Reolink doorbell ONVIF pushes no longer being received in 2023.4.6

[jeffc]

The problem

I was having issues with doorbell events (specifically the "visitor" state, though I didn't do much testing of the others) as described in #91030. When I upgraded to 2023.4.5, which included the fix, my issues mostly went away -- doorbell presses were occasionally delayed, but seemed to reliably show up. Since upgrading to 2023.4.6, I haven't been able to receive any doorbell press events at all. I tried rebooting the camera, deleting and re-adding the integration, and restarting home assistant. None of these things seemed to help. After my latest reboot, I haven't seen the "failed to call webhook" warning, so I believe that the onvif callback is indeed registering.

Debug logging is turned on for reolink, and I've attached my logs in case they help.

Thank you so much for your work on this integration!

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2023.4.6

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

core-2023.4.5

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Container

Integration causing the issue

reolink

Link to integration documentation on our website

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

Diagnostics information

home-assistant_2023-04-26T04-52-20.904Z.log

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

[home-assistant[bot]]

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[aalllop]

I have the same version and the same problem. I never get the visitor notification on HA with any version. I have uninstalled serveral times the integration with no luck

[starkillerOG]

@jeffc I do not see anything strange in your debug log, I do see the initial ONVIF push comming in. Could you press the doorbell while making a debug log and tell me at which time (hour, minute, second) you pressed the doorbell, I can then look in the log and see what the ONVIF message looks like.

I also saw your doorbell is on firmware v3.0.0.2017_23041200, Reolink pulled this firmware from there website because it apperently had bugs, so you may consider downgrading the firmware again... (not sure if that does something).

Thank you very much for sponsering the Reolink integration.

[starkillerOG]

@aalllop Could you also make a debug log while you first restart HomeAssistant and then press the doorbell and tell me at which exact time you pressed the doorbell? It might be a network configuration issue in your case. Do you see any repair issues about the reolink integration? Do you have a SSL certificate configured?

If you appreciate the reolink integration and want to support its development, please consider sponsering the upstream library or purchase Reolink products through this affiliate link.

[jeffc]

@starkillerOG Sorry for the slow response; life has been hectic lately. I downgraded back to the latest stable firmware, but that didn't seem to make much difference. I also did as you asked to test the integration, and have attached the log. I rang the bell three times: once at ~19:52, which was successfully received by home assistant. Once the visitor state returned to off, I rang it again at ~19:53. This was not received. I then rang it one more time at 19:57, and this was also not received.

(ps - please excuse my configuration issues from other components in the log... I need to clean up my configs, but those shouldn't be impacting this!) home-assistant_2023-05-11T23-57-46.008Z.log

[starkillerOG]

@jeffc In the first debug log (2023-04-26) you send, I could see the ONVIF events comming in. In the second debug log (2023-05-11) I don't see any ONVIF events comming in, unfortunately the debug logging for the reolink integration was not enabled at startup, so I can't see the subscription process to the ONVIF ws base notifications.

Did you change anything in your network between 2023-04-26 and 2023-05-11? Did the IP of the homeassistant device or the doorbell change? Did you change the local internal HTTP adress setting in HomeAssistant?

Most likely this is a network configuration issue.

Could you first enable debug logging, then restart homeassistant, then press the doorbell (note down the times) and post the log, then I can also see if something goes wrong in the ONVIF subscription during startup.

[jeffc]

@starkillerOG Thanks for the quick reply. I restarted Home Assistant with debug logging enabled and pressed the bell (at 10:28). I didn't get any state changes in the camera. Log attached.

There haven't been any changes to the network or network configs; the Home Assistant server and the camera both have fixed IP addresses, and I haven't changed the nginx configuration in a while either. My only other thought is that I've noticed on my phone that the wifi is occasionally spotty near the front door. I'm reasonably certain the camera isn't dropping off the network (I can stand there and watch myself on the camera pressing the doorbell button, plus the reolink app notifications work fine), but maybe momentary disconnects throughout the day are somehow messing with the ONVIF subscription somehow? If that is the issue I can try running ethernet to the doorbell, but that's going to be a bit of a project.

Thanks again for your hard work on this integration!

home-assistant_2023-05-12T14-30-21.034Z.log

[starkillerOG]

@jeffc I did notice your doorbell has firmware v3.0.0.1859_23030900, while a newer firmware is available v3.0.0.2033_23041300, you can dowload it here https://reolink.com/download-center/. Maybe that helps....

