VictronConnect 6.12 detects the product name correctly, but it seems to be trying to upload Bluetooth firmware V2.52 for a VE.Direct Smart Dongle (?) to the MPPT 100/20 and gets stuck at 84% before failing every time. Now the earlier BT firmware is gone.
Background info: I had to reset the network settings on the phone to delete all BT configuration, reset the MPPT PIN using the PUK, re-pair the devices, connect and set a new PIN. This was prompted by an impossibility to connect, failing at 20% no matter what I tried. I was then prompted to update the BT firmware by the latest app and it broke the BT interface.
Now I can’t really see a way out without an updated release of the app.
It was still paired. I tried not to lose this as it can be so problematic to restore these days. I recovered the device using another phone, then I had the same problem with the charger firmware update, also needed to use another phone to recover that.
Now I am back to square one, connection fails at 20%, PIN reset fails too and I can’t connect at all, but the device is up-to-date and functional. I reset all the network settings on the phone, cleared cache and storage for the app, rebooted the phone and I still can’t connect any more or reset the PIN… It seems to have something to do with the fact that another device was paired with the SmartSolar. Next step might be using another phone again to do a PIN reset and then try again.
I have both a 75/15 and a 100/20 and I have had exactly the same issues with both. Honestly, it has been a nightmare since V6.00 came in contact with the devices. It always worked fine until then. Now it looks like I need another phone and I really wish I could do these things from Windows instead.
I uninstalled V6.12, installed V5.106, same situation: can’t get past 20% connect, can’t reset the PIN (the device doesn’t respond with all 3 LEDs flashing) and it fails.
I re-upgraded to V6.12 and suddenly I was able to reset the PIN. Now I can attempt to connect, it gets to 80% and asks for the PIN for pairing, but entering it (“000000”) causes a loop, the connection attempt restarts from 0% and ask for the PIN again. Same behaviour as described here: Victron Connect Pairing Issue (Android 15)
If I try to pair directly from Android, the 3 LEDs flash together 5-8 times on the device and stop. It is not long enough to enter the PIN and pairing fails too.
Can you try to reset the PIN again and then immediately try to connect using the PIN “000000”? When this fails, please create a service report directly after this and post that here. The procedure to create a service report can be found here: 13. Troubleshooting
Unfortunately, there is not much that can be seen in the service report. I see that it waits for a successful bonding, but it seems to just fail when the pincode is given.
I also see that you are running a really old phone (Galaxy S4) with (a non official) Android 12L. Where did you get the ROM?
What you could try is download the nRF Connect application from Nordic Semiconductors and use that to connect and bond to the SmartSolar. If it is an issue with our app, then this should work. If it is an issue with the Android release, then there is not much that we can do.
Yes, it is an old phone. It used to work fine with VictronConnect and my SmartSolar devices. One day I started having issues connecting. I think the trouble started around the time when V6.0.0 of the app came out. The first few releases wouldn’t work on the S4, which was on LineageOS 17.1 then. No improvement with 18.1 and now 19.1. The latter is available there. These ROMs work with other BT devices, but they may not always use BLE.
I get the same results when I try to bond with nRF Connect, the 3 LEDs flash a few times and stop before I can enter the pairing code. I am attaching the connection log here, it shows an authentication failure the first time and this is not a wrong PIN. I never had time to enter one.
Since it used to work perfectly with this hardware (I tested two different motherboards to rule out a hardware failure in the past), LineageOS 17.1 and VictronConnect 5.x, I have been wondering whether an update of the BT firmware on the device could be the root cause of it all. It doesn’t matter what I roll back now, it gives endless trouble and someone seemed to be experiencing something similar with a very modern phone just recently.
I just installed this ROM on a Galaxy S4 and installed the latest VictronConnect from the Play Store and here it just works. When I connect I get a pincode popup and the proper pin is accepted.
We have experienced before that some other app “hijacked” the Bluetooth Pairing and provided its own (fixed and wrong) pincode. I believe this was an app to control a RC vehicle over Bluetooth. Perhaps this is also happening in your case? Do you have other (non audio) apps installed that control something over Bluetooth? If so, then please try to pair again after uninstalled those apps.
I never had any such apps, but I uninstalled two apps that also used BT (the same apps cause no issues on other phones). No change. I have had some momentary success at times after resetting the network parameters, deleting the app’s data, rebooting the phone and having reset the device PIN using another phone, but it was very brittle. What quickly happens afterwards is that the app gets to 20% when trying to connect, fails, repeats and gives up. Resetting the PIN also fails then. There is no way out of that without using another phone to reset the PIN on the device and this is what happened again.
