[Bug]: toggling between accent mode and non-accent mode seems to result in chaos

[ericblade]

System Health details

System Information

version	core-2026.5.4
installation_type	Home Assistant OS
dev	false
hassio	true
docker	true
container_arch	amd64
user	root
virtualenv	false
python_version	3.14.2
os_name	Linux
os_version	6.12.85-haos
arch	x86_64
timezone	America/New_York
config_dir	/config

Home Assistant Community Store

GitHub API	ok
GitHub Content	ok
GitHub Web	ok
HACS Data	ok
GitHub API Calls Remaining	4986
Installed Version	2.0.5
Stage	running
Available Repositories	3182
Downloaded Repositories	49

Home Assistant Cloud

logged_in	false
can_reach_cert_server	ok
can_reach_cloud_auth	ok
can_reach_cloud	ok

Home Assistant Supervisor

host_os	Home Assistant OS 17.3
update_channel	stable
supervisor_version	supervisor-2026.05.1
agent_version	1.8.1
docker_version	29.3.1
disk_total	292.7 GB
disk_used	21.6 GB
nameservers	75.76.160.3, 75.76.160.4
healthy	true
supported	true
host_connectivity	true
supervisor_connectivity	true
ntp_synchronized	true
virtualization
board	generic-x86-64
supervisor_api	ok
version_api	ok
installed_addons	Increase Swap (1.4.1), Z-Wave JS (1.3.0), Advanced SSH & Web Terminal (23.0.9), Mosquitto broker (7.1.0), Matter Server (8.5.0), Matterbridge (2026.5.4), Home Assistant MCP Server (7.6.0)

Dashboards

dashboards	8
resources	17
views	5
mode	storage

Network Configuration

adapters	lo (disabled), eno1 (enabled, default, auto), hassio (disabled), docker0 (disabled), veth419b83f (disabled), veth279590c (disabled), vethd02d4da (disabled), veth3210211 (disabled), vethc2dcb24 (disabled), veth5181601 (disabled), vethccacd64 (disabled), vethecb6f9b (disabled)
ipv4_addresses	lo (127.0.0.1/8), eno1 (192.168.0.3/24), hassio (172.30.32.1/23), docker0 (172.30.232.1/23), veth419b83f (), veth279590c (), vethd02d4da (), veth3210211 (), vethc2dcb24 (), veth5181601 (), vethccacd64 (), vethecb6f9b ()
ipv6_addresses	lo (::1/128), eno1 (fd3c:b219:2ce4:f486:c789:2662:b95b:d370/64, fe80::1d97:9f0a:6bb2:4bd8/64), hassio (fd0c:ac1e:2100::1/48, fe80::cca1:f3ff:fe01:7671/64), docker0 (fe80::40fc:49ff:feef:ddd5/64), veth419b83f (fe80::8cae:92ff:fe11:3573/64), veth279590c (fe80::e008:9ff:fe72:695b/64), vethd02d4da (fe80::a03c:4dff:fefa:48db/64), veth3210211 (fe80::804b:58ff:feb3:276b/64), vethc2dcb24 (fe80::7830:64ff:fef3:207a/64), veth5181601 (fe80::a48d:d5ff:fec6:100f/64), vethccacd64 (fe80::9022:4aff:fe05:a54e/64), vethecb6f9b (fe80::c44c:2ff:feae:b4e3/64)
announce_addresses	192.168.0.3, fd3c:b219:2ce4:f486:c789:2662:b95b:d370, fe80::1d97:9f0a:6bb2:4bd8

Recorder

oldest_recorder_run	May 17, 2026 at 9:07 PM
current_recorder_run	May 26, 2026 at 6:11 AM
estimated_db_size	799.82 MiB
database_engine	sqlite
database_version	3.49.2

Checklist

• I have enabled debug logging for my installation.
• I have filled out the issue template to the best of my ability.
• This issue only contains 1 issue (if you have multiple issues, open one issue for each issue).
• This issue is not a duplicate issue of any previous issues..

Describe the issue

I'm attempting to sanity check Magic Areas handling of lighting, and toggling between states while lighting is active. It doesn't seem to work correctly. Toggling accented mode while lighting is not active then making it active works, but toggling accented mode while lighting is active seems like chaos.

I have a remote button that toggles my input binary helper configured for accented mode. I turn on accented mode, I walk into the room, I do stuff until extended timer elapses. I witness that the accented lights remain the only lights on (this is what I expect, although it wouldn't surprise me if extended overrode accented). Then I toggle accented off. The overhead lights correctly come on. Then I toggle accented back on. I expect the overhead lights to turn off. Instead, ALL of the lights turn off.

Alternatively, I do the opposite -- start with accent mode off, walk in, wait until all the lights come on in extended mode. I turn accented mode on, and the lights switch correctly. I turn accented mode off, and all the lights go out except for one of the fireplace lights (the right hand side one), which makes no sense at all (unless it just missed the off command somehow).

If I don't wait for the extended mode, and just start slamming the accented mode on/off, the accent lights toggle on/off correctly the first time, and then the second and future times, all the other lights go off.

Might proceed by writing a separate automation that shuts off Magic Areas automatic handling and just turns on the accent lights by hand, then returns control to magic areas when i turn it off.

