V3.60~69: vrm/internet connection & dark/light mode issues on modded system

Not sure what’s happening, but ~71 killed node red for me. Blank white screen, occasionally a refresh will get the unreachable message.

Also VRM dropped out. I’ve noticed that firmware updates causes my Cerbo-S to drop connection to VRM. It appears to be trying the Ethernet port instead of WiFI to contact VRM.

I can recover the VRM connection either by incrementing the Cerbo Ethernet IP address OR by setting the IP configuration from manual to auto and back. I have a digital I/O device that uses Modbus TCP. A reboot doesn’t seem to have the same effect.

EDIT: Back to ~69, node red functions properly. Still see the VRM issue, decrementing the IP address is just as effective. Reboot doesn’t block VRM.

EDIT: Deleted the 2 virtual device nodes and flipped back to stored ~71. Node red is still unreachable. Interestingly, the GUI lost the dark mode setting. Back to ~69, increment the IP to restore VRM.

Display mode setting is behaving poorly.

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Hi @MiPaul , thank you for the report.

Are you running mods? If yes, please start with running a clean system.

I checked my own system, and ~71 works well with regards to light & dark mode. So at least we know that there is no obvious bug affecting everyone.

Ps. Note that I moved this to a separate thread

I’m not sure what you mean by mods? I have a serial battery driver and several temperature services running, and the beta firmware.

It was on the 2nd switch to ~71 when I lost dark mode. I’ve seen odds things like that before, like where the brief page selection list was indexed wrong.

A switch to 3.55 production doesn’t fix it either? Interestingly, VRM worked after this firmware change.

Not a fan of the leucistic overview. Any ideas on how to recover?

Loaded ~71 from 3.55, instead of a stored firmware switch. Dark mode is still gone and VRM did not connect. Reinstalled the QML files using the serial battery driver script, reboot, still no dark mode and VRM does not connect.

I have been able to reproduce the problem on another Cerbo by loading ~71 then switching back to stored firmware (~49 on this device) VRM isn’t an issue on this device so far, same LAN, different AP.

Serial battery driver is a modification. Running modified Venus OS beta versions can cause problems, Victron do not support or test modifications, so changes can be made to Venus OS that cause problems. The modification author has to keep up with beta releases but this lags behind. When reporting issues in beta it is best to list any modifications / non standard drivers you are running, see the top of the release note page.

I understand that it’s modified. My goal was to provide information and maybe a clue about issues, not to complain.

I was able to reproduce the dark mode problem by repeatedly switching to other firmware versions. ~71, previous, ~71 did it on 2 Cerbos, both modified. IF this happens on your unmodified device, we can rule out the battery serial driver. Either way, are there suggestions on how to recover the display to dark mode?

Node red was still unreachable on my Cerbo-S, the one that had the virtual switches loaded. Node red is available on the spare Cerbo with nearly the same flow but with no virtual switches. Both have the serial battery driver installed. A node-red Factory reset recovered the connection. I copied and restored the files in /data/home/nodered/.node-red. The recovered flows have the previously deleted virtual device nodes, I know that I deleted both of them. It feels like something got corrupted by repeatedly switching firmware.

Copying the saved files back appears to prevent loading new palettes, it’s complaining about permissions issues in the log. I did an export/import from the Cerbo-S to my bench Cerbo, both on ~71. The bench Cerbo works as expected, other than the white GUI. I’ll reset again, import from the bench Cerbo to recover what I had.

Also, the connection redirect from WiFi to Ethernet after a firmware change, the one that causes VRM to fail also fails node red palette loads. I do have a Modbus device plugged into the Ethernet port. The bench Cerbo does not have this issue, but it also doesn’t have a device on that port.

Fixed. The serial battery driver has a new feature that allows the GUI to follow the system color scheme. As shown above, Remote console color mode was uninitialized causing the issue.

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@MiPaul Could you describe in more details please, HOW did you set this “Remote console color mode”. Do you found a parameter for it under dbus-serialbattery? In my case this field stays “Unknown”, also after reinstallation of dbus-serialbattery and so named “custom-gui”. Only deinstallation of “custom-gui” under dbus-serialbattery brings the dark mode back. But in this case you do not have detailed information about the batteries. For this additional information you need this “custom gui”.

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Mr manual provided the instructions to fix the issue, they are here in my bug report. Hope that help.

Thanks! Please mark this answer as solution and not the other. Since the answer, which is actual marked as “solution” is not really a solution.
And I did not really understand, when the issue will be really fixed. Mr-manuel posted two different answer about that: “with next nightly” and “in few weeks”. Therefore I thik this manual workaround will be required for some days or weeks. Today (now, 11.05.2025 00:22 CET) it does not work automatically.

Yes his answer was a bit confusing for me too. It almost sounded like the is working with Victron on new features? Juggling Victron beta and battery driver beta on a fairly complicated RV system has been challenging at times, but that’s my happy place.

I reverted the modifications with the new remote console color feature for now. Just reboot your device, while connected to the internet and the problem will be solved. This issue comes from the dbus-serialbattery GUIv2 mods.
The dbus-serialbattery GUIv2 mods are not Venus OS version dipendend, therefore you will see the issue/resolution in all versions.

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