fix: get_plugin_config() is synchronous in all AppDaemon >= 4.5.0

[roopesh]

Problem

gateway.py has a version-guard that decides whether to await get_plugin_config() or call it synchronously:

async_removed = (ad_version >= (0, 17, 0) and ad_version < (0, 17, 2)) or \
    (ad_version >= (4, 5, 0) and ad_version < (4, 5, 3))

The upper bound < (4, 5, 3) was written with the assumption that AppDaemon would restore the async variant in 4.5.3. That never happened — get_plugin_config() has remained synchronous in every release from 4.5.0 onwards.

As a result, any AppDaemon version >= 4.5.3 (e.g. 4.5.12, shipped with HA add-on v0.17.12) hits the else branch and calls:

mqtt_plugin_cfg = await self.get_plugin_config(namespace=cfg.mqtt_namespace)

await-ing a plain (non-awaitable) return value raises a TypeError, crashing the gateway during initialize() and preventing the IQ panel integration from ever starting. This is the root cause of the failures reported in #197.

Fix

Remove the upper bound so that all AppDaemon >= 4.5.0 is treated as synchronous:

# Before
async_removed = (ad_version >= (0, 17, 0) and ad_version < (0, 17, 2)) or \
    (ad_version >= (4, 5, 0) and ad_version < (4, 5, 3))

# After
async_removed = (ad_version >= (0, 17, 0) and ad_version < (0, 17, 2)) or \
    (ad_version >= (4, 5, 0))

Tested

Verified on HA add-on v0.17.12 (AppDaemon 4.5.12): gateway initializes successfully, connects to the IQ Panel, and entities are published via MQTT discovery as expected.

Fixes #197

[xaf]

@roopesh I thought the change was already merged to revert in 4.5.3 at the time I patched this - did they revert the change?

Also, I think you'll need to fix the tests for this to work.

[roopesh]

I guess so? I know I had been unable to update AppDaemon for a long time. I finally asked Claude to figure it out and this is what they came up with - and I was able to update AppDaemon finally. Are you on the latest AppDaemon?

[xaf]

I am on 4.5.13 and it seems to be working fine:

/usr/src/app $ python3 -m appdaemon -v
__main__.py 4.5.13
/usr/src/app $

[roopesh]

Hm I'm on the HA App of AppDaemon, which is 0.18.1, which seems to be AppDaemon 4.5.13 as well. 🤷🏽‍♂️. Are you running AppDaemon standalone or another image?

[xaf]

I am running the acockburn/appdaemon:latest docker image, as well as the home assistant official docker image.

I just quickly checked:
https://github.com/AppDaemon/appdaemon/blob/d491a58115c5baece5f902ec477c75dfd5366e2c/appdaemon/adapi.py#L943

This function is still async so this is not the issue!

[roopesh]

I have no idea why this works for me 🤷🏽‍♂️ - i had rolled back AppDaemon at least 3x because it kept breaking on me. Oh well! I'll pull the PR back.

[xaf]

@roopesh the other surprising aspect is that your fix also does not touch the part about the Add-On version, so it means your change is actually a no-op for you since you only touch the standalone appdaemon version, not the add-on one!