I see the initial ONVIF push comming in, but then I never see another push message anymore, I know there were some issues with firmware 1859, so it might just be that. However it does seem very weird.

I also noticed you have a couple of other integrations/automations that are requesting data from the Reolink doorbell: integration blueiris Running command: python3 bin/blue_iris_cam_status_ha.py doorbell and possibly others. It might be that you are hitting the maximum limit of ONVIF WS base notification subscriptions. Could you try temporarly disabeling all other integrations or applications (like a NAS that connects to the doorbell) that access the doorbell, then restart HomeAssistant (while keeping everything disabled) and then see if you still have problems when only using the Reolink integration.

[jeffc]

@starkillerOG Thanks for the note about the firmware -- I upgraded the firmware last week... four days before this new one came out. I upgraded it again today.

I think the culprit may end up being Blue Iris (the actual program, not the integration). None of the integrations you listed were requesting information from the camera (the blueiris integration is loaded but disabled, and the python script actually makes an http request to the Blue Iris server to check if it thinks it has a connection to the camera.

I had all of the ONVIF trigger options disabled in BI, but I think it may have been creating subscription(s) to the camera anyways. First I disabled the camera in BI, and the doorbell button seemed to work. Then I reenabled it, but I changed the BI ONVIF port to an invalid one (changed the default 8000 to 7999) so that it wouldn't be capable of creating subscriptions to the camera. It appears to still work well. I'll let it soak for a few hours and try it again, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Thank you so much for your help and support! I really appreciate the work you've put in, both working on this integration (and the library that powers it) and on helping folks like me with their issues. Cheers!

[jeffc]

Alas, I think I spoke too soon. A few minutes after I posted my last comment, I had some real-life visitors ring the doorbell and HA didn't notice.

I'm going to disable BI on this camera for now and see if that helps, but hopefully there's a workaround if that is the issue -- I'd really like to be able to keep recording the stream with BI and still get notifications in HA.

Thanks again!

home-assistant_2023-05-12T18-49-08.654Z.log

(edit - it looks like debug logging may have turned itself off for this log, sorry :( )

[starkillerOG]

Thanks for sponsering, it is a strange issue I have not seen before. All entities keep being available right, they don't go to an unavailable state?

[jeffc]

yep, that's correct (I did have a weird dropout earlier today, but not while I was testing and it wasn't something I'd seen before). I've been testing sporadically over the last few hours, and my new theory is that having enabled the snapshots camera (and possibly attaching the qrcode integration to it) may have swamped/confused the camera by sending too many HTTP requests. With the snapshots camera and BI both disabled, it seems (at least so far) to work reliably. I'm going to try reenabling BI for an hour or so to see if it continues to work.

If that is the problem, it's an easy fix, since I can just pull snapshots from BI instead of directly from the camera.

Update/edit - that wasn't it. Thankfully I have lots of visitors today to test this out with? :upside_down_face:

[chris-a-j]

I've just installed a Wifi Doorbell and found this thread, since I was having similar issues and wondered whether there were any known issues. Notably, the original firmware that came on the camera was not causing me problems, but since updating to Reolink's latest v3.0.0.2033_23041300, it appears to be missing button presses. I am runningHome Assistant 2023.5.3.

I think this is to do with how the camera recovers from a Wifi drop out. The failure to receive button pushes always seems to happen if the camera suffered a brief disconnection from the network. According to my Unifi setup, my camera is dropping off occasionally for a couple of seconds, despite seemingly having a good strong signal (-57dB).

[starkillerOG]

@chris-a-j do you have internet blocked for the doorbell or not? Dropping wifi seems like a plausible cause for these issues, if that is the case, the problem is most likely in the doorbell firmware and not on the HomeAssistant side.

It would be wise to contact Reolink support and explain the issue, perhaps they can do something at the firmware side.

[chris-a-j]

Yes internet is blocked. I didn't think about that. I'm in contact with Reolink at the moment regarding another issue with the firmware and they are sending me a custom firmware for testing. I will ask that they address this also and I will feed back any findings here.

[cliffkujala]

I think this is to do with how the camera recovers from a Wifi drop out. The failure to receive button pushes always seems to happen if the camera suffered a brief disconnection from the network.

IDK about the above. While of course unstable Wi-Fi connections can cause problems, I have the same inconsistent doorbell press notifications, and I'm wired up with POE. Camera will stay up 100% of the time unless I restart it.

