Troubleshooting installation problems

It can happen that you run into trouble while installing Home Assistant. This page is here to help you solve the most common problems.

pip3: command not found

This utility should have been installed as part of the Python installation. Check if Python is installed by running python3 --version. If it is not installed, download it here.

If you are able to successfully run python3 --version but not pip3, install Home Assistant by running the following command instead:

$ python3 -m pip install homeassistant

On a Debian system, you can also install python3 by sudo apt-get install python3, and pip3 by sudo apt-get install python3-pip.

No module named pip

Pip should come bundled with the latest Python 3 but is omitted by some distributions. If you are unable to run python3 -m pip --version you can install pip by downloading the installer and running it with Python 3:

$ python3 get-pip.py

libyaml is not found or a compiler error

On a Debian system, install the Python 3 YAML library by sudo apt-get install python3-yaml.

distutils.errors.DistutilsOptionError: must supply either home or prefix/exec-prefix – not both

This is a known issue if you’re on a Mac using Homebrew to install Python. Please follow these instructions to resolve it.

No access to the frontend

In newer Linux distributions (at least Fedora > 22/CentOS 7) the access to a host is very limited. This means that you can’t access the Home Assistant frontend that is running on a host outside of the host machine. Windows and macOS machines may also have issues with this.

To fix this you will need to open your machine’s firewall for TCP traffic to port 8123. The method for doing this will vary depending on your operating system and the firewall you have installed. Below are some suggestions to try. Google is your friend here.

• Windows instructions
• macOS instructions

For systems with firewalld (Fedora, CentOS/RHEL, etc.):

$ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=8123/tcp
$ sudo firewall-cmd --reload

For UFW systems (Ubuntu, Debian, Raspbian, etc.):

$ sudo ufw allow 8123/tcp

For iptables systems (was the default for older distributions):

$ iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 8123 -j ACCEPT
$ iptables-save > /etc/network/iptables.rules  # your rules may be saved elsewhere

After upgrading, your browser login gets stuck at the “loading data” step

After upgrading to a new version, you may notice your browser gets stuck at the “loading data” login screen. Close the window/tab and go into your browser settings and delete all the cookies for your URL. You can then log back in and it should work.

Android Chrome chrome -> settings -> site settings -> storage -> search for your URL for Home Assistant-> “clear & reset”

Not initializing discovery because could not install dependency netdisco

If you see Not initializing discovery because could not install dependency netdisco==x.y.z in the logs, you will need to install the python3-dev or python3-devel package on your system manually (eg. sudo apt-get install python3-dev or sudo dnf -y install python3-devel). On the next restart of Home Assistant, discovery should work. If you still get an error, check if you have a compiler (gcc) available on your system.