C-Gate Command Error 401: (Object Not Found or Unauthorized)

[MtSamsonite]

Clarification request: Managed mode label import from .cbz succeeds, but C-Gate project/network may not be loaded for TreeXML discovery

Summary

Firstly, thank you for the work on this add-on. It is a very useful project, and the managed-mode approach is especially helpful for Home Assistant users who want a more self-contained C-Bus integration.

I am running into an issue in Home Assistant add-on managed mode where importing a Toolkit .cbz file through the C-Gate Web UI appears to successfully parse the project file and save the labels, but the managed C-Gate instance does not appear to have the actual project loaded into its C-Gate project database afterwards.

The bridge starts successfully, connects to the locally managed C-Gate process, connects to MQTT, and loads the imported labels. However, network discovery / TreeXML for network 254 repeatedly fails with C-Gate 401 Bad object or device ID. As a result, Home Assistant discovery does not populate the expected devices from the imported project.

I may be misunderstanding the intended managed-mode workflow, but it looks like there may be a distinction between:

• importing labels from .cbz / .xml, and
• loading or staging the actual Toolkit project into the managed C-Gate runtime.

If that distinction is intentional, some documentation or UI clarification would be very helpful.

Environment

• Home Assistant add-on: C-Gate Web Bridge
• Add-on version: 1.8.9
• C-Gate version started by add-on: Schneider Electric C-Gate(TM) v3.3.2 (build 1855)
• Mode: managed
• cgate_host: 127.0.0.1
• cgate_project: BURSWOOD
• getall_networks: [254]
• ha_discovery_networks: [254]
• ha_discovery_enabled: true
• MQTT broker: Home Assistant Mosquitto add-on 7.1.0

Steps to reproduce

1. Install and start the Home Assistant add-on in managed mode.
2. Configure the project name as BURSWOOD, host as 127.0.0.1, and network as 254.
3. Open the add-on Web UI.
4. Import a valid Toolkit .cbz file.
5. Confirm that the import completes and labels are saved.
6. Restart or start the add-on and allow managed C-Gate and the bridge to finish startup.
7. Observe the bridge logs during HA discovery / TreeXML discovery.

Expected behaviour

In managed mode, after importing a valid Toolkit .cbz / project file, I expected one of the following outcomes:

• the add-on loads, stages, or starts the imported project inside the managed C-Gate instance so that TreeXML / discovery can query it successfully; or
• the UI/documentation clearly explains that .cbz / .xml import is label-only, and that the C-Gate project must be loaded separately, including the supported process for doing that in managed mode; or
• if the project needs to be placed somewhere manually, the documentation clearly identifies the correct location and workflow — for example, whether it should be placed under /share, /share/cgate, /config, or another add-on-accessible path, and whether a restart/reload is then required.

Actual behaviour

The import appears to succeed as a label import, but managed C-Gate appears to start with a fresh configuration and discovery cannot query network 254.

Relevant startup/discovery log excerpt:

Schneider Electric C-Gate(TM) v3.3.2 (build 1855)
Config file not found.
Created new configuration file: C-GateConfig.txt
C-Gate is running.
...
INFO  [ConfigLoader] Using default label file path: /config/cgateweb-labels.json (will be created on first save)
INFO  [LabelLoader] Label file not found: /config/cgateweb-labels.json (will be created on first save)
INFO  [CgateConnectionPool-command] Initializing connection pool: 3 connections to 127.0.0.1:20023
INFO  [MqttManager] CONNECTED TO MQTT BROKER: core-mosquitto:1883
INFO  [connection-manager] ALL CONNECTED
INFO  [BridgeInitializationService] Network auto-discovery: C-Gate 401 Bad object or device ID.; using configured networks
INFO  [BridgeInitializationService] Network auto-discovery returned no networks; falling back to configured values
INFO  [HaDiscovery] HA Discovery enabled, querying network trees...
INFO  [HaDiscovery] Requesting TreeXML for network 254...
WARN  [bridge] C-Gate Command Error 401: (Object Not Found or Unauthorized) - Bad object or device ID.
WARN  [HaDiscovery] HA Discovery: TreeXML for network 254 failed (no response within timeout). Retrying in 2s (attempt 1/8).
...
WARN  [HaDiscovery] HA Discovery: TreeXML for network 254 failed (no response within timeout). Retrying in 60s (attempt 8/8).

[dougrathbone]

Hi @MtSamsonite, thanks for the detailed write-up - you diagnosed this exactly right. There is a distinction between the two operations, and it was not documented well enough. Sorry for the rough first run.

What was happening

The Web UI's .cbz / .xml import is labels-only. It parses the Toolkit archive to extract network/application/group names and saves them to the cgateweb label file so Home Assistant entity names look sensible. It never touches the managed C-Gate instance, so C-Gate sat there with no project loaded and tree 254 correctly returned 401 Bad object or device ID.

The two formats are also genuinely different - .cbz is C-Bus Toolkit's XML export, while C-Gate's runtime project database is a binary file at tag/<PROJECTNAME>.db. There is no general-purpose .cbz -> .db conversion path that runs without Toolkit, which is why managed mode could not just transparently consume the import.

What changed in 1.8.10

Released a minute ago, the add-on now supports a documented project-sync workflow for managed mode:

1. Build / export your project to a <PROJECTNAME>.db file (from C-Bus Toolkit on Windows, or copied out of an existing C-Gate's tag/ directory).
2. Place that .db file in /share/cgate/tag/ on your Home Assistant instance (accessible via Samba, SSH, or the File Editor add-on).
3. Restart the add-on. On startup it now syncs /share/cgate/tag/*.db into managed C-Gate's tag/ directory, then C-Gate loads the project named by cgate_project automatically.

The sync uses an mtime check so it will not clobber a .db that running C-Gate has written between restarts (only newer source files are copied). To force a re-sync, touch the file in /share/cgate/tag/ before restarting.

For your case specifically: build / export BURSWOOD.db, drop it at /share/cgate/tag/BURSWOOD.db, restart the add-on. TreeXML for network 254 should then succeed and HA Discovery should populate.

What also changed

• The Web UI's import response now returns scope: "labels-only" plus a notice field that explains it only saved labels and points to the managed-mode .db workflow. That should head off the same confusion for the next user.
• A new "Loading your C-Gate project in managed mode" section in DOCS.md walks through the workflow.

Roadmap

End-to-end .cbz -> managed C-Gate auto-import (where you upload a .cbz in the Web UI and the add-on stages it into C-Gate, runs project load, and persists the result) is a bigger piece of work and was deliberately not in scope for 1.8.10 - it needs a verified mapping between Toolkit's archive contents and the C-Gate project commands. If that is something you would find valuable I am happy to open a separate issue to scope it; in the meantime the .db sync above is the supported path.

Thanks again for the thorough report - the bit where you listed the three acceptable outcomes was particularly helpful for sizing this fix. Let me know if 1.8.10 unblocks you, or if anything is still unclear once you have tried it.