AIO and Gateway offline

Hello, just had AIO & Gateway installed and seem to have a few teething issues. Hoping they’re basic and someone on here can help. Day 1 it charged ok but then discharged itself fully to the grid, nothing to the house. Was waiting to recharge per the schedule but Day 2 and the App says it’s been offline for 7 hrs (so probably not charged overnight… but can’t be sure). Tried restarting the AIO but that hasn’t helped. Gateway has always been in ‘Waiting’ mode but now can’t reach it at all and not sure how to restart it, should that be a good place to start. Has anyone else had this and know what to do? All help gratefully received as right now it’s sat doing nothing and can’t really begin to get to grips with it 🙁

Assuming initial empty and charge up of the battery complete (see notifications re calibration success), then:

Reset all settings (web portal, my inverter page, settings option)

Then enable eco mode.

Enable a timed charge for overnight if you want.

Don't touch timed discharge or timed export settings. Read various threads on here before doing anything with them (see search facility).

You may well have the issue a few of us are having - did it go offline when it started to charge (or at the time you expected it to charge)?

A couple of people have the issue whereby if the AIO charges at full rate (6kW) it goes offline. It's still charging but it's not talking to the cloud. In my case I was able to lower the charge rate to 3kW as an experiment and it stayed online but obviously that's a workaround, I expect it to charge and discharge at 6kW at some point.

I've got an open ticket with Giv (9822) and apparently there is a beta firmware which addresses the issue, I'm just waiting to see if it works.

DJBenson Yes that’s exactly what happened; seems to go offline around the charging window. I had to reboot it again at 3:30am last night to bring it back online although it was charged at that point so I’ve reduced the charging window to stop it sitting idle and will see whether that works tonight. If not will try your ploy and get in touch with GE. Thanks for this.

TX200 Right when I got it I set times discharge and export schedules… the instructions on how these settings work together are not the clearest. GE confirmed what you say here so did exactly this and that has been a huge leap forwards. Not quite perfect as had to reboot in the wee hours last night again but have reduced the charging window to try to keep it busy 24/7 to see whether that works. Thanks so much for your reply

Should also say - in case this can help anyone else - my installer was in contact with GE yesterday and they applied a fix their end. Think the log said BMS (is it?) failure which didn’t reoccur last night at least. Progress!

Usamagpie my installer is coming back next week to finish up my install (mostly just clipping cables etc.) so I'll get him to ring Giv whilst he's on site to report the issue and see if that prompts any action because at the moment I'm getting nothing from Giv.

As an aside, I upped my charge limit to 4kW and when I kicked off a charge it died but then I noticed today that the Octopus R&D integration had started a charge at that rate and it stayed online, so who knows what's happening.

What discharge rate does it stop going offline at? Around 3kW by any chance?

DJBenson I’ve reduced my charge window to just over an hour tonight, at the full 6kW. Will let you know how that goes and hopefully between us we can at least find a stable workaround. Because mine charged successfully last night before it went offline I’m thinking it drops out if it’s sat idle for too long. Maybe 😉

hoggy Yes that’s what DJBenson did and 3kW seemed to work

hoggy not sure if I’m misunderstanding you but mine goes offline when charging not discharging, so if I were to kick off a manual charge now at 6kW, it would disappear immediately and not come back until either a reboot or a comms reset using the dip switches.

My manual charge at around 3kW worked, a manual charge at 4kW didn’t but as above a charge initiated by Octopus R&D integration worked at 4kW (just under actually). I’ve reset the charge limit to 6kW and I’m going to see if the R&D charge cycle works.

Gotta say this is all a bit plastic cups and string for a £13k product…but I’m currently in the “early adopter acceptance” phase, I just hope Giv don't abuse the goodwill of those in a similar mindset.

Usamagpie be interesting to see what happens. I’ve reset mine to 6kW to see what happens when the R&D integration kicks off a charge.

DJBenson sorry, im derailing the thread a bit as it's not massively related to your issue, I just have an unproven theory that perhaps the AIO is actually 2x modified AC3s running in parallel - the fact it bugs out at 4 but not 3kW (the rating of a single AC3) might help add a tiny bit of weight to the theory. That's all really.

hoggy If that is the case then every unit with this issue is not fit for use and should be replaced under warranty no questions asked.

Jellybaby not sure I agree with you on that. What it's actually constructed from internally is a pretty moot point (I'm just curious as to how they did it) So long as it works to the datasheet specs.
The loss of comms on high power charge sounds like something a FW mod fixes rather than hardware (which I'm sure I've read somewhere is sorted on next release)

Although I do feel your pain with your SOC accuracy thread. Yours does sound to be a unit troubled by it more than anyone else's on here.

