4.54.0 seems to have removed homebridge entirely?

[jonnyborbs]

Describe The Bug

Installed 4.54.0 from the plugin update prompt, and immediately my browser redirected to a canned 500 internal server error. Went to the actual server shell to restart homebridge, and discovered it's just completely gone. There's no longer an hb-config command to run, or hb-service, the commands are just gone. I still have a homebridge daemon running but I don't think it will last long in memory only. Something is very wrong here.

Logs

No response

Config

No response

Homebridge UI Version

4.54.0

Homebridge Version

Not sure now, it was current but now I do not know how to check

Node.js Version

20.10.0

Operating System

Official Homebridge Raspberry Pi Image

Environment Info

• [ ] Using Docker?
• [ ] Using Hyper-V?
• [ ] Using hb-service?

Raspberry Pi Model

Raspberry Pi 4 B

[Krillle]

Worked for me sudo hb-config via pi user.

Choose update. if new version available it will solve problem. If not - reset, but you lose all data.

Worked for me. Thanks a lot!

[jonnyborbs]

There are two parallel problems here and I think I see the common thread emerging.

My hypothesis: Folks who had recently updated their apt package lists may no longer have had a reference for the homebridge package.

The UI plugin update seems to have attempted an update/upgrade in place and removed the package, then was unable to find a new one to install and replace it.

Folks who had out of date apt package lists still had pointers to the now missing binaries and had a different set of problems.

Problem now is, how do we get that package back. There is so little information on homebridge core given that the wiki is completely broken @oznu hate to tag by name but wonder if you have thoughts here.

[rcoletti116]

@bwp91 @mkz212 for visibility

[testpaul999]

LOL it is so easy. Look at the byte what the package have 4.53 23mb 4.54 378bytes In this are only a sym-link ….😂

[Marco-Erlangen]

Would also explain why the update only takes 1 second :-)

[noelhibbard]

There are two parallel problems here and I think I see the common thread emerging.

My hypothesis: Folks who had recently updated their apt package lists may no longer have had a reference for the homebridge package.

The UI plugin update seems to have attempted an update/upgrade in place and removed the package, then was unable to find a new one to install and replace it.

Folks who had out of date apt package lists still had pointers to the now missing binaries and had a different set of problems.

I think it's something else because the docker image doesn't use apt and it also died.

[jonnyborbs]

So running sudo npm uninstall -g homebridge-config-ui-x

Followed by sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm homebridge-config-ui-x@4.53.0

brought the whole service back online, however there is still no hb-config binary on the system.

[brianld75]

sudo apt reinstall homebridge brought back the web UI for me, but now my entire Homebridge setup, plugins, devices, etc. is all gone.

[sdflyguy]

Same here, running in Docker , did a "Re deploy" in Portainer and everything came back as it was before (Only needed to update Node)

Can confirm. Using Portainer, a simple "recreate" and also re-pulling the image within the Homebridge container brought me back to the previous version. All plug-ins and config remained intact. Just had to update node again.

[ItsHaysus]

So running sudo npm uninstall -g homebridge-config-ui-x

Followed by sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm homebridge-config-ui-x@4.53.0

brought the whole service back online, however there is still no hb-config binary on the system.

yes i did this but no hb-config either

[jonnyborbs]

There are two parallel problems here and I think I see the common thread emerging. My hypothesis: Folks who had recently updated their apt package lists may no longer have had a reference for the homebridge package. The UI plugin update seems to have attempted an update/upgrade in place and removed the package, then was unable to find a new one to install and replace it. Folks who had out of date apt package lists still had pointers to the now missing binaries and had a different set of problems.

I think it's something else because the docker image doesn't use apt and it also died.

Yeah, you may be right. There are a lot of problems coming together at once here. Thanks for reporting though, hypotheses are meant to evolve when new data is presented!

[jonnyborbs]

The hb-config issue is so strange. That is a local binary, not a node package as far as I can tell. Where did it go? And why is there no homebridge package in the apt repositories anymore?

[Gobias64]

Worked for me sudo hb-config via pi user.

Choose update. if new version available it will solve problem. If not - reset, but you lose all data.

I tried this, but when I try to access Homebridge UI, it's still stuck saying Homebridge is "starting now"

Also, I'm still getting an error saying that hb-service is not found.