Are you still able to connect with the S4 after also pairing/connecting another phone with the device? This usually ruins the situation.
I have attached a log from nRF Connect showing what happens. It never even gets to pairing on the device now, the blue LED keeps flashing at interval (no solar input, just power to the battery terminals for testing).
When it only gets to 20%, it means that the phone still has so called pairing data while the Victron product removed that information for that phone. It does so when the pincode is changed or reset using the PUK code. So whenever you change the PIN or reset the PIN using another phone, the Galaxy S4 will no longer be able to connect and will only get to 20%. Trying to reset the PIN using the PUK then also fails on the Galaxy S4. When this happens you first have to remove the pairing information in the Android Bluetooth menu on the Galaxy S4.
This is the theory, but there was no recorded pairing on the phone and then all network data was reset, so BT was reset. The controller I was trying to connect to had a PIN set by another phone.
Whenever I somehow get the S4 to pair with the device and then connect, a time comes when connecting fails at 20% for no reason that I have been able to understand or identify. The app still knows the device and displays values in the readout panel in the devices list, but connection no longer gets past 20%.
At that point, the PIN has to be reset to 000000 using another phone to get out of this situation, which is what I did before. I was then able to try to pair with the S4, but it failed as explained. If I keep trying, it can eventually succeed after a lot of attempts and then I can connect.
I had zero issues for years using the S4 all the way to the last version of the app before 6.0.0 came out. 6.0.0 locked up on the S4 and wouldn’t run. Rolling back to 5.x helped initially. At some point, some of the 6.0.x versions started to work on the S4 and downloaded some new firmware. Now I can’t roll back to any workable configuration. The phone has no new or different apps now compared to when everything was working.
All I can suggest is to also pair another phone with the device you successfully used with your S4 and then try again with the S4, as this seemed to be a no-go for me. You might be able to make it fail this way.
Do you first remove the pairing information in the Android Bluetooth menu and then try to reset the PIN code? Otherwise, the same problems occurs that the phone thinks it is paired but the product disagrees.
I find it hard to believe that it is related to the app as this sounds more like a pairing issue and pairing is not handled by VictronConnect in any way. It might be related to a firmware update, although they almost always increase compatibility.
I am trying to reproduce it here and am sometimes seeing things that look like this problem. Suddenly, the Galaxy S4 can no longer connect (connecting goes upto 20% and then resets). But I can always solve this by forgetting the device in the Android Bluetooth menu and then connect and pair again. Why the connecting sometimes fails is however still a question. I will try to find the reason for this, although the lack of easy reproducibility can make this impossible.
1/ I pair and connect after the device PIN was reset with another phone.
2/ After some time, for no apparent reason, connection starts to fail at 20%, but the instant readout is still working. This can be a week later, the next time I am on the boat. Nothing changed on the phone, no updates.
3/ I try everything from the phone: forget the device in the app, forget the BT pairing, reset the network settings, delete the app data, all while trying to reconnect. It doesn’t help, but I eventually lose the instant readout.
4/ I can not longer do anything and I need another phone to reset the device PIN: back to step 1.
I tend to agree with you that it looks like a pairing issue, but I don’t know if it originates from the phone or BLE module on the device. It seems to have started happening after some device firmware updates, because nothing had changed on the phone and I haven’t been able to return to the previous working state no matter what.
Why it doesn’t seem to affect most other phones is also a mystery.
Instant readout uses BLE advertising and essentially anyone can observe it. Because it is encoded using a key derived from PIN it should work as long as you do not change the PIN of the sending device. And anyone who has the key (available after pairing in VC) can observe. The key point being there is no Bluetooth connection happening for readout. The device itself sends periodic Bluetooth LE advertisements and anyone can see them and decode them. So it only breaks after you change the pin (for example from another device).
With real connection to the device, if I am not mistaken it uses Bluetooth classic. I would focus on the fact that connection establishment gets stuck at 20%. I definitely have seen this in the past even on the iPhone, especially with beta versions of iOS. It would attempt multiple connections, all stuck at 20%. Sometimes it resolved itself after some time, sometimes getting closer helped the signal quality. Not sure what exactly causes fail at 20%.
But one thing is for sure. Your phone is kind of old, and these Android phones have had millions of bugs in the past and many of them them never got fixed. Perhaps it worked because the stars and bugs aligned in correct way. Not sure it is worth investigating.
