Great difficulty navigating this upgrade

Indigo has always been one of my very favorite Mac apps and the support from Matt and Jay has been phenomenal. However, I have to vent a bit and say that this upgrade has been a real nightmare for me. While I very much appreciate the help I've received from other users, navigating this change eliminating Python 2 support has tested the limits of my skills and taken countless hours finding and fixing potential problems.

Over the years, I've followed instructions for getting Python code integrated into my system, especially after Applescript support was eliminated. I've been able to solve simple problems here and there with some code modifications, but I'm not a programmer. Now I'm faced with a situation where I need to have many more programming skills to keep my system working and there doesn't seem to be much help working through the issues. To be honest, I'm not sure why Python 2 support was eliminated without provisions for non-programmers to navigate the change. And the worst problem is that I won't really know if I've caught all the software issues until I actually upgrade.

I've considered stopping my subscription and sticking with the current version but my experience tells me that would be the beginning of the end for my system. I'll be left without the ability to integrate new technologies and eventually the current version will be incompatible with MacOS upgrades so I'll be stuck there too. So I plan to keep working through issues and hope that I've caught enough of them to make this upgrade maintain something close to my current system capabilities.

Sorry for venting, but I just needed to get this off my chest. Maybe other users are having similar problems and can offer suggestions besides the basic ones posted by the developers.

Thanks for "listening."

--Dave

[matt (support)]

Hi Dave,

We posted about the Python 2.7 -> 3 transition back in January of 2022 and it has come up quite a bit on the forum, and was discussed in our email newsletters a couple of times. That original blog post discusses some of the reasoning behind the switch. The transition was a massive amount of work for us and we maintained Python 2.7 support for as long as we could. The amount of difficulty the transition causes definitely depends on the individual Indigo configuration (which plugins are being used, how scripts were written, etc.). Lots of basic scripts convert without any modification, but some python libraries changed or removed which might require changes (and there were some syntax changes that aren't backwards compatible). We also started a sub-forum with tips and where you can post scripts if you need help converting them.

I definitely do understand it can be a pain to make the transition, but to be honest i'm not sure what else we could have done on our end. The good news is Python 3 is going to be around and supported for a very long time, so you shouldn't have to deal with this problem again for the foreseeable future.

Ah, thanks for reminding me that a major reason for the change was Apple removing support for Python 2. Please know that I'm not complaining but I just want you to understand the issues from a semi-technical user's point of view.

I've read all the posts and warnings about the transition for a long time now. However, for the most part it made no sense for me to take major action until now since plugin developers have still been updating their code. I've also been getting help users and developers on the subforum which I very much appreciate. However, now there are some plugins that need updating to avoid losing device support or requiring extensive mods. One of the biggest was Switchboard but I finally managed to adapt your Example INSTEON/X10 Listener SDK code to recover my X10 door/window sensor support and avoid spending hundreds of dollars and hours of effort replacing them with z-wave devices.

Something that would help a lot would be a pointer to a tutorial on how to tell if Python code is version 2 or 3 and what are common differences to look for in order to change over the code. I recently learned from a plugin developer that I should be ok on my embedded scripts if they are working now since they're already running on Python 3 so this is a big relief. One script was giving errors and now I realize that is probably why. I also have seen references to tools that try to automatically convert Python 2 to 3 but I didn't understand how to employ them for Indigo plugins.

FYI, my remaining known issues are the FluxLED plugin (for my Magic Home devices), the SamsungTV plugin, and EPS SuperConditions which I use rather extensively since it was a very convenient way to implement conditional in actions. I'm hoping that there aren't any other issues I've overlooked that will bite me after I have committed to the upgrade.

As always, thanks for the support Matt.

--Dave

[matt (support)]

The page I linked to above has a lot of the common syntax changes needed between Python 2 and 3, so that would be a good page to read over and keep in mind when you are evaluating if your scripts need to be changed.

Ah, I missed that useful link. And the wonderful FlyDiver (Joe) just posted a test Python 3 version of FluxLED which works with one small problem. So things are looking good now! Thanks again.

--Dave

Hi again Matt,

FYI, with a bit of duct tape and chewing gum, I successfully updated Indigo while retaining most of my functionality. My X10 door/window sensors are working as before and I even managed to retain the old EventLog plugin that I find extremely useful in examining the log files. Final step will be to upgrade to Sonoma when you think it's ready.

Thanks for your support and patience in helping me navigate the changes!

--Dave

[matt (support)]

Hi Dave,

Great! I'm glad you have nearly everything back up and working with the latest release (and all the Python 3 goodness!).