Smartsolars not saving custom names in Victron Connect

[CGES.Mike (Michael D Francis)]

Hi all,

I’m in the process of pre-programming new components to be deployed in a couple of weeks to a remote telecom tower site. This will be a fully off-grid location with no inverter, only a Cerbo GX with Touch for remote monitoring, and two SmartSolar 150/35 mppt’s.

I’ve updated firmware on all devices (SmartSolar is at v1.64, BT interface v2.52) and have programmed battery setpoints as needed. I’m now trying to save a custom name for each via Victron Connect on my Android phone and both units keep reverting to their default names.

I’ve also set custom names in the Cerbo via the VE.Direct connection, and those are being retained correctly even through power cycles.

I’ve set up quite a few SmartSolars over the years with custom names and have yet to experience this problem. Any thoughts why it might be happening? Possibly a glitch with the latest firmware?

Clearly it’s not a life or death issue for system operations, but I thought it worth putting out there.

Thanks!

[thiemovanengelen (Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff))]

Hi Michael,

Can you please create a service report directly after changing the name and again when the name went back to the previous value and post them here? Perhaps they need to be renamed to .txt before this forum allows you to post them. They can also be placed inside a .zip file.
The procedure on how to create a service report can be found here: 13. Troubleshooting

With kind regards,
Thiemo van Engelen

[CGES.Mike (Michael D Francis)]

Hi Thiemo, and thank you very much for taking notice and responding right away.

I’ve created service reports and am posting them here, but please forgive if I’ve messed something up - when I open them they only show unreadable characters (this is my first time creating service reports from Victron Connect). Hopefully it’s in a format that you can decipher.

There was no way to get both before and after name change reports, because as soon as the Victron Connect app backs out to the main screen where the report is made, the custom name has already reverted back to default. But I’ve created two service reports, one after each time having attempted the change with a different SmartSolar. Both mppt’s were powered on and connected to Victron Connect at the same time, but I wanted to show the attempt for both devices.

Android phone VicConn service report after attempted name change to mppt 1:
VictronConnect_report HQ2348UY3Q9.txt (320.0 KB)

Android service report after attempted change to mppt 2:
VictronConnect_report HQ2348UCTXX.txt (626.1 KB)

Just in case it would make a difference, I connected each mppt to a Windows laptop via ve.direct-to-usb cable, one at a time, and created a service report from there as well. These reports show different, but also unreadable characters:

Windows report 1, mppt with serial number HQ2348UY3Q9:
service report_Win_cc1 snQ9.txt (146.9 KB)
Windows report 2, mppt with serial number HQ2348UCTXX:
service report_Win_cc2 snXX.txt (82.7 KB)

Here are screenshots showing the app’s progression of saving, then losing the custom name:

This first screenshot was taken immediately after saving the custom name in the device info menu and backing out to the device main screen. The new custom name is retained at this point.

In this second photo, I’ve backed out to the Victron Connect main screen, and the name reverts to the default at this point. During one attempt, the custom name showed very briefly (< 1 sec) at this app page transition, but then switched back to default.

And in this third photo, I’ve gone back into the device’s main page, where it has also reverted to the default name.

Please let me know if there is any other info I can provide, or if I did something wrong in collecting the service report data.

Thank you!

Mike

[thiemovanengelen (Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff))]

Hi Mike,

We are able to reproduce the issue here and will investigate whether we can improve this.

The way to get the correct is name is by removing/forgetting the device in the Android bluetooth menu and pair again. The reason is that the name that VictronConnect is using is the name provided by Android and that is the name the product had during the pairing. So pairing again will update the name.

Kind regards,
Thiemo van Engelen

[CGES.Mike (Michael D Francis)]

Thank you, Thiemo. As soon as I can get back to the shop I’ll try forgetting & and re-pairing on my Android.

And thanks to you and everyone at Victron for continuing to provide us with amazing power products!

Mike

[CGES.Mike (Michael D Francis)]

Forgetting and re-pairing did the trick! Both controllers now show up in the Android Victron Connect app under their new custom names. Thank you