A sensor grouping power sensors went crazy

[michalk-k]

System Health details

System Information

version	core-2024.6.4
installation_type	Home Assistant OS
dev	false
hassio	true
docker	true
user	root
virtualenv	false
python_version	3.12.2
os_name	Linux
os_version	5.10.17-v8
arch	aarch64
timezone	Europe/Prague
config_dir	/config

Home Assistant Community Store

GitHub API	ok
GitHub Content	ok
GitHub Web	ok
GitHub API Calls Remaining	5000
Installed Version	1.34.0
Stage	running
Available Repositories	1390
Downloaded Repositories	35

Home Assistant Cloud

logged_in	true
subscription_expiration	August 14, 2024 at 02:00
relayer_connected	true
relayer_region	eu-central-1
remote_enabled	true
remote_connected	true
alexa_enabled	false
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remote_server	eu-central-1-4.ui.nabu.casa
certificate_status	ready
instance_id	3cb0d3fbab1e44f98797c10448afb4d1
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can_reach_cloud_auth	ok
can_reach_cloud	ok

Home Assistant Supervisor

host_os	Home Assistant OS 6.6
update_channel	stable
supervisor_version	supervisor-2024.06.2
agent_version	1.2.1
docker_version	20.10.8
disk_total	109.3 GB
disk_used	19.9 GB
healthy	true
supported	failed to load: Unsupported
host_connectivity	true
supervisor_connectivity	true
ntp_synchronized	true
virtualization
board	rpi4-64
supervisor_api	ok
version_api	ok
installed_addons	Advanced SSH & Web Terminal (18.0.0), Studio Code Server (5.15.0), Mosquitto broker (6.4.1), File editor (5.8.0), Glances (0.21.1), Node-RED (18.0.2), Home Assistant Google Drive Backup (0.112.1), Log Viewer (0.17.0), UniFi Network Application (3.1.0), Zigbee2MQTT (1.39.0-1)

Dashboards

dashboards	10
resources	26
views	63
mode	storage

Recorder

oldest_recorder_run	August 4, 2024 at 13:27
current_recorder_run	August 4, 2024 at 23:01
estimated_db_size	2003.11 MiB
database_engine	sqlite
database_version	3.44.2

Checklist

• [X] I have read the FAQ to see if there is a known solution to my problem.
• [X] I have enabled debug logging for my installation.
• [X] I have filled out the issue template to the best of my ability.
• [X] This issue only contains 1 issue (if you have multiple issues, open one issue for each issue).
• [X] This issue is not a duplicate issue of currently previous issues..

Describe the issue

Recently one of PowerCalc started to generate impossible values.

Here are involved entities:

1. Bedroom socket (energy) - PowerCalc sensor generated from the power sensor below
   • pg_socket_bedroom_power - PowerCalc sensor groups 2 sensors being a source for one above
     • Bedroom Wall Lights Negative Power
     • plug_bedroom Socket 3 Power.

It seems that it's caused by the interruption of power measurement of Bedroom Walllights Negative Power entity Having both images one below another, the correlation seems obvious.

Have no exact times, but this day I did multiple restarts of HA. Those holes in measurement may be related to that. Potentially, bad data might have been triggered by HA restart.

Since this started to happening, Bedroom socket energy PowerCalc sensor reports skipping state ... probably erroneous value or sensor was reset flooding HA logs, so I lost the moment the situation started to happening.

I'm not expecting any instant fix or so. I can imagine it might be near impossible. Just wanted to notify it happens the. Currently I disabled this entity, have to clean statistics data of 2 recent days for entities handling light energy. (several). But don't know what to do with this power PowerCalc entity. HOw to reset it, or have I drop it and create again

Reproduction steps

...

Debug logs

No logs for something that has already happened

Diagnostics dump or YAML config

No response

[bramstroker]

Powercalc groups does not support negative figures for an energy sensor. It expects it to only ever increase in value. So that would probably be the reason for this issue. Not sure how a wall switch in your bedroom is generating power?

I might have a look into supporting negative energy for powercalc groups in the future. For now I will make sure to put a note in the docs.

If you want to clean up history data of the power entity I think you'll need to alter data in statistics and statistics_short_term tables in the DB.

[michalk-k]

Good catch with this negative values sensor

I have a template sensor representing the negative power of lights because those lights share the same source with other non-lights devices. So to measure the power of the latter, I have to reduce the consumption of the whole string by light power.

It worked this way for a really long time. Interestingly, you are saying it might be the culprit of the issue. If it's sensitive to that, I had to workaround it a different way.

Thank you

[michalk-k]

@bramstroker I have real troubles to fix those data. Every time I update bad data to proper values, the subsequently created record into statistics and short term ones includes the unwanted value. Ie I reduced selected historical records by about 200kWh, but then the next created record gets again 200kWh over expected value.

I was supposing the recorder, so turned it off for the time needed for this operation, then restarted HA, but it didn't help. Tried to stop whole HA, but then I had no access to sqllite editor (yes, I can copy the db to PC, update data and upload fixed db back)

Do you know the easier method? Maybe disabling sensors created by PowerCalc and then enabling them afterward? ... Something less invasive than moving db file out of HA.

[bramstroker]

@michalk-k I suspect restore data data, which powercalc and other HA entities uses to restore the sensor to latest known value after startup. These are stored in config/.storage/core.restore_state. Also powercalc stores last know state of individual energy entities in config/.storage/powercalc_group. You could have a look into both files and correct the data there. Next restart. Hope this solves the issue.

[bramstroker]

Btw, today I worked on a subtracting group sensor. Just finished that development, will be in next release. Might also be useful for your use case:

https://docs.powercalc.nl/sensor-types/group/subtract/

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This issue was closed because it has been stalled for 5 days with no activity.