18.2 bug stops complex HomeKit automations from working

Interesting… maybe the problem is more nuanced than I thought. It can be confusing because Personal Automations (triggered directly on your iPhone or iPad) are different from Home Automations (triggered by your Home hub, like a HomePod or Apple TV). The personal ones may work as expected since they run directly on your device with fewer background restrictions.

I just realized that some of my Get Contents of URL Shortcuts (which are still working) are not started via Home Automations but rather through Hazel or Keyboard Maestro scripts running on my home Mac. Those execute flawlessly, likely because they’re not constrained by the HomeKit environment. However, the same actions embedded in Home Automations fail for me, just like you’re experiencing.

So the temporary workaround would either be using a Home Hub that is on 18.1 OR using one of the third party automation tools to kick off from a computer that's always on.

Fixed in 18.4.

Update today (03/31/25)- successfully tested

Update: turns out that the get contents of URL action causes the automation to never run. How bizarre.

For now, I've duplicated my home automations and removed the get contents of url action from the ones I want to have working

Seems that iOS 18.4 fixes this issue on my HomePod Mini!

Fixed with 18.4 RC

Yes, I've just encountered this too (18.3 on my iOS devices, but 18.2 on HomePods and AppleTV). I had to do extensive testing to prove that the exact line of "code" it's failing on in the Calculation step (and it fails whether you use Calculate or Calculate Expression. And yes, I also observed that if you "test" the shortcut using "Test Automation" or running it from within the shortcut, it works.

What a frustrating and stupid bug!

However, I did somehow manage to get past this problem on another Home Automation last night. I have 2x automations triggered by motion in the office (one for Night and one for Day). Last night I was play around with the "Night" one and after initially encountering the same behaviour, I somehow managed to get it it to work (I'm not sure how), but today, using the "Day" automation, I just can't get past this bug. For a long time, I've held the view that the Shortcuts app is one of the buggiest things Apple has ever produced (yes, even worse than the Podcasts app!) and one of the issues seems to be how the back end code of the shortcut is "assembled" in response to changes made in the UI (sometimes just re-ordering steps can fix it). Clearly the Home app uses the same messy code when building Shortcuts in Home Automations. I suspect that last night's tinkering somehow lucked upon just the right combination of steps to make that shortcut code assemble properly. However, that still doesn't explain how it still works when you "test" run the automation but doesn't work when that automation is triggered by an event.

Yes, I've just encountered this too (18.3 on my iOS devices, but 18.2 on HomePods and AppleTV). I had to do extensive testing to prove that the exact line of "code" it's failing on in the Calculation step (and it fails whether you use Calculate or Calculate Expression. And yes, I also observed that if you "test" the shortcut using "Test Automation" or running it from within the shortcut, it works.

What a frustrating and stupid bug!

For a long time, I've held the view that the Shortcuts app is one of the buggiest things Apple has ever produced (yes, even worse than the Podcasts app!) and one of the issues seems to be how the back end code of the shortcut is "assembled" in response to changes made in the UI (sometimes just re-ordering steps can fix it). Clearly the Home app uses the same messy code when building Shortcuts in Home Automations.

I believe the difference is where the shortcut runs (executes). When you “test” the shortcut it runs on the current device (e.g. your iPhone or Mac) but when it’s triggered by an event (e.g. time of day) it’s run on the home hub. In 18.2 I found that “Calculate expression” containing modulus didn’t work on home hub by “Calculate” would work. But in 18.3 even Calculate 1+1 doesn’t work anymore and will silently abort execution of the shortcut.

It’s very disappointing and makes me seriously consider just moving everything over to Home Assistant.

not just calculations. I have some "if" actions with multiple criteria that aren't running. seems to have broken all of my automations.

I have tried today with 18.3 on HomePod but still doesn’t work at all.