victron-bluetooth-safety

Prevent Victron's vesmart-server on Venus OS from disconnecting all BLE devices on all adapters every 60 seconds.

Upstream issue: victronenergy/venus#1587

The problem

When any BLE device connects to the Cerbo (even on a different adapter), vesmart-server starts a hardcoded 60-second keep-alive timer. When that timer fires (because the connected device isn't a VictronConnect client and never sends a keep-alive), it disconnects every connected BLE device it can find — batteries, sensors, everything.

This makes it impossible to maintain stable BLE connections for third-party services (battery monitors, temperature sensors, relay switches, etc.) while vesmart-server is running.

Two approaches

This repo provides two approaches. Choose whichever fits your setup.

1. Inline snippet (recommended)

vesmart-safety.sh is a small, self-contained shell function that any BLE service can source or copy into its startup script. It uses a Python patcher to find and neutralize the disconnect behavior by method name, making it version-agnostic across Venus OS releases.

How to use it:

Source the file and call the function from your service's run or start script:

. /data/vesmart-safety/vesmart-safety.sh
ensure_vesmart_safe

Or copy the ensure_vesmart_safe function body directly into your script. The Apache 2.0 license header in the file permits this.

How it works:

• Detects whether gattserver.py needs patching (idempotent)
• Uses a Python regex patcher to replace the _keep_alive_timer_timeout method body with a no-op, regardless of what that body contains
• Disables the hardcoded 60-second timer in connected()
• Preserves VictronConnect's dynamic keepalive (separate code path)
• Uses a lock directory to prevent races when multiple services start simultaneously
• After a firmware update reverts the change, the first service to start re-applies it automatically — no rc.local hook needed

Deploy to Cerbo:

ssh root@cerbo 'mkdir -p /data/vesmart-safety'
scp vesmart-safety.sh root@cerbo:/data/vesmart-safety/

Then add the two-line source + call to any service startup script.

2. Full patch (standalone installer)

victron-bluetooth-safety.sh is a standalone installer that applies unified diff patches to gattserver.py and vesmart_server.py. It provides more surgical behavior: tracking which devices are actual VictronConnect GATT clients and only disconnecting those.

Note: The patch files in patches/ are version-specific and may need regeneration when Victron updates vesmart-server. The inline snippet above is preferred for most use cases because it is version-agnostic.

scp -r patches victron-bluetooth-safety.sh root@cerbo:/data/victron-bluetooth-safety/
ssh root@cerbo 'sh /data/victron-bluetooth-safety/victron-bluetooth-safety.sh install'

Compatibility

Venus OS	Inline snippet	Full patch
v3.67	Yes	Needs regeneration
v3.72	Yes	Yes (with updated patch)
Future	Expected yes	May need regeneration

Development

A non-production Cerbo GX is available for testing at root@dev-cerbo.

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE.