core: MVG Live integration is outdated and partially broken

The problem

The mvglive integration is build on top of the PyMVGLive module which has not been updated since May 2017. This leads to some problems documented in an issue from 2018 which remains open. This results in problems with stations, which have been changed since then. For Example “Hauptbahnhof” still returns valid results while “Pasing” does not.

When those broken stations are configured, Home Assistant displays Returned data not understood in the logs. I provided a minimal working YAML config with both, a working and a broken station.

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

2022.11.1

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

Integration causing the issue

mvglive

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/mvglive/

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

sensor:
  - platform: mvglive
    nextdeparture:
      - station: Hauptbahnhof
        name: mvg_hauptbahnhof
        number: 3
      - station: Pasing
        name: mvg_pasing
        number: 3

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

Logger: homeassistant.components.mvglive.sensor
Source: components/mvglive/sensor.py:148
Integration: mvglive (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 07:02:49 (7 occurrences)
Last logged: 07:05:49

Returned data not understood

Additional information

No response

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created 2 years ago
Reactions: 6
Comments: 34

Commits related to this issue

Replaces old deprecated python interface with new one based on #81760 — committed to fellnerse/core by fellnerse a year ago

Most upvoted comments

Progress update: Today I released the new underlying python package mvg on PyPI and the HA config dialog seems to work well with it. You’ll be able to either choose a station from list or select the nearest from coordinates. Configured HA coordinates are used as default. Results can be filtered by transport type and limited to a number of departures. Optionally an offset (e.g. walking distance) can be set to filter departures you won’t be able to catch any more:

grafik

+12

mondbaron on Feb 5, 2023

I can confirm the old mvglive integration has more and more problems. Luckily the mentioned new pypi package doesn’t seem to be affected by recent changes and is still working well, so I’m pushing my efforts towards the release of a new package called mvgapi to allow a smooth migration for everyone.

mondbaron on Jan 28, 2023

Glad to hear, there is some interest in this - this increases the motivation 😃 The PyPI package feels ready for the moment and I started working on the integration, which will be a complete rewrite to match the recent styleguide for integrations and include a nice config dialog to select the station and filter transport types.

But I could need some feedback: I still feel unsure about the way of presenting the results. At the moment my draft creates a sensor for each departure slot with its state value beeing the actual departure time. Additional information (e.g. line name, final destination, delay, …) is added to that sensor as additional attributes. The integration will be a “hub”, so it should be possible to add multiple configurations (e.g. different stations or different transport types) as separate devices. Do you think this would be convenient?

mondbaron on Nov 24, 2022

[…] 2. Using File Editor, adjust 2 files in config/custom_components/mvglive 2.1. Substitute old manifest with the new version 2.2. Substitute old sensor.yaml with the new version […]

Could you submit this as a pull request to the project?

That would make it easy for the devs to incorporate your fix for everyone.

richardwonka on Mar 14, 2023

I meanwhile made some progress by developing the new PyPI package mvgapi (https://github.com/mondbaron/mvgapi) using the more recent API of the MVG Website. Asynchronous methods and calls are included to keep Home Assistant responsive when using the integration on top of it. Let me know if there are already comments on that, while I’ll proceed to develop the “new” integration 😃

mondbaron on Nov 15, 2022

Hey, @mondbaron. Great achievement so far. Could you provide info how can we setup full component as on the screenshot above?

vpanichkin on Mar 7, 2023

Hey i would love to see your new integration for Home Assistant. What is the state of development for the Home Assistant integration?

Leopoldpaul on Nov 24, 2022

Well, as I didn’t see any further progress on this, I decided to fix at least old integration on my own. For that I took the new mvgapi library and patched old mvg live extension

Disclaimer: I don’t have any Python knowledge, hence it’s not ideal solution, but it works.

How to use it?

Create a backup (I know, 99% of people will skip this step, but you acknowledge 😅)
Using File Editor, adjust 2 files in config/custom_components/mvglive 2.1. Substitute old manifest with the new version 2.2. Substitute old sensor.yaml with the new version
Restart home assistant
You are brilliant, your sensors should be back again 😃

Small favour

I spent on this solution ~6 hours. I fully understand that helped the community and don’t demand anything from you. However, I would really appreciate if you donate a small amount of money to support Ukrainian Army🇺🇦 to make my home not only “smart”, but “peaceful” again 😃

🙏Charity link🙏: Visa, Mastercard, Google and Apple Pay are available

Side notes:

There shouldn’t be any changes to configuration.yaml needed (all previous configuration are reusable)
In the extra attributes there is a new additionall parameter: “cancelled”. You can use it to see if your transport was cancelled

Troubleshooting:

You still might have errors with not getting data. Check:

In case you use products, lines or directions in configuration.yaml - they all need to be a array, even if single value, e.g [“U2”]

Screenshots:

Example of mvglive custom_components folder to be edited
Extra property cancelled is exposed

vpanichkin on Mar 14, 2023

@mondbaron Is there already a proper Home Assistant way to install this (HACS, etc.)?

Leopoldpaul on Feb 7, 2023

I think the Api is down or gone.

Leopoldpaul on Jan 10, 2023

Progress update: Today I released the new underlying python package mvg on PyPI and the HA config dialog seems to work well with it. You’ll be able to either choose a station from list or select the nearest from coordinates. Configured HA coordinates are used as default. Results can be filtered by transport type and limited to a number of departures. Optionally an offset (e.g. walking distance) can be set to filter departures you won’t be able to catch any more:

@mondbaron : any updates here? this looks already really good.

And in general, the current implementation is not only “partially” broken, but complete broken. Thus a first quick fix as proposed from @vpanichkin would be great, then there can be still improvements in the future. I can also see that @fellnerse already provided this quick fix as PR (#97271) but also there seems to be no progress 😦

hille721 on Aug 21, 2023

I also added some hours and created a pr here: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/97271

fellnerse on Jul 26, 2023

Not sure what the status of this is, I just found the old integration and found it not working.

One feature I like from the old ‘deutschebahn’ integration is that it also offers the current delay, both as an attribute and as a ‘+n’ in the state string.

Seeing that I have to use S1 a lot, this is highly relevant to me. 😆😂😭

richardwonka on Feb 9, 2023

Glad to hear, there is some interest in this - this increases the motivation 😃

+1 😃

The integration will be a “hub”, so it should be possible to add multiple configurations (e.g. different stations or different transport types) as separate devices. Do you think this would be convenient?

In my case, it’s only one station to watch, but I could imagine living between two or three station would make this a helpful feature 😃

hoeni on Nov 24, 2022