Inverter Offline

My Inverter has been offline for the past 6 hours. I have tried to follow along with the instructions givenergy provide (https://kb.givenergy.cloud/article.php?id=1) but i'm being blocked at the first step - I can see the relevant network, but when i try connect it requires a wpa2 password which i have not been given.

How can i restart my wifi dongle ?
I tried contacting Givenergy but they are not available at weekends, and i have tried to contact the installer but not had a reply yet.

We have noticed quite a few times recently when the inverter shows as offline, but goes back online within a matter of minutes. We not had a 6 hours drop before (and all other devices in the house are able to connect to the network without issues.

Any suggestions how i can get this working correctly?
thanks
Adam

I assume you’ve tried the default passwords?

admin username

Password often set to admin or the serial number of your inverter. maybe try the dongle serial number too if neither of those work.

Once you know the password, set it to something more secure than admin, to save anyone hopping onto your broadband and using it to download unsavoury stuff!

tried those - none worked!

If you have a wifi dongle you can remove the end cover and press the button underneath. This resets everything to defaults including the userid and password (admin admin).

I have seen several people reporting issues with dongles failing to connect even though all other devices on a router are having no problem. I had just such an issue when installing the latest inverter firmware and spent some time on online chat trying to resolve the problem. We reset to defaults and reloaded everything onto the dongle several times without success and when we ran out of ideas it was left that GE were going to arrange an appointment for an engineer to visit. I carried on resetting to defaults and reloading a couple more times before giving up and resigning myself to a long wait without a system.

Now for the critical bit ...

Instead of turning everything off, I left the inverter powered up with the dongle flashing its blue light at a medium rate (not the fast flash rate when it is attempting to connect). About an hour and a half later I was walking by the inverter and noticed that the dongle now had a solid blue light and was connected to the router. No idea how it had managed to make a connection after being left alone for a protracted period but it did! Had I turned everything off I would still be waiting for an appointment for an engineer to visit!

Yeah two main issues I think are

Older dongle's don't support the 5Ghz WiFi

Dongle's don't like mesh networks? There's some advanced setting (can't recall what is is off hand) that you can temporarily disable whilst setting up the dongle, then switch back on again after?

Not sure if its old…was only installed 6 months ago. My network has both 5ghz and 2.4ghz.

We left it for a few more hours and it seems to have sorted itself out. Just damned annoying when tech mucks you about and never gives a clue what its up to!

lightningad
Some people have reported that the dongles do not like combined 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, particularly where the SSID is the same on both.

The general advice seems to be, to turn off the 5GHz element until the dongle has connected, and then to turn it back on again. This seems illogical, as I don't think the dongle would even be able to receive the 5GHz signal, but that is what I have seen reported elsewhere.

ToothyChris My network is both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz with the same SSID on both and have never had an issue with connecting to the dongle (Installed literally just shy of 12months ago.)
I have two AP's - if I upgrade the one that the Dongle is connected to, it will just switch to the other one (Both are in range of the inverter) and back again when I upgrade the other one. Not a blip or any sort of drama.

anglefire AP’s? What are they?

And therein lies the great GE conundrum: How do they manage to get so much which works for some (customers), but not others?

APs (no apostrophe required, at it is a plural) are WiFi Access Points.

anglefire My network is both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz with the same SSID on both

same here , noproblem either.

update:
a few days later and the problem is back, only this time its 16 hours offline. Got the password from GE and got into the dongle settings. Followed GEs setup doc (three times!) and it all looks like it should be working fine, but it remains offline.
I saw a video recently where a chap checked the dongle was seeing the internet by using it as an access point - mine does not allow me to see the internet, s maybe thats the issue...a faulty dongle that despite all the indicators saying its working, its network connection simply doesnt work properly.
I'm waiting to hear back from GE.

update:
a few days later and the problem is back, only this time its 16 hours offline. Got the password from GE and got into the dongle settings. Followed GEs setup doc (three times!) and it all looks like it should be working fine, but it remains offline.
I saw a video recently where a chap checked the dongle was seeing the internet by using it as an access point - mine does not allow me to see the internet, s maybe thats the issue...a faulty dongle that despite all the indicators saying its working, its network connection simply doesnt work properly.
I'm waiting to hear back from GE.

My inverter goes offline from time to time but it still has full internet connection and is sending and receiving internet data. I can monitor this on my router. It is currently 24 hours into its latest 'offline' session but it will eventually reconnect with the Givenergy server.

I too have a 'new' dongle but it only supports 2.4GHz wifi (and not channels 12 or 13). A 5GHz one would be lovely (2.4 is so crowded here).