[starkillerOG]

@chris-a-j could you try unblocking the internet for a test and see if it then does register all doorbell presses? Note that on the HomeAssistant side blocking the internet is not a problem and a supported way of operation. I just want to know if internally in the doorbell firmware there might be a bug related to not having internet acces. Perhaps the doorbell tries to contact some reolink server, times out because internet is blocked causing some error that prevents the local ONVIF push from beeing sent.

It would be very valiable information for Reolink firmware engineers to know that this is or is not specific to blocking internet acces.

[starkillerOG]

@cliffkujala do you also have internet blocked on the doorbell?

[cliffkujala]

@cliffkujala do you also have internet blocked on the doorbell?

I do not currently have the cameras blocked for internet access.

I do have all my cameras in a different VLAN specific for cameras, but with ZERO firewall between my cameras and Home Assistant during this testing phase (plus I have a relay running on the network for mDNS and SSDP). I won't turn on any firewall until the camera is working correctly.

For info, UniFi Doorbell presses on this same network setup are rock solid consistent and near instantaneous, so unless there is a specific ONVIF issue with my network, I see no reason that my VLAN should be causing the issues.

[chris-a-j]

@starkillerOG Reolink have sent me a firmware v3.0.0.2153_23051501 to test. I have not noticed any dropouts since then, or any missed doorbell events - but I haven't been testing it for long enough to say whether this actually solved the problem. For now I will leave the doorbell isolated from the internet, so that I don't change too many variables at once in order for me to be able to narrow down the problem.

I have sent a request to Reolink to provide information on whether there is any code in the firmware that would potentially cause the doorbell to trigger a Wifi reconnection attempt, if no internet connectivity is found. As soon as they respond, I will post here to advise.

[chris-a-j]

As above, I have received a reply from Reolink already. They said that their engineers have advised a connectivity check is performed, but the method would not cause the doorbell to attempt a reconnect to the Wifi SSID if no internet is found. So the doorbell should happily run in an offline status. He also said that there have been no other reports of this problem, so we are the first. I'm not sure I believe that second bit, but there you go!

With your permission, I could share the updated firmware that I received, in order to see whether this fixes anything for others (assuming that these firmwares are not device specific?)

[KarelKempenaers]

Hello

I’m following this thread for a few weeks now. I have the same issue: when I installed my doorbell everything worked perfectly fine. Since a few weeks ago I was not linger receiving alerts in home assistant that the doorbell was pressed. I enabled the Reolink app alerts again: every push is alerted in the app. but only the first attempt is received by home assistant .

I installed all the doorbell FW versions I could find: issue is always the same. I noticed the issues after a few days that I did not received a package from the postman. So can’t say on wich HA version the issues started.

for the moment I’m on FW: v3.0.0.2033_23041302 Home Assistant 2023.5.3 Supervisor 2023.04.1 Operating System 10.1

My doorbell is PoE type and has internet connection. It is configured to restart every Sunday night. I also have BlueIris running, and these gets a good video feed. However BI is nothing configured to receive ONVIF events.

Don’t not if I can do anything to help: otherwise let me know!

[Kevincoenen]

As above, I have received a reply from Reolink already. They said that their engineers have advised a connectivity check is performed, but the method would not cause the doorbell to attempt a reconnect to the Wifi SSID if no internet is found. So the doorbell should happily run in an offline status. He also said that there have been no other reports of this problem, so we are the first. I'm not sure I believe that second bit, but there you go!

With your permission, I could share the updated firmware that I received, in order to see whether this fixes anything for others (assuming that these firmwares are not device specific?)

I'm having similar issues with my Reolink WiFi Doorbell in Home Assisstant and Synology Surveillance Station. The device becomes unavailable in Home Assistant multiple times per day even though it's connected through a LAN cable. Most of the times this happens when someone presses the doorbell or walks by. I also added an ICMP sensor for the doorbell, and every time it's unavailable for Home Assistant it's offline for 10 seconds in the ICMP sensor. I even got a replacement unit this week, but the problem is the same for the new unit. I contacted Reolink again, so I'm curious if they also send me a new firmware. But I'm also willing to test the firmware you received as I have tried many things the last few days..

