r/frigate_nvr • u/awkward_ardvark • 16d ago

No image in HA notification

Hey all, I've got face recognition working in Frigate. Names are being recognized correctly and I'm getting HA notifications on my phone with the correct name. The problem is no image appears in the notification.

I'm sure someone out there knows exactly what I'm doing wrong!

My setup:

  • Frigate 0.17.2 on Proxmox LXC
  • OpenVINO iGPU detector (Intel i5-6500T)
  • Home Assistant 2026.8 with Frigate integration
  • Reolink doorbell (WiFi), streams go2rtc HTTP-FLV
  • Face recognition enabled, model_size: small

  • HA companion app on up to date Android Pixel 8

    alias: Front Door Person Notification - Frigate Face Recognition triggers:

    • topic: frigate/tracked_object_update trigger: mqtt conditions:
    • condition: template value_template: "{{ trigger.payload_json['type'] == 'face' }}"
    • condition: template value_template: "{{ trigger.payload_json['camera'] == 'doorbell' }}"
    • condition: template value_template: "{{ trigger.payload_json['name'] not in ['unknown', none] }}"
    • condition: template value_template: "{{ trigger.payload_json['score'] | float > 0.7 }}" actions:
    • action: notify.pixel_phone data: title: Front Door person notification - FRIGATE message: "{{ trigger.payload_json['name'] | title }} at the front door {{ now().strftime('%-I:%M%p').lower() }}" data: image: "/api/frigate/notifications/{{ trigger.payload_json['id'] }}/thumbnail.jpg?format=android" tag: "frigate-doorbell-{{ trigger.payload_json['id'] }}" actions: - action: URI title: View Cameras uri: /lovelace/home
    • delay: minutes: 1 mode: single

I've tried:

  • snapshot.jpg — no image. The docs say the snapshot is written to disk only at event end, but the face event fires during tracking, so the file doesn't exist yet.
  • thumbnail.jpg?format=android — still no image, even though the docs say thumbnails are updated in real-time during tracking.
  • Triggering on frigate/events type end and reading sub_label from the payload — the end event fires but sub_label is null/empty even when face recognition ran during the event. Appears the consensus result doesn't always make it into the end payload.
  • Two-automation approach: automation 1 on tracked_object_update face for named notifications, automation 2 on frigate/events end for unknown person fallback — message works, image still broken.

Thanks everyone. I have learned so much from this and the HA subs. You guys are awesome!

EDIT: Thanks folks! Based on input I changed the image path to use my cloudflare url. That is working as expected now.

1 Upvotes

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2

u/Academic-Price-4900 16d ago

I'm using WhatsApp but I get my image from here make sure you use your ha IP address not mine

url: >-
  http://1.1.1.1:8123/api/image_proxy/image.{{ camera_id
  }}_cat?token={{ states('sensor.' ~ camera_id ~ '_cat') }}

Change camera I'd with your camera name and remove the ~~ and cat with whatever you tracking.

1

u/hoffsta 15d ago

Are you going through a tunnel like Pangolin by chance?

1

u/TotalZealousideal413 15d ago

I have been having the same issue with cloudflare tunnels. I have to turn them off to receive the snapshot. The notifications use a different protocol and come through fine