Levandor

frigate-notify — add `cat` to the label allow-list so cat detections notify

3 min read

Cat detections were never pinging Telegram because cat was tracked in Frigate but missing from the frigate-notify alerts.labels.allow list. Fixed on 2026-08-26 by adding cat to the allow-list. Also captures two reusable frigate-notify gotchas (500 after a Frigate restart, and log-spam stuck re-processing an excluded camera’s review). See 2026-07-28-frigate-notify-camera-exclude and 2026-08-22-frigate-recording-retention-config-not-jam.

For Agents

Alerting stack: container frigate-notify (ghcr.io/0x2142/frigate-notify, v0.5.4) on telep-mainframe. Config: /home/levander/nvr/frigate-notify/config.yml. Polls Frigate’s WEB API (frigate.webapi.enabled: true, interval 15s; MQTT disabled), server http://frigate:5000. Telegram provider enabled (chatid+token set), title “Telep riasztás”, send_clip: false. Filter model = camera excludes + label allow-list. When you add a new tracked object in Frigate, you MUST also add it to alerts.labels.allow here, or it will never notify.

The two-list filter model (the reusable gem)

frigate-notify decides notifications from two independent lists in config.yml:

  • frigate.cameras.exclude — cameras that never notify. Currently telep_cam3, telep_cam4 are EXCLUDED, so only telep_cam1 + telep_cam2 notify (deliberate). See 2026-07-28-frigate-notify-camera-exclude for why and the correct config key.
  • alerts.labels.allow — object labels that notify. Was person, car; now person, car, cat.

Adding a tracked object requires editing BOTH configs

Tracking an object in Frigate (objects.track in /home/levander/nvr/frigate/config.yml) does NOT make it notify. frigate-notify has its own alerts.labels.allow. cat tracking was enabled in Frigate on 2026-08-22 but cat was NOT in the notify allow-list, so cats never pinged Telegram for 4 days. New tracked object → add to Frigate objects.track AND frigate-notify alerts.labels.allow.

Change made (2026-08-26)

  • Added cat to alerts.labels.allow → now person, car, cat.
  • Backup: config.yml.bak-add-cat.
  • Applied via edit + docker restart frigate-notify.
  • Restart came up clean: Successfully connected, Config file validated, App ready.

Reusable gotchas

500 from /api/review right after a Frigate restart

After restarting Frigate, frigate-notify logs e.g. ERR Cannot get reviews from http://frigate:5000/api/review ... error=500. Frigate’s API briefly 500s during/after its own restart. frigate-notify recovers on its own; a docker restart frigate-notify resyncs the review cursor if you want it clean immediately.

Stuck re-processing the SAME review for an EXCLUDED camera (log spam)

Symptom: every 15s poll re-logs Processing review... / Event dropped - Camera Excluded / Review dropped - No events eligible for the same review_id on an excluded camera (seen on telep_cam4). This is an ongoing/active review on an excluded camera being re-polled forever — harmless but noisy. docker restart frigate-notify clears it (resets the cursor past the stuck review).

Verification

  • Alerting confirmed working historically: Alert sent · provider=Telegram, last good send 2026-08-25 21:19 (before this fix).
  • Frigate itself healthy: 64 alerts in the last 24h (person 64, car 36), 0 cat events in that window (no cat had appeared yet, so no post-fix Telegram send to confirm cat specifically).

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