[rasmus050504]

sudo apt reinstall homebridge brought some kind of HB back in running state. Old HB, old Node.js, and I can not update anythin without HB crashing again. All my dummy switches ended in default room, and I have no devices from Zigbee2MQTT! My home automation is kind of f...ed now

[aspaviento]

What a disaster of 'Update available' (with the irony in the update text with a 'happy holidays'... yes I started to imagine to invest all my holidays restoring this ...): hb-service just gone, homebridge stopped working, everything gone.

To go back to the previous version (and your running configuration):

sudo npm -g install homebridge-config-ui-x@4.53.0

AVOID reinstall since you will lose your plugins and configuration.

Please somebody to rollback this update and make it working again. Big thanks to the homebridge team for the hard work of providing us new updates, but please be careful ...

[guillochon]

So running sudo npm uninstall -g homebridge-config-ui-x

Followed by sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm homebridge-config-ui-x@4.53.0

brought the whole service back online, however there is still no hb-config binary on the system.

This particular solution worked for me, however I didn't have the full nuclear "all the binaries are gone" thing happen to me. I'd recommend anyone troubleshooting this to ssh into their homebridge first and check if their hb-config still exists before running the above.

[nexusis7]

Same here, running in Docker , did a "Re deploy" in Portainer and everything came back as it was before (Only needed to update Node)

Can confirm. Using Portainer, a simple "recreate" and also re-pulling the image within the Homebridge container brought me back to the previous version. All plug-ins and config remained intact. Just had to update node again.

had to do the same with portainer. had to restore from backup. New node 20.* broke some of my plugins

[bL4zZ95]

sudo apt reinstall homebridge works on Raspberry Pi 👍

Thanks that works for me too.

[mnemo70]

Seems like v4.54.0 has been re-released with the correct size.

[jonnyborbs]

I see someone created a fork issue from this for hb-config explicitly - I wonder if this was just a part of the rather sweeping component rearchitecture intended in 4.54.0 but it was not documented in the changelog if so.

https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge-config-ui-x/issues/1913

@bwp91 @donavanbecker @jsiegenthaler just CCing you in since git blame on the changelog sent me your way 😄

[jonnyborbs]

Seems like v4.54.0 has been re-released with the correct size.

lol, someone other than me can try this out and report back. I've had my fill of excitement for the day 😂

[mnemo70]

I just did sudo npm -g install homebridge-config-ui-x and it works. Yay!

[brianld75]

Seems like v4.54.0 has been re-released with the correct size.

lol, someone other than me can try this out and report back. I've had my fill of excitement for the day 😂

I just tried it ... works!

[woeperbe]

Here also everything is messed up running on ubuntu server 20 Had to restore the virtual machine completely

[buzz-dee81]

sudo apt reinstall homebridge works on Raspberry Pi 👍

Did NOT work for me, reinstall failed with missing files / broken pipe.

had to sudo apt purge homebridge

and sudo apt install homebridge

make sure to copy you local backups before you do so as the purge will remove your data directories entirely (in my case it was under /var/lib/homebridge/backups/instance-backups )

after the install I restored from the backup file and had all running again within 5 min.

[kolorfilm]

I tried to update again from the ui and it worked for me as well! finally merry christmas! 🤣

[town3r]

Ugh I still get Unable to locate package homebridge even with the purge command.

[jonnyborbs]

Ugh I still get Unable to locate package homebridge even with the purge command.

if you have a recently updated package list, it simply is not there. where it went is another issue, I do not know.

[gleschnapi]

Possible solution

• download version 4.53.0 from GitHub
• Remove link who found at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-config-ui-x/
• Extract the tar.gz and copy the part homebridge-config-ui-x to /usr/local/lib/node_modules/
• For me all run fine now at the old version

this worked fine for me as well, thanks!!

[jonnyborbs]

Can now confirm that 4.54.0 installs properly from either the npm cli or the web UI if you did manage to get it working again.

Still no idea what the fate of hb-config as a command line utility was Still no idea why there is no longer a homebridge package in apt

Things do work again, however. For me, YMMV it seems!

[jeanchrijaz]

I just did sudo npm -g install homebridge-config-ui-x and it works. Yay!

this worked fine for me too 👍

[adavison007]

I just did sudo npm -g install homebridge-config-ui-x and it works. Yay!

this worked fine for me too 👍

Did it fix HB-Config?

