Homebridge isn't showing up!

Hi All,

I’m trying to get Homebridge running on my Raspberry Pi W. I have had it running previously on Rasbian Jessie, but have reset my Pi on Stretch and it doesn’t seem to work. Homebridge itself starts up fine, and shows me the HomeKit code to scan / use.

Hunting around, I suspect the issue is to do with Avahi - I think it isn’t publishing?

I’ve tried correcting nsswitch.conf, avahi’s config, disabling ipv6… I’d really appreciate some help getting this back up and running!

nsswitch.conf

hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4 mdns

avahi

[server]
#host-name=foo
#domain-name=local
#browse-domains=0pointer.de, zeroconf.org
use-ipv4=yes
use-ipv6=no
allow-interfaces=eth0,wlan0
#deny-interfaces=eth1
#check-response-ttl=no
#use-iff-running=no
#enable-dbus=yes
#disallow-other-stacks=no
#allow-point-to-point=no
#cache-entries-max=4096
#clients-max=4096
#objects-per-client-max=1024
#entries-per-entry-group-max=32
ratelimit-interval-usec=1000000
ratelimit-burst=1000

[wide-area]
enable-wide-area=yes

[publish]
#disable-publishing=no
#disable-user-service-publishing=no
#add-service-cookie=no
#publish-addresses=yes
publish-hinfo=no
publish-workstation=yes
#publish-domain=yes
#publish-dns-servers=192.168.50.1, 192.168.50.2
#publish-resolv-conf-dns-servers=yes
#publish-aaaa-on-ipv4=yes
#publish-a-on-ipv6=no

[reflector]
#enable-reflector=no
#reflect-ipv=no

[rlimits]
#rlimit-as=
rlimit-core=0
rlimit-data=4194304
rlimit-fsize=0
rlimit-nofile=768
rlimit-stack=4194304
rlimit-nproc=3

homebridge configuration

{
    "bridge": {
        "name": "Homebridge 2.0",
        "username": "CC:22:3D:E3:CE:32",
        "port": 51826,
        "pin": "031-45-156"
    },
    "description": "This is an example configuration file with one fake accessory and one fake platform. You can use this as a template for creating your own configuration file containing devices you actually own.",
    "platforms": [
        {
            "platform": "BelkinWeMo",
            "name": "WeMo Platform"
        },
        {
            "platform": "Flic",
            "name": "Flic",
            "controllers": [
                {"host": "localhost", "port": 5551}
            ]
        }
    ],
    "accessories": []
}

Log

May 11 12:33:59 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:33:59] Loaded plugin: homebridge-flic
May 11 12:33:59 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:33:59] Registering platform 'homebridge-flic.Flic'
May 11 12:33:59 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:33:59] ---
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] Loaded plugin: homebridge-platform-wemo
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] Registering platform 'homebridge-platform-wemo.BelkinWeMo'
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] ---
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] Loaded config.json with 0 accessories and 2 platforms.
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] ---
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] Loading 2 platforms...
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] [WeMo Platform] Initializing BelkinWeMo platform...
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] [Flic] Initializing Flic platform...
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:02] Loading 0 accessories...
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: Setup Payload:
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: X-HM://0023ISYX03O26
May 11 12:34:02 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: Scan this code with your HomeKit app on your iOS device to pair with Homebridge:
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: Or enter this code with your HomeKit app on your iOS device to pair with Homebridge:
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]:
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]:     ┌────────────┐
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]:     │ 031-45-156 │
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]:     └────────────┘
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]:
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:03] Homebridge is running on port 51826.
May 11 12:34:03 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:03] [Flic] Controller [localhost:5551] - Connected
May 11 12:34:05 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:05] [WeMo Platform] Online: Camille Lamp [94103EF6BF4360FA]
May 11 12:34:05 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:05] [WeMo Platform] Online: Michael Lamp [94103EF6BF43905C]
May 11 12:34:05 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:05] [WeMo Platform] Online: Living Room [1513857244]
May 11 12:34:05 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:05] [WeMo Platform] Offline: Dining Room [1512817675]
May 11 12:34:05 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:05] [WeMo Platform] Online: Dining Room [1513857260]
May 11 12:34:05 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:05] [WeMo Platform] Offline: Living Room [1500776415]
May 11 12:34:08 raspberrypi homebridge[425]: [2018-5-11 12:34:08] [WeMo Platform] Online: Living Room Lamp [94103EF6BF441FE4]

[AppleTechy]

I would also suggest using “Discover - DNS- SD Browser” available on the IOS App store. Under the local domain something called _hap.tcp_ should show up along with the name of your Homebridge Server’s name.

[mikesena]

Good progress.

Running avahi-browse -a from my box didn’t show anything on my local box, which made me suspect Homebridge / NodeJS wasn’t able to connect / work with Avahi. I had missed a step in preparing Homebridge, when running as something OTHER than root. Maybe this is the case for you @vinnyfiore? sudo usermod -a -G avahi pi

Restarting the service meant that the ‘pi’ user my homebridge service was configured to run as had Avahi privilages and worked. Hazzah!

That installation was quite tainted by hacking installs & configurations I’d done trying to work this out, so I wiped the device again and installed Stretch, NodeJS 8.9.x and Homebridge without running any specific updates, or any other Homebridge plugins other than WeMo and that worked.

So I believe there is still a dependency conflict somewhere. I’ll try it again later once I’ve backed up the image on the card so I don’t lose my working configuration again.

So my installation has been:

1. Download & write stretch to the SD card
2. Create the blank ‘ssh’ & configured ‘wpa_supplicant.config’ file. Connect via SSH to the pi.
3. Run raspi-config.
4. Update (not upgrade) the sources list, and install the one dependency: sudo apt update; sudo apt install libavahi-compat-libdnssd-dev
5. Install node: wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero/master/install-node-v8.9.0.sh | bash
6. Install homebridge: npm -g i homebridge homebridge-platform-wemo
7. Grant the executing user avahi access: sudo usermod -a -G avahi pi
8. Copy over Homebridge config to $HOME/.homebridge
9. Copy over Homebridge service & environment file. Reload daemon, enable & start.