MPPT Controllers not communicating

Question

question

rpato asked Jul 4, '20

MPPT Controllers not communicating

I have

VictronConnect APP on IOS 13.5.1
Two MPPT75/15 Controllers V1.50
Two VE.Direct Bluetooth Smart dongles Rev2, V2.23 Bootloader V1.10

Since the last update one, and sometimes both Controllers appear dimmed
in the Victron Connect App. When clicking on the controller icon, I get an error
message that a connection would not be possible because of an other Bluetooth
device already connected to the controller. When in this state, the blue LED on the dongle
is steady lit, i.e. does not blink anaymore.

Remedial action is to pull the plug of the dongle and re-insert the plug.
Then the controller is accessible again for some hours until the same error reappears again.
The controllers have the BT paring code changed and there is definitely no othe connection.

Any clue ?

MPPT Controllers

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Modifications Space

Node Red Space

Answer 1 · 2020-07-06T07:15:32Z

Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) answered · Jul 06, 2020 at 07:15 AM

The fact that the blue led is steady lit means that the at least dongle thinks that there is a bluetooth connection. This could also be with your phone, without VictronConnect knowing about this. To determine if this is the case or if there is some other device connecting to the dongle, can you please toggle airplane mode on your phone when you find the dongles in the unconnectable state?

If it is indeed your phone that is connected, then this should terminate that connection. In this case, there might be other apps on the phone that make a bluetooth connection?

If this does not terminate the connection, there is a different device connecting with the dongle. Unfortunately, any device can make a connection. The PIN code is only needed for actual data exchange and encryption of data exchange, not for making a connection.

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Answer 2 · 2020-07-06T17:49:21Z

rpato answered · Jul 06, 2020 at 05:49 PM

Perfect! This does not help a lot. The system worked fine for almost two years until the last updates. I cannot exclude that other people around me try to connect to my devices and thereafter block the system. Now, the app is unusable. If any app can make a connection and block the devices, you should go back to the drawing board.

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Answer 3 · 2020-07-06T18:42:20Z

rpato answered · Jul 06, 2020 at 06:42 PM

Ok, and what is the solution? Switching off Bluetooth or toggling into airplane mode does not help. Are you really telling me, that customers have to live with this problem?

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Answer 4 · 2020-07-06T20:22:43Z

Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) answered · Jul 06, 2020 at 08:22 PM

If toggling airplane mode does not help in the sense that the blue dongle leds do not starts blinking when airplane mode is enabled, it means that your phone does not seem to be connected to the dongles and apparently it is some other device that is connected. Unfortunately there is nothing I can think of now that will help you.

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Answer 5 · 2020-07-07T10:50:00Z

rpato answered · Jul 07, 2020 at 10:50 AM

Well, once again, I use the dongles since three years now and I have never seen this problem before. It appeared after the last update of the dongle software. I have done some tests with a second Iphone and a Android device using a wrong passcode. Of course, while the conection is active, the dongle is blocked. But after closing Victronconnect the dongle is available again.

Also, when disabling BT on all devices, the dongle stays in its blocked state.

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Answer 6 · 2020-07-07T17:21:40Z

rpato answered · Jul 07, 2020 at 05:21 PM

So, after about 3 hours the dongles are accessible again. Before this the Android app crashed. A report was sent

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Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) ♦ commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 10:56 AM

Just to get things clear:

Was the dongle suddenly accessible after 3 hours and thus this is the opposite of what you describe in your original question where after a certain amount of time, the dongles are not accessible anymore?

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Answer 7 · 2020-07-07T17:48:32Z

rpato answered · Jul 07, 2020 at 05:48 PM

In order to get the crashing Android app to work again, I had to delete and re-install the app to get it working. Interesting was, that one of the dongles after that also lost connection to the VESmart network.

Victron, would it not be required to look at your last updates?? Or is this state if the art?

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Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) ♦ commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 10:50 AM

Question about "Interesting was, that one of the dongles after that also lost connection to the VESmart network."

Do you mean that the setting in the dongle was gone and it no longer had a network configured or that it did not see other devices?

And just out of curiosity: Do you also have a BMV, SmartShunt or Smart Battery Sense? Otherwise, there is no use in enabling VeSmart networking because external dongles are only used for V/T sense and a BMV, SmartShunt or Smart Battery Sense is needed for that. If you do not have one of those, does it help if you disable VeSmart networking?

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rpato Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) ♦ commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 12:12 PM

The setting in the dongle was gone and it did not see other devices anymore.

Regarding VESmart networking: Maybe I misunderstood something, but in your help for VESmart networking you mention "synchronized charging" where pairing two ore more SmartSolar chargers could be done to make them charge like they were one large charger. Wrong?

Another thing: Could it be, that the new problem described by me could be the result of the Corona BT app?

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Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) ♦ rpato commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 12:36 PM

The synchronized charging feature only works with SmartSolars and then only when the internal dongle is added to the VeSmart Network. At the moment, it does not work with external dongles and/or BlueSolar chargers. And to immediately answer your next question: I have no idea if this will be supported in the future.

Regarding the BT corona app: I would not expect that to be a problem. As far as I know, the app/iOS only listens and transmits BLE advertisement messages, but hé... There is lots that I do not understand about this issue, so it might be worth a shot to remove the app and try for a while, but I leave that decision completely up to you.

Out of curiosity: which app did you install?

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rpato Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) ♦ commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 12:50 PM

Well, the Ios app. But, I have no clue about rhe people around me. I am in an RV.

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rpato Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) ♦ commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 12:52 PM

Ok, I will disconnect from the network and observe further.

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rpato rpato commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 03:00 PM

Interesting is, that it is almost the oldest dongle that has the problem. Serial HQ1438W2PWC. I will swap this with a dongle connected to an inverter now to see if the problem remains.

Interesting is also reading the new features of your last updates. Some of those deal with terminating BT connections. Any connection with my problem?

The old controller just fell out again and I am far away from BT devices as I can see with RAMble. But two IOS phones and two Android tablets report the device inaccessible also when disabling BT on all but one device.

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rpato Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) ♦ commented · Jul 08, 2020 at 12:14 PM

I did not have VeSmart enabled when the problem initially popped up.

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Answer 8 · 2021-12-21T14:53:34Z

lowoncash answered · Dec 21, 2021 at 02:53 PM

This is the reason once a system is up and running I never (down) upgrade!

Regards

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Answer 9 · 2021-12-21T18:08:47Z

dwmarine answered · Dec 21, 2021 at 06:08 PM

From memory, the Victron VE Direct dongles had an early and a late version.

One version has the part number ending in 011 and the other ends in 010.

The older version (cant recall which one) will not work with some newer devices for smart networking.

Hence I had to purchase another dongle. I wonder if your dongles are different part numbers?

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