[jonnyborbs]

I just did sudo npm -g install homebridge-config-ui-x and it works. Yay!

this worked fine for me too 👍

Did it fix HB-Config?

Nope, see my post above.

[nexusis7]

updated works now.

[rcoletti116]

Seems my problems are not so easily solved. The package is missing on mine and my attempts to fix are causing more complications. I have my backup files so may to save those and re-image.

[yogeshlonkar]

hb-config was missing for me as well, I'm using official homebridge-raspbian-image.

I was not able to reinstall homebridge via apt, but I copied https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge-raspbian-image/blob/latest/stage3_homebridge/01-homebridge/files/hb-config-new to /usr/local/sbin/ and ran update homebridge. From whatever state my instance was in, now it was back to working again.

Then I updated plugin again from UI and it's still working for me after update so looks like problem is fixed.

[jonnyborbs]

I still have a suspicion that the hb-config utility was removed intentionally, since the UI now allows you to do NPM and server upgrades directly from it. But this was not made explicit, and I think is adding to a lot of our confusion. I hope we can get a maintainer to weigh in here and tell us for sure.

For what it's worth, if this was intentional, I believe it was misguided. When the UI is not working, that utility is a lifesaver for manual intervention tasks.

[pandizajner]

I agree. The hb-config just saved me. After a long story of trying to put the service working back... I've run reinstallation of the homebridge-config-ui-x@4.53.0 and used hb-config with option 2 to update Homebridge. It didn't bump the version of UI, so I'm still 4.53.0 and the waiting update is there.

Btw. What's interesting, there's alrady 4.53.1 beta available. Anybody checked that?

[nexusis7]

the option to make a child plugin has disappeared

[jonnyborbs]

the option to make a child plugin has disappeared

This is probably a separate issue

[Gobias64]

I just did sudo npm -g install homebridge-config-ui-x and it works. Yay!

Worked for me, too! Thanks!

[databoy01]

This is the fix if you’re using raspberry pi

terminal into the pi using name :pi and password: raspberry once in

sudo apt reinstall homebridge

then

sudo reboot

[jonnyborbs]

This is the fix if you’re using raspberry pi

terminal into the pi using name :pi and password: raspberry once in

sudo apt reinstall homebridge

then

sudo reboot

As discussed many times, this is not a silver bullet. The package is not available in the current iteration of the buster or bullseye apt repositories and these commands do not succeed.

Still hoping we can find out why that is the case.

[databoy01]

This is the fix if you’re using raspberry pi terminal into the pi using name :pi and password: raspberry once in sudo apt reinstall homebridge then sudo reboot

As discussed many times, this is not a silver bullet. The package is not available in the current iteration of the buster or bullseye apt repositories and these commands do not succeed.

Still hoping we can find out why that is the case.

I’m saying it fixes mine back to how my homebridge was running before update and now again shows I should update to the version that kills my homebridge….

might not be the silver bullet as you say, but it gets it working like it was before update so I would consider that even better than how it behaved after the update.

[rasmus050504]

So I had to do the purge / install / restore backup, and I have a working HB. However all my automation in Apple Home which includes devices from HB (Dummy switches, Zigbee2MQTT devices) are corrupted, and have to be rebuild. This was the last time I did an update of HB unless it becomes strictly necessary!

[ghost-ps]

the option to make a child plugin has disappeared

I can't confirm that!

Only if the child plugin meant a child bridge …

[mnemo70]

This is the fix if you’re using raspberry pi

terminal into the pi using name :pi and password: raspberry once in

sudo apt reinstall homebridge

then

sudo reboot

That is like rebuilding the complete house (Homebridge) when the satellite dish (the Homebridge UI) is misadjusted.

[Madcat-76310]

I just did sudo npm -g install homebridge-config-ui-x and it works. Yay!

Worked for me too !

(use a backup on a Freebox Delta Virtual Machine too)

[Staubgeborener]

Do not attach artifacts to GitHub releases if the tarball is smaller than 10MB

(Source: https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge-config-ui-x/releases/tag/4.54.1) I think we can close this one.

[jonnyborbs]

Can we get some answers on the fate of hb-config before we do that @Staubgeborener? We are all looking for it and confused by its absence 😄