Helpers created with UI missing their Unique ID until browser refresh

[jpravetz]

The problem

For reasons probably similar to this issue, I end up with a helper that does not have a Unique ID and which I cannot delete.

If you open settings for the corresponding helper, you get this message:

This entity ('input_select.workshop_ac_state') does not have a unique ID, therefore its settings cannot be managed from the UI. See the documentation for more detail.

At the very least, the documentation should be helpful. But it is not, given the helper is provided by the core, and not an integration. Maybe there is a 3rd party cleanup tool that can help with this. So far I haven't found one.

Core 2024.11.1
Supervisor 2024.11.2
Operating System 13.2
Frontend 20241106.2
Home Assistant Yellow.

Expected

• A way that this can be fixed within the standard UI, or
• Updated documentation to indicate how to fix this, or
• Updated documentation that links to a github issue that encompasses the plan to fix this

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

2024.11.1

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

2024.11.1

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

Integration causing the issue

Core

Link to integration documentation on our website

No response

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

[IWR69]

Try pressing F5 to refresh the browser window.

[jpravetz]

Well low and behold that works. Thanks!
I wouldn't have thought the list to be locally cached, especially if stale. I suppose that is a bug in itself. The doc could be updated on this.

[whitakerz]

I am experiencing the same issue, however an F5 did not help for me. I also tried in "Incognito" mode on Chrome. It is there too.

I am not getting this message however "This entity ('input_select.workshop_ac_state') does not have a unique ID, therefore its settings cannot be managed from the UI. See the documentation for more detail."

I do not receive any error messages, I just have an orphaned Helper that was created by using the "Group" functions.
The Group is no longer present but the helper is present.

What can I do to assist in troubleshooting or how can I remove the helper?

[NikolajChristensen]

Try assigning the helper to another device, save, F5, and then "delete" becomes available. Has worked for me twice.

[vinegere]

I've observed similar issue during helper deletion on Home Assistant Core 2025.1.2, installed as a container. Browser where the problem was observed is Firefox 115.19.0esr.

The helper was first added manually via a Home Assistant GUI, after some time it was removed, also via a GUI - it was however visible in the GUI until the page was refreshed. The attempt to open settings was giving the error as described in the original report. I'm not able to reproduce the issue.

[evoncken]

Confirming that this issue still exists on latest HomeAssistant:

Core 2025.3.2
Supervisor 2025.03.2
Operating System 14.2
Frontend 20250306.0

Browser: Safari on macOS 15.3.1

Helpers created using UI, edited using UI. They get a red exclamation point warning icon until Cmd-R (Safari reload page on Apple). Extremely confusing behaviour.

[issue-triage-workflows]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates.
Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍
This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.