Calendar trigger not working

[billOu46]

The problem

Calendar trigger not working

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2023.1.1

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

Never tried before

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

Integration causing the issue

Automation

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/automation/trigger#calendar-trigger

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

alias: Test calendar event
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: calendar
    event: start
    entity_id: calendar.xxx
  - platform: calendar
    event: end
    entity_id: calendar.xxx
condition:
  - condition: template
    value_template: |-
      {{ 'Test' in
      trigger.calendar_event. summary }}
action:
  - service: notify.mobile_app_MyMobile
    data:
      message: Test
      title: Info
mode: queued
max: 10

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

Hello,

I'am using a calendar from the Google Cclendar integration. I correctly get my calendar events from Google, so it seems not be the problem.
I am trying to activate a binary sensor when I have a calendar event with some string in the summary.

Even if delete my condition and I try to match every event present into the calendar, the automation is not launched.
Even if I let the trigger with the options that are set by the UI :

platform: calendar
event: start
offset: "0:0:0"
entity_id: calendar.xxx

I never get the automation to start. Which is very annoying.
Do I miss something or is it a bug ?

Regards

[billOu46]

By the way, looking at my calendar.xxx state and attributes, all seem OK.
state switches from "off" to "on" when my event start....

[tdejneka]

What is reported in the automation's trace?

BTW, you may want to remove the stray space character in

trigger.calendar_event. summary
                       ^
                       |

[billOu46]

Hello,

That's part of the problem, trigger do not work, so automation is not launched and there is no trace.
I had seen the stray space problem, I already solved this. Thank you.

After many tries, I managed to get an automation, triggered by calendar event, working.
From my tests, I guess that, for a specific calendar event trigger :

1. If there is an error into a template condition, then there is no error, no trace, but the automation silently do not launch
2. If there is such an automation, then another one based on the same calendar trigger won't be launched too. Again, no trace.

I think the second one is that caused me so much trouble. I get it working by deleting all my previous automation tests...And starting over.

Is it possible to see if anyone can reproduce this thing ? Because I think that not getting a single error or trace is very annoying for troubleshooting.
If not, then we can close this issue.

Thank you for your support.

[billOu46]

Interresting fact, I'm still trying to do a template condition with regex match, and for some syntax reason I guess, this is not working.

When my event start while I'm editing my automation, I see that :

Proof that trigger is detected and automation is launched.
But even then, still no trace, no error in log.
If my automation is new, it's still identiified as never launched.

[billOu46]

Anybody ?

[DanDixon]

I'm seeing this same issue.
The event shows the trigger is happening #85596 (comment)
But then there's no trace (when it doesn't work).

It all seems to work correctly if I restart Home Assistant.
Not sure when or why it stops working.

Edit 1:
I restarted and it worked for 3 events 1 minute apart.
But after moving those same 3 events 10 minutes ahead, it didn't work.
I moved the events again and restarted. This time it worked.

Edit 2:
After playing around with it again, I got it to work multiple times in a row for over an hour. Even moving the old events.

It finally broke after I called this (although not sure this is the cause):

service: homeassistant.reload_config_entry
target:
  entity_id: calendar.reminder_tasks

Restarting fixed it again.

Edit 3:
Calling the reload_config_entry seemed to break it again.
Restarting fixed it again.

I'm on version 2023.1.5

---

Part of the automation that's not working sometimes:

alias: Setup Reminders from Calendar Reminder Tasks
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: calendar
    event: start
    offset: "-00:00:10"
    entity_id: calendar.reminder_tasks
condition: []
action:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{ 'exercise' in trigger.calendar_event.summary.lower() }}"
        sequence:
          - service: input_datetime.set_datetime
            data:
              timestamp: "{{ as_timestamp(now()) + 10 }}"
            target:
              entity_id: input_datetime.reminder_exercise

And 13 more very similar conditions (I've removed for brevity)

[billOu46]

Any help would be appreciated.

[DanDixon]

Since I stopped adding or changing the events on this calendar, I haven't had any problems since I posted my original message 2 weeks ago.

I seemed to encounter this problem while moving around events to test my setup. I'm using it for reoccurring notifications like exercise, water plants, take out trash, etc and I haven't made any changes since.

I'm not sure, but I'd guess that the problem is related to the calendar data being changed (I'm changing the events via the site: calendar.google.com).

So while I haven't had any problems, I was definitely seeing this problem when I originally posted.

@billOu46
If you make changes via calendar.google.com, then restart Home Assistant, does it work for you? Again, it only seemed to break after I updated the calendar on google's website (maybe?).

[bobvandevijver]

@DanDixon You might be onto something here. I'm having issues with calendar triggers as well, which originate from the Twente Milieu integration (#86602). Those event are being updated quite often, and I've not yet managed to get any calendar trigger working on them.

[allenporter]

Whenever I have investigated reports of calendar trigger issues I am unable to reproduce them.

The most common issues that comes up are:

• the calendar trigger having a buffer of 15 minutes. That is, it reads events for the next 15 minute window then schedules alarms for them. This means when you add an event for testing a trigger either (1) it has to be 15-30 minutes in the future depending on the integration or (2) you have to reload the automation.
• Folks use mode: single which means multiple events can't fire at the same time. The example above is not doing this, so thats good

I have seen some users report issues when the OS timezone and home assistant timezone disagree, but unable to reproduce them myself.

[allenporter]

For Twente Milieu, it has an hour scan interval so it may need 60 minutes + 15 minutes to detect a change at the source for example. Unless events change right before the event is supposed to fire, i don't see a problem though.

I'm exploring some standardization changes across all calendar integrations to better enforce timestamps and time zones are all in the correct formats to try to be preventative to uncover any bugs, but I am not aware of any outstanding issues. I do see these user reports however but so far they've always turned out to be due to the 15 minute window.

[bobvandevijver]

@allenporter The TwenteMilieu event times are actually quite static and already fully loaded for 2023. I was using the mode: single for my automation by the way, but I doubt that would matter in this case: there is only one event a day. Maybe the fact that they are day events instead of time events matter? Otherwise, it can only be due to the events being touched from time to time.

For me this is they only calendar integration I use, on Home Assistant OS 9.5. Timezone has been set to Europe/Amsterdam.

[allenporter]

I was confused because I thought you said they update often which seemed surprising to me. That all sounds like what I would expect.

Very well could be a bug with all day events, though they aren't entirely broken. I use them for my trash day with local calendar for example.

[bobvandevijver]

I meant it touches them (so the "last updated" timestamp changes), but the event date itself doesn't change. Or at least, that is how it seems