[chris-a-j]

@Kevincoenen Please see link below for custom firmware 2153 for Wifi Doorbell only: https://we.tl/t-HGBlio5vPR

Just so you know, this firmware addresses another unrelated issue that I was having with the doorbell when recording 24/7 to my Synology NAS. I was finding that the video was choppy when playing back recorded footage if "constant frame rate" was used in the camera main settings. This firmware version completely fixes that problem and the video is now smooth recording at maximum quality settings 24/7. Perhaps you were also experiencing this with your Synology? Nevertheless, I also have not yet experienced any missed doorbell events since using this firmware, including the notifications that are fed into Homekit (uses my Homepod as a doorbell chime). Coincidence maybe, or did Reolink quietly fix something?

Please report back your findings.

[Kevincoenen]

@Kevincoenen Please see link below for custom firmware 2153 for Wifi Doorbell only: https://we.tl/t-HGBlio5vPR

Just so you know, this firmware addresses another unrelated issue that I was having with the doorbell when recording 24/7 to my Synology NAS. I was finding that the video was choppy when playing back recorded footage if "constant frame rate" was used in the camera main settings. This firmware version completely fixes that problem and the video is now smooth recording at maximum quality settings 24/7. Perhaps you were also experiencing this with your Synology? Nevertheless, I also have not yet experienced any missed doorbell events since using this firmware, including the notifications that are fed into Homekit (uses my Homepod as a doorbell chime). Coincidence maybe, or did Reolink quietly fix something?

Please report back your findings.

Thanks, I also got the same Firmware from Reolink itself as I still got a Support Case with them. After installing the new Firmware, doing a factory reset and only adding the camera stream to Synology Surveillance Station (disabling the camera streams in Home Assistant) the device seems much more stable. I think the main problem is that the device does not support multiple Main streams, as the device was stable for multiple hours but when setting the Recording quality to High instead of Balanced in the App for Reolink Cloud it started crashing again. Setting the quality back to Balanced made the device stable again for a few hours now.

I think I sometime have a situations where I have 3 Streams "open". The Reolink App itself, Reolink Cloud Recordings and Synology Surveillance Station, and this makes the device crash or something. I asked Reolink if this is true, but I have not received an answer as of yet. Reading this Reddit Posts (https://www.reddit.com/r/reolinkcam/comments/13e2w92/comment/jkyczk1/?context=3) seems to confirm that the device has a limit to the multiple of simultaneous streams. So I'll wait for a reply from Reolink then.

[chris-a-j]

Interesting. I've just tested my doorbell to see what would happen by opening full quality stream on Reolink app and the Homekit camera on my Mac (which uses the main stream from the doorbell via Home Assistant), whilst simultaneously recording at full bit rate & frame rate to the Synology NAS. I was actually expecting it to crash the camera based on what you said, but it remained stable for 15 minutes of testing. From this, I gather that the new 'unoffical' firmware may not have the ONVIF stream limit that you mention and as long as the Wifi uplink doesn't get saturated, it will run fine.

I'd be interested to hear what Reolink says and also whether others who experience missed ONVIF events as per the original title of this thread, notice a difference with the above firmware.

[starkillerOG]

@chris-a-j good to hear your problems were resolved with the new firmware from Reolink. As long as you clearly state it is beta firmware and that it can only be used for the WIFI doorbell and that using beta firmware is at your own risk, I am perfectly fine with sharing it.

@Kevincoenen yes you might indeed be overloading the camera with two many high resolution streams. A reolink NVR supports:

supports up to 12 simultaneous video streams (10 substreams & 2 mainstreams)

As per the specs: https://reolink.com/product/rln8-410/#specifications

The doorbell probably has less processing power so it may support less simultaneous streams.

Good to hear you also got it working on the beta firmware with disabeling a few high res streams.

Hopefully Reolink will publish a official firmware soon :)

[aalllop]

If the notification doesn't work, update firmware and then reset the doorbell to factory

[starkillerOG]

This PR https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/94770 which is merged will add a aditional long polling fallback for receiving events (motion/people/visitor etc)

It will be included in HomeAssistant 2023.7 which will be released July 5th 2023. Therefore I think it is save to close this issue.

If you still experiance problems when on the latest doorbell firmware and on HA 2023.7, please let me know.

If you appreciate the reolink integration and want to support its development, please consider sponsering the upstream library or purchase Reolink products through this affiliate link.

[DAM21]

@chris-a-j

Do you still happen to have the custom firmware? Experiencing the same and came across this post. Thanks in advance.