podman command restored ephember connectivity.

Can you add some details about your EPH Gateway version? Gateway V4 not working for me - same issue as here -> EphEmber

Did you debug your problem? Did you get 'WiFi device is not online, please check and try again.' response from EPH /zones/polling endpoint? Or it was another issue with python library?

[Jesus-M]

This is what I get

And not sure how to see the EPH WiFi GW version

[Zaduvalo]

Yeah, I saw that, but since @mchugh19 seemed to have found something I was hoping for some fix or at least work around.

Were you able to figure something out? I saw you created a repo for it ...

No progress from my side. The problem hides deeper in Ember system. Not sure if all users are affected. You can find your Gateway device version here -> https://www.ephcontrols.com/range/gateway/

climate.py:76 - same issue. Unable to get data from zones/polling endpoint.

[Jesus-M]

GW01

[Zaduvalo]

Based on HA statistics, this integration not working for everyone. 0 active installations.
https://next.home-assistant.io/integrations/ephember#related-topics
@mchugh19 can you confirm that?

[Jesus-M]

the thing is that the integration is supposed to be based on this https://github.com/ttroy50/pyephember, and I am testing it and it seems to work fine (still a lot to test, just made a couple of queries), so I guess the issue is what someone mentioned, from some HA update onwards, the module are not properly loaded and hence the integration won't work.

Anyway, I am not a developer, and I just do a lot of 'trial&error' without really knowing what I am doing ...

#127966