My inverter goes offline from time to time but it still has full internet connection and is sending and receiving internet data. I can monitor this on my router. It is currently 24 hours into its latest 'offline' session but it will eventually reconnect with the Givenergy server.

I too have a 'new' dongle but it only supports 2.4GHz wifi (and not channels 12 or 13). A 5GHz one would be lovely (2.4 is so crowded here).

My inverter goes offline from time to time but it still has full internet connection and is sending and receiving internet data. I can monitor this on my router. It is currently 24 hours into its latest 'offline' session but it will eventually reconnect with the Givenergy server.

My inverter is showing offline both on the portal and app and with a new dongle set up. my system is charging the battery because I can see on the side panel lights. i can't reset the settings or even the factory settings because it's offline. help anyone please.

I am new into this thread as I too am experiencing periodic Inverter drop-out issues. It appears in my case that rainfall is sufficient to "block" the wifi signal from our Router, and typically when rain stops all is good, but recently (no rain, but fog!) all known remedies are failing to assist in reconnection. I keep thinking I will fit a router booster.

Any other boright ideas welcomed 🙂

My system went offline 2025-05-11 10:54:42 240.4 10.9 2643 43.6 0 0 2643 which is the last time it shows in the log. All the inverter and battery lights appear normal. The program on the laptop shows PV to Grid but the battery is shown as greyed out.

The App however simply shows Last Update 2 hrs ago. I tried an App reinstall on a separate Mobile but my log in is not recognized, nor is the Inverter Serial number, so that is a closed option.

Before I start crashing the system, where should I look or what might be the best approach?

One problem solved.  I have a WiFi booster in the garage which has been necessary for the Daikin controller.  On checking just now, its Wifi was good but it also had a red warning.  I switched it off and the Givenergy system came live again.  Now I have to get the Daikin working again Grrr!

Hi Folks,
I’ve seen several “Inverter Offline” threads. I thought I’d share mine with you guys in case it helps.
My inverter went offline early on the 14th. I noticed it late on the 14th and spent the 15th troubleshooting. I got it back on the 16th.
GivEnergy has a YouTube video on How to Reset Your GivEnergy Wifi Dongle (AC Coupled) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JonHjjKvg6s
This process didn’t work for me. The Installer app failed at “Checking Dongle Wi-Fi type”. The error message was “No Dongle Wi-Fi Type. An error has occurred while checking the Dongle Wi-Fi type”.
I found the GivEnergy WiFi Dongle guide more useful: https://givenergy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/WiFi-Dongle-Guide-2024.pdf
I found resetting the dongle a bit hit-and-miss. The YouTube video suggests holding reset for at least 15 seconds. My successful resets were made by counting v e r y s l o w l y to 15!
The WiFi-Dongle-Guide-2024.pdf is relatively easy to follow if you already have a reasonable knowledge of networking. It feels to have been written for techies.
Having followed the guide, my inverter still wouldn’t connect. I got bored and decided to sleep on it.
Later that night, more out of desperation than hope, I turned off Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 on my router.
The inverter connected! I left it like that overnight.
This morning, I re-enabled WPA3 expecting the inverter to stop communicating, but it connected as normal. I’m now back with a working system.
I can’t explain this. The best I can do is that, at some point during the various dongle and Wi-Fi reboots, a cache entry was cleared or some entry in a table refreshed and that somehow fixed it. I have no idea why the system broke connection in the first place.
I hate problems that fix themselves, they have an annoying habit of unfixing themselves just as inexplicably, but my key takeaways from this are:

• Sure, electronic things break, but if it worked reliably before, it is likely that you’ll be able to get it working again.
• I think the several network restarts AFTER I’d finished resetting the dongle might be the key. I suspect a cached version of the dongle in an inoperative state was removed at some point. Maybe this was a timing thing? Over 24h had elapsed.
• Be methodical in your troubleshooting approach. Rebooting the Wi-Fi was the first thing I tried. Perhaps I should have rebooted it after each dongle reset attempt.

Finally – this episode reminded me how delicately balanced these systems are. I use Home Assistant to minimise the strain on my battery When the system first dropped out, I had 50% charge and the automation had set my charge rate to 0. Unless the inverter is connected, there’s no way I know of updating the settings to be more useful in an uncontrolled environment. I was effectively left with no battery. Automations are great, but beware…

BobB You might not have an issue but I would suggest turning WPA3 off on your router.

The dongles in our inverters are quite old tech and do not recognise any of the newer protocols.