Problems with mobile frontend after pimatic reinstallation

---

My first bigger problem after more than a year of totally unpoblematically running of pimatic.

Today I installed pimatic version 0.9.43 with the pimatic web frontend. After this update pimatic did not restart because of errors. To overcome this I did some further steps, so this is only the start of the problems.

I run pimatic server a small desktop pc with a VIA i386 motherboard and normal hd. OS is Debian Stretch, no keyboard, no display, serial TTYS0 connection to my desktop.

I used a new directory ‘pimatic-app’. Before I installed pimatic again I copied ‘node_modules’ and ‘echo-database’ (for echo plugin) directories and ‘config.json’ and ‘pimatic-database.sqlite’ files from the old installtion to the new directory

Than I reinstalled Node.js from Debian Stretch (apt-get install --reinstall) version 4.9.1 and after this pimatic (as described in doc) to the new directory. Now I started pimatic. It started up normally with all plugins loading and the scanning of the devices. Until the listening at port 80 everything was normal. The behavier ot the devices controlled on startup was so as it was always.

After I started web frontend in a browser the error display in the logfile began.

23:50:46.986 [pimatic-mobile-frontend] error:>Message: Unable to process binding "template: function(){return { name:'device-group-template',foreach:$root.groups} }"
23:50:46.986 [pimatic-mobile-frontend] error:>Message: Unable to process binding "if: function(){return $root.enabledEditing() || $parent.getDevicesInGroup($data.id).length > 0 }"
23:50:46.986 [pimatic-mobile-frontend] error:>Message: Unable to process binding "if: function(){return !$root.isGroupCollapsed($parent,$data) }"
23:50:46.986 [pimatic-mobile-frontend] error:>Message: Unable to process binding "template: function(){return { name:$root.getItemTemplate,foreach:$parent.getDevicesInGroup($data.id),afterRender:$parent.afterRenderDevice} }"
23:50:46.986 [pimatic-mobile-frontend] error:>Message: Unable to process binding "if: function(){return jsonDataWarnings().length == 0 }"
23:50:46.986 [pimatic-mobile-frontend] error:>Message: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined

The display in the web browser is a collection of different elements of the pimatic frontend pages and not useable.

I reinstalled the pimatic-mobile-frontend plugin but this did not help.

It would hurt me, if I would lose the configuration in config.json and the data in the database.

What can I do? Should I delete the ‘node_modules’ directory? Will everything be rebuild if I do that? Is there anything I can do with the database?

@stefang clear your internet browser cache and try again

There are some issues with the 9.4.3 version, see Here. Best to wait for devs to fix it, then reinstall probably!

@stokstaart said in Problems with mobile frontend after pimatic reinstallation:

There are some issues with the 9.4.3 version, see Here. Best to wait for devs to fix it, then reinstall probably!

I am not sure what cause the problems with the update installation. It worked for me at least.

Another user reported he found a work-around: see here: https://forum.pimatic.org/post/33830

I did it. After a backup i removed ‘node_modules’ and installed pimatic new as @elektronaut in the other thread (see posting above by @mwittig) suggested. ‘config.json’ and the database stayed untouched. Compilation after pimatic start took a long time but now web frontend is working.

One issue remained (possibly came new). Alle my ESP8266 device use the api to read and write pimatic variables.
All these calls end in an error .

13:11:06.638 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/wohnungstemperatur.Temperatur: User not found
13:11:16.845 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/anzeige_wetter.Temperatur: User not found
13:11:26.954 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/heizungHandbetrieb.state: User not found
13:11:28.067 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/heizen.state: User not found
13:11:37.180 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/dwd.jsonDataWarnings: User not found
13:11:38.297 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/forecast.forecast: User not found
13:12:17.919 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/sensorenok.presence: User not found
13:12:19.188 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/wohnungstemperatur.Temperatur: User not found
13:12:29.340 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/anzeige_wetter.Temperatur: User not found
13:12:39.514 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/heizungHandbetrieb.state: User not found
13:12:40.643 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/heizen.state: User not found
13:12:49.760 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/dwd.jsonDataWarnings: User not found
13:12:50.903 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/forecast.forecast: User not found
13:13:30.535 [pimatic] error: Error on incoming http request to /api/variables/sensorenok.presence: User not found

Same problem also for other plugins (one error above comes from pimatic-dwd plugin).