As an aside, Claude says that there's no possible way it could handle toggling of modes "that rapidly" (twice in 20 seconds), but that seems insane that something couldn't handle toggling a bool that quickly without losing track of things.

Reproduction steps

1. Enter a room to turn on the lights
2. Toggle accented mode on/off/on
3. Observe
   ...
   May also Enter a room, wait until Extended mode begins, then toggle accented mode on/off for potentially differing results

Debug logs

Logs show nothing at all related to the integration.

Diagnostics dump

No response

[jseidl]

Let me first try to understand what seems to be your intention:

• When first entering the room, you want the "Task Lights" group to turn on
• After the extended time passes, you want both your "Overhead Lights" and the "Accent Lights" to come up.
• When on sleep mode, only the "Task Lights" should be on
• When accented mode, only the "Accent lights" and "Task Lights" should be kept on

Is that correct?

One thing to keep in mind is that "accented" is a "priority state" (so is "sleep") meaning when the area has this state, all other light groups that are not configured as "accented" will be turned off. When you turn accented mode off but the room is already extended, these extended lights should come on (in your case, all three groups).

Here's what technically should happen according to your config:

• Area is accented but not extended: ON: Task Lights, Accent Lights | OFF: Overhead
• Area is both accented and extended: ON: Task Lights, Accent Lights | OFF: Overhead (same as above, accented has priority over extended)
• Area is extended but not accented: ON: All of them | OFF: None of them
• Area is occupied but not extended nor accented: ON: Task Lights | OFF: Accent Lights, Overhead
• Area is sleep: ON: Task Lights | OFF: Accent Lights, Overhead (sleep is priority, overrides extended)

Does this shed any light on the chaos?

[ericblade]

Let me explain in terms of my actual lights, and maybe it's a configuration issue, but it doesn't seem to be because it doesn't seem that toggling the accent helper while the lights are enabled results in any sensible result after the first toggle.

What I have, is an open floor-plan between my kitchen and dining area, so I've basically got the two rooms combined. The fireplace is in the dining area. Entering the kitchen should turn on the kitchen cabinet lights, as that is the general "i can see by these lights". Extended would turn on all of the lighting, as that would imply that I'm working in the kitchen, or accented would turn on just the fireplace lighting and the cabinet lighting.

I thought I would be able to toggle between accent on and accent off, and that doesn't seem to be the case, unless I fully exit the room between doing so.

So, I believe, you've described it accurately -- Just entering the room, or at any time in sleep mode, the cabinet lights should be on. Remaining in the room for an extended period without turning on accent mode would trigger all the lights to come on. Triggering accent mode would trigger only the cabinet and fireplace lights to come on.

But, again, i would've expected that toggling accent, while the lights were on, would simply change which lights were on, to the correct set. What does happen, is that when I toggle accent off it usually does the correct thing (either cabinet lights on, or all lights on, depending on if extended is set or not). But when I toggle accent back on, it usually does something very wrong (usually all lights off, though sometimes one or two lights on, and not even lights in the same groups).

I do wonder if it's storming a bunch of commands that are then potentially being processed out of order on or being lost before getting to the receiving ends. I hope I can get some time to actually look at the code maybe this weekend so I can speak a little more intelligently than what a LLM that I don't trust has told me :-)

I think ultimately, my goal, once I realized I could use the accent lighting as a switch (if I could), was that I could do something like:

1- Enter kitchen
2- Start preparing dinner, lights would come up to full automatically after a couple of minutes
3- When it's time to sit down at the dinner table, press a button or use a voice trigger to set accent mode on, which would effectively shut off the overheads, leaving only the cabinet and fireplace lights.

[jseidl]

Are you "multi-homing" the lights by any chance, i.e. the same lights are in the two different areas?

[ericblade]

When I did this, the lights were split between two different rooms in Home Assistant, but were included into the same area in Magic Areas via the include list. The cabinet, sink, and kitchen overhead lights are directly in the Kitchen room, and included automatically, and the other lights are included via the include list.

Since doing this, I have also added a second area for the dining room in magic areas, but I do not have the lighting groups turned on for that area.

I'm not being very successful at all in getting magic areas to work well for lighting. :-D

[jseidl]

I'm not being very successful at all in getting magic areas to work well for lighting. :-D

I'm sorry this is not going smooth for you, this was supposed to be straightforward.

I didn't fully understand if you did multi-home and then not, or if you're still multi-homing.

So in case you are, there a few things to have in mind:

• When something that is NOT magic areas, turns a light on/off, magic areas detects this as "hey, the user manually controlled this light, I should just back off" and stops controlling it
• Some kind of groups like zigbee groups (I'm not sure if home assistant's regular groups do this) will turn all the lights in a group on if any of the lights come on

In short, light groups kinda expects your areas to be exclusive, light-wise. When you do multi-homing with sensors that's totally fine but with lights, things can get weird.

If you want to turn on lights on the dining room for things that happen in the kitchen, you might need to address this with individual automations (e.g. when this light turns on, turn this other light on).

Another thing you've could do is use the kitchen extended state as the accented state in the dining room, or something like that.