core: Home Assistant not working after upgrade to 0.83.3 (probably Openzwave related)

Home Assistant release with the issue:

0.83

Last working Home Assistant release (if known): 0.82.1

Operating environment (Hass.io/Docker/Windows/etc.): Debian linux

Component/platform: Probably related to open z-wave

Description of problem: I just migrated my home assistant configuration from a raspberry pi to a NUC. Everything seemed to work fine, but since I was already a few versions behind (I think I was on 0.81.x) I decided to upgrade to the latest version, 0.83.3.

After that, I’m unable to use home assistant. When I start home assistant, I see these errors in the log:

Dec 07 11:02:05 nuc hass[440]: TypeError: expected bytes, NoneType found
Dec 07 11:02:05 nuc hass[440]: Exception ignored in: 'libopenzwave.str_to_cppstr'
Dec 07 11:02:05 nuc hass[440]: TypeError: expected bytes, NoneType found

and in the OZW_log is only see:

2018-12-07 11:02:05.561 Always, OpenZwave Version 1.4.3254 Starting Up

I’m unable to reach the UI of home assistant, even though parts of home assistent seem to be running, because when I enable logging for MQTT, I see messages coming in.

Problem-relevant configuration.yaml entries and (fill out even if it seems unimportant):

zwave:
  usb_path: /dev/ttyACM0
  
  

Traceback (if applicable):

Additional information: OS: Debian GNU/Linux 9 system: Intel NUC D34010WYK z-wave: Aeotec USB Z-Stick

I have home assistant running in a virtual env

I did some more testing: When I downgrade to 0.82.1, everything works fine. When I upgrade to 0.83, the problem is present again.