New starting of pimatic does not help. The user is declared in ‘config.json’. Is it a problem between new installed pimatic and old database?

@stefang said in Problems with mobile frontend after pimatic reinstallation:

One issue remained (possibly came new). Alle my ESP8266 device use the api to read and write pimatic variables.
All these calls end in an error .
… User not found

Does your ESP8266 device passes username/password credentials along with the REST request directed to pimatic?
If yes, can you confirm the username matches one of the identities granted access as part of your pimatic configuration?

one error above comes from pimatic-dwd plugin

That’s strange as the dwd plugin does not call the pimatic REST api.

Maybe the problem is related to the browser cache of the frontend. Please clear the browser cache as suggested earlier by @Gleno0h

I have totally revised this post after I now (after football matches in TV) deeper analyzed what variables are shown with the error “User not found”.
Most of them are device variables, partly dummy devices or devices enabled by plugins.

That some values are delivered via API from external sensors is not the reason why the devices are shown with this error. I have devices of the same kind - one device does showing this error, one does not.

Clearing browser cache made no change. First errors are written to the log when pimatic is just started. At this time pimatic webserver is up but there is no browser in my network using the web frontend.

Sorry that I reply to myself, but I want that the solution is written in a seperate post.

The problem was the pimatic-echo plugin. Pimatic-echo plugin needs port 80 and I run pimatic web interface on port 80 too.
I don’t want to change this as long as possible because I would have to change the port too for all sensors, relais and displays using the web interface for data transfer.

Then newest (0.5.3) version of the pimatic-echo plugin does not support this double use of port 80 anymore so I still used the older version 0.5.2. But with the new installation and the new created ‘node_modules’ directory the newest version of the pimativ-echo plugin was installed and produced the “User not found” messages in the logfile. After downgrading the plugin the problem was solved.

As a positive result off all this - I can confirm that you can reinstall pimatic with the usual install instructions with continuing use of ‘config.json’ and the sqlite database.

As a sure way I renamed pimatic-app directory to “pimatic-app-old”, created new directory “pimatic-app” and copied the 2 files ‘config.json’ and ‘pimatic-database.sqlite’ from the old to this new directory (and for me additional the directory ‘echo-database’ which is used by the echo plugin). Than I installed pimatic new and started it. Long way, much time but it works.

Sorry if I have taken someone with me on my wrong ways.

It seems this problem is not yet solved. I thought it was time for a complete image backup so i shut down the Pi completely to make the image. After booting up again Pimatic started to give me this error:

error [pimatic-mobile-frontend]: Client error: Unable to process binding "template: function(){return { name:'devicepage-template',foreach:devicepages} }" Message: Unable to process binding "template: function(){return { name:'device-group-template',foreach:$root.groups} }" Message: Unable to process binding "if: function(){return $root.enabledEditing() || $parent.getDevicesInGroup($data.id).length > 0 }" Message: Unable to process binding "if: function(){return !$root.isGroupCollapsed($parent,$data) }" Message: Unable to process binding "template: function(){return { name:$root.getItemTemplate,foreach:$parent.getDevicesInGroup($data.id),afterRender:$parent.afterRenderDevice} }" Message: Unable to process binding "if: function(){return jsonDataWarnings().length == 0 }" Message: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined

Also i can’t change between groups in the web-interface. Whatever i do, like unistalling the latest added plugins or devices or even using an older version of config.json, I can’t get rid of this error. Version 0.9.43 seemed to working ok before. Is this a version problem? If so, shouldn’t users be warned? I don’t have the pimatic-echo plugin installed.

@fregger did you make a backup, or did you update?

Ive got a new pi3, followed the tutorial and i have zero issues and to be honest, i was suprised how fast i was up and running again. I expected these errors, but got none.

@gleno0h I didn’t change anything. Just made the backup.

@fregger ah i remember these errors… Try clearing your browser cache, should be gone then!

@gleno0h I’ve been clearing my brains out, doesn’t help

Well, that kept me busy for about an hour. I also got stuck with a weird red static ‘Drop here to remove item’ on my first ‘page’ in the webinterface so I decided to delete the complete page and refilled in with device items.

All went well until i added the Weather Warning device from the ‘Deutscher Wetter Dienst’ dwd plugin. That one doesn’t seem to like Pimatic 0.9.43.

At least i can go back to what i was doing now