Enabling watchdog does not enable watchdog unless watchdog is enabled (repetitive, confusing UX)

[pullasuti]

Description of the issue

Home Assistant addons have a switch to toggle a watchdog.

With the Z2M addon this switch doesn't have any effect unless the user also
-opens the separate addon settings
-unhides the unused settings option
-enters custom values for the watchdog.

This is covered in the documentation, but is tied to a common / main function of Home assistant, which makes it feels like it should default to a working state without extra steps

Rudely assumptuos suggestion:

if Home Assistant watchdog toggle is set, always use a default set of watchdog timers and use the optional settings as a way to customize these values instead of a additional requirement for the watchdog to function

A way of looking at the settings from a users perspective is, that the main "Info" tab of the addon contains absolute settings. If the user toggles automatic updates or sidebar view, there usually are no extra settings needed, these just apply. Granted the automatic startup does require the addon to at least not be totally misconfigured, but anyway 🤔

I know there are probably reasons and plans and everything, but this really does come across as a confusing usability issue.

Disclaimer: this issue has been reported in a neutral tone, no hostility or negative meaning is implied.

Addon version

2.6.0-1

Platform

Home Assistant OS
Core 2025.7.4
Supervisor 2025.07.3
Operating System 16.0

Logs of the issue (if applicable)

watchdog enabled
[18:25:19] INFO: Preparing to start...
[18:25:19] INFO: Socat not enabled
[18:25:19] INFO: Starting Zigbee2MQTT...
Starting Zigbee2MQTT without watchdog.

watchdog enable with optional settings
[18:38:43] INFO: Preparing to start...
[18:38:43] INFO: Socat not enabled
[18:38:43] INFO: Enabled Zigbee2MQTT watchdog with value 'default'
[18:38:43] INFO: Starting Zigbee2MQTT...
Starting Zigbee2MQTT with watchdog (2000,60000,300000,900000,1800000,3600000).

[Nerivec]

The watchdog from the add-on Info tab is completely separate from the Z2M watchdog that can be configured in the add-on Configuration tab.

• Info tab: controlled by HA, reacts to add-on crashes, Z2M is not aware of this one at all
• Configuration tab: controlled by Z2M, only for "soft-failures" that Z2M should be able to quickly recover from (e.g. allows to quickly get back up and running when passing network problems break the connection to a networked adapter).

You can enable one and not the other, or both, as desired.

[pullasuti]

I understand.

Can't say HA has made this crystal clear, I've been relying on the wrong watchdog for a long time. But could be just me.

Didn't really notice until I switched to a coordinator with a different chip and started to have more frequent issues with the mesh.

I suppose this can be closed in it's current form. The proper Z2M watchdog does still seem to get a little buried away.

[mickeybyte]

I agree this is very confusing. I was also under the impression that watchdog was enabled because the switch on the addon was enabled, but I had issues that sometimes Z2MQTT stopped working. After long time of troubleshooting why watchdog didn't work, I found out there's another watchdog setting in the configuration tab of the addon.
Maybe this should be clarified more in the documentation?