DJBenson Didn’t work sadly… had to reboot again this morning. Having said that, i believe it went offline before the start of the charging window. Have tried reducing the power to just under 3000kW for tonight’s charge and will see whether that works for me. I guess we may have multiple issues 🙁

Should also say… although offline it did charge

I think I need to take a step back from it for a bit because I'm starting to lose my patience, mostly because of the lack of support/feedback despite 1) initially discussing the issue with Paul on the Facebook group 2) having rung them twice about it 3) having a ticket open for the issue.

The R&D charge didn't kick off today (it was written to the logs with a timestamp of 15:00 for a charge starting time of 14:00 - not sure if that's what stopped it from working but it didn't start).

As my battery is almost flat I've kicked off a 6kW charge from the app but of course the AIO is AWOL again.

Some of you are aware I am also having this issue of loss of coms at scheduled cheap rate Octopus Intelligent.
I have been experimenting with different Charge Power settings
I am having better success with 3991W.
This has worked for the last 2 nights. I have run it with my Zappi EV charger operating before and also simultaneous with the AIO start charge time.

I am not confident to say this will always work without losing coms but definitely seems more stable than higher Charge settings.

I am hoping it should be a simple fix with a firmware upgrade of the Inverter or the dongle.

It would be reassuring to know that Givenergy are close to releasing a fix.

DJBenson what a pain 🙁 Charging reliably and to schedule couldn’t be more fundamental to the thing. Very sorry to read your post.

morgs Thanks for this. I’m on Intelligent octopus too however last night i delayed my charge start time to 3:30am using the charge schedule. My AIO comms dropped out long before the scheduled charge start, and then the charge appeared to happen successfully albeit without comms (am inferring from battery % the following morning). Am going to try reducing the charge rate from 6000w tonight but based on the above I expect mine to drop out again. Like you I hope GE get this sorted soon. Feel encouraged from what you say about next firmware release

That DID work. Charged and still online this morning having reduced the power to c3000W. Thanks everyone for your help. I at least have a workaround now 👏🏽

Well this thread make’s an interesting addition to pW2 vs GE vs others comparison.

kram not sure what brands you’re referring to but I went for the AIO due to (1) integration with Octopus smart tarifs (2) modularity (more than one unit) and (3) installation site options. So far I’d say there’s a lot of catching up for GE to do to live up to their product literature. That said, the workaround fits with my tariff and the unit is now working for me. Yesterday’s Octopus consumption graph is a thing of beauty

Crikey this all sounds like a bag of pain - when I get the install actually online (3days tinkering and no joy yet) it sounds like my woe is not over.
Arrgh should this product have actually been released ?

For balance. I have and AIO and aside from a few minor scheduling issues, its working perfectly. I can import and export at the full 6kW (slightly over in most cases) with my DNO approval for 13kW.

I’m still looking forward to a firmware update as there are a few niggles but nothing huge. Hopefully you get your issues resolved but be assured that they do work. With a bit of luck, its a configuration problem and you’re back online permanently shortly.

Here we still are and GE not replying to eMails now.
System stuffed.
Offered to drive the batteries to them for swap or charging but will have to ring them tomorrow and see if they answer the phone better than they answer eMail.

Borderline rejecting the whole thing. Installer getting same "if I we ignore them maybe they will go away" too. Very strange as I thought their support was supposed to be good (ish).

DJBenson Did your beta firmware fix work? If so I will contact GE for the same as my AIO has dropped out again and am struggling to keep it online.

Usamagpie

Others included the solaredge batteries, prodrive, libbi and sonnen that I looked at.

After all our headaches we’ve installed a PW2 as it was the cheapest option and we can stack them and get the gateway (essentially an auto changeover switch) to do backup.

Backup tests were flawless so far and the electricity usage graph for the days since solar/battery went in are indeed a thing of beauty.

Down sides vs AIO are 5 vs 6kW max power and less control.

Up sides cheaper, well proven and frankly it just works.

TBH I think it’s a case of what you’re happy with.

kram Well done! It’s definitely a bit of a minefield out there especially if you aren’t familiar with the market and how the technology works and after this purchase I’m now in no doubt that if you know what you’re doing you can get what you want / need elsewhere and faster. Honestly, unless GivEnergy get the modular claim sorted and integration with Octopus Agile (which I do think will happen actually, since I understand they’ve done a deal with Octopus to install the AIO), I’ll be very concerned that they are selling (and I’ve bought) based on false marketing literature & tech specs. Everything I’ve heard and been told though is that the fulfilment of these claims is in the near term pipeline. So for now I’ll just have to wait and see