Batteries not discharging

I've been lurking here for a while, enjoying the conversations. But now I seem to be having an issue with my setup.

I've got a "GIV-HY5.0" inverter and two 2.6kWh batteries, so not lots of capacity. I recently moved to Octopus Flux and started filling the batteries to 100% overnight. I do this with Octopus R&D labs site.

Last week I tried to find a way of changing the settings to make sure the batteries don't go below 50% through the day. But my experiments seem to have left he whole setup in a weird state. The batteries are working very erratically. For most of the last two or three days the batteries are refusing to discharge into the house. At certain random times they start working, but then they stop. Take a look at the graph:

I've tried resetting all settings in the givenergy portal. I've tried switching Eco mode on and off. I've even tried installing Home Assistant with GivTCP and fiddled with the settings, but it doesn't seem to help. Once I tried restarting the inverter seemed to fix it, but then the batteries stopped discharging a little later.

Do you have any suggestions? Or should I contact GivEnergy support?

Many thanks

Neil

I'd hazard a guess that R&D is the issue. Probably its unhelpful method of dealing with Eco mode.

So given that the only real lead is really the only thing that can be changing things after the reboot sorted it, I would:
Revoke the API key for R&D
Reset to defaults in the portal again
Switch off the entire system
Switch back on.
Reset the settings as you want them.
Give it a day and see if it behaves.

Start playing with R&D again after that is discounted as the cause.

Maybe you're right about R&D, though I'm surprised that it's able to put the inverter/batteries in such a delicate/weird state. It does seem to be working better though this evening, so I think I'll wait and see.

Thanks for your help.

neild Givenergy inverters work on a register system. Such that when you do something like set an AC charge overnight (either via the portal, the app or R&D) your actually setting several registers:
AC charge on
AC charge % enable
AC charge to %
Charge power rate
Start time
End time

Each of these are sent sequentially and need to actually make it to the inverter. What can happen is any one of those can get lost on the way - R&D system doesn't check that the commands actually made it.
The portal too is not infallible so it can also struggle in certain situations via remote control.

Ideally the firmware could be simplified so it did a lot of the necessary register changes internally cutting out steps that can fail but equally R&D could also actually check commands stick...

Thanks for the detailed explanation. It really doesn't seem like a great way of designing the system to allow the system to be left in an intermediate state that will effectively render it useless...

Anyway, it's happening again today, so I'll follow your advice. Can you tell me how you go about switching the entire system off? Does it involve switching off the isolation switch next to the inverter?

neild https://wiki.terravolt.co.uk/docs/inverter-shutdown-procedure/

What a great resource! Thanks.

I was using R&D to set timed charge, timed discharge etc and I had a reset to Eco also in there as it didn't always work without it
I did describe the issue I had a couple of months ago but cannot find the post.
I watched the times between what R&D was sending and when my inverter was receiving them. (Octo server via internet to GivEnergy server, GivEnergy server send command via internet to my inverter, my inverter does something).
I found building a 5 minute gap between one commend and the next allowed things to be fully concluded before starting the next.
Without the gap things were getting mixed up and the inverter hanging

https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/1769-need-for-timed-exportdischarge-with-octopus-flux/82

Thanks Steve. I'll bear in mind the need for a gap.

I seem to have fixed the problems I was having. I ended up de-registering on R&D and reset everything on the GivEnergy portal as suggested. So, many thanks Hoggy.