Despite my phone and wifi dongle being on the same wifi network I always get a message that the Local Search Failed and as a result cannot receive the more frequent updates.
Is there a document / troubleshooting guide anywhere that provides potential solutions to this issue, or, as there seems to be quite a few people with this problem will we have to overload technical support to be able to resolve the problem?
I get the same despite being on the beta version of the mobile app. I've mentioned it in a few threads so I'm just waiting on the next version to see if that fixes it.
The latest beta connects first time. Version I have beta, is 2.8.1.2098
TheDragon (GivEnergy) just updated to that version and it still instantly fails.
chris_p same, even after updating to the latest beta... Net analyzer seems to find the all my devices, no matter which WiFi I'm connected to, but the GivE app just fails immediately
Huntzie Same and I can type in the inverter IP into Chrome and log in to the web admin.
chris_p yes, me too!
So there is something on the device stopping the GivEnergy App scanning.
Hopefully once the Manual IP option is added, the scan wont be needed
TheDragon (GivEnergy) Not sure it is the device as I've tried two other devices we have in the house and it still doesn't work (all different brands and versions of Android). Being able to enter the Inverter's IP address would be very helpful.
Yeah it's a bit odd how it works for some and not others - I've tried a few devices Andoroid & IOS to no avail which suggests this is either peoples routers or the dongle itself (my system is on the older side, is that a clue at all?)
Given I can't even get local to work in the app by connecting to the Inverter Dongle directly (which in itself is still connected to the home network - as I can still see & ping all my other devices and browse the internet still) would lead me to think that maybe it's more inverter related than network (Hybrid 5)
Edit: I did notice on the api that my dongle gets reported as GPRS type (It's not) if that helps.
That might be useful to the developers. @Danlambert (GivEnergy) . Could be useful, may not.
Could even be a Hybrid vs AC Couple issue. I'm sure the Dev's are gathering stats on what is and what's not working, then get some trends generated.
Its weird that for some it works, and other not, especially as they can see the Invertor in a Scan, Log onto it from the IP, yet the App doesn't see it
chris_p might be a stupid question, but how do you recognize the inverter IP address? I've got dozens of devices in the DHCP table and I don't see any hostname that's obviously the inverter?
stv When it was first joined I looked it up. If it helps mine's MAC address starts 28:9c and the host name is AF-A21.
And you can change the hostname too if you want.
stv Yes putting that IP address into a browser gets you to the WiFi dongle config. The inverter doesn't have a web admin as far as I know.
Older model Hybrid 5. My dongle mac is different (34-ea-e7) has an AP name / serial starting WF. But atleast hostname is the same! "HF-A21"
stv I wonder if that is the issue - if the router doesn't have it in the DCHP table then it the app might be using that to find the IP? I don't know if the population of the router table is in a standard format across all routers? I assume the dongle is set for DCHP and not static IP?
anglefire mine is showing in the DHCP table
Huntzie Well that's another theory busted 🤣
Do you use powerline adapters or a mesh WiFi? I've seen devices behave oddly before with the Mac routing involved with these.
jd Powerline adapters. It may have something to do with it... Not sure if that's the case for everyone though, as I've seen some people saying they still can't get local with direct connections.
anglefire I think it might be actually, or certainly part of the connection problem .. the app won't know the IP address that the router has assigned to the wifi dongle (DHCP), so it needs to use a DNS lookup to get the address associated with the hostname HF-A21, which the app does know.
In my case, if I use "nslookup HF-A21" on my local network, it fails. So the router has not got a DNS entry for the wifi dongle hostname, so the app can't get the IP address.
So next step for me is to work out why the router doesn't have the DNS entry.
Don't know whether that will fix the bigger problem, but it has to be fixed.
stv If I do an nslookup I get a valid response, so not sure your issue is the same as mine if it is a DNS problem. I also am not using mesh or powerline adapters with the network my inverter and devices are on.
I would suspect that the ap isn't doing a dns lookup to find the inverter's dongle, since it doesn't know whether you've changed the hostname of the dongle. It's almost certainly doing a scan of the local network, which most people will have as a class C address range or 254 possible addresses. If that's the case and the developers wrote the code to scan addresses in numerical order, it might be worth making sute that the dongle has a fairly low address in the network. That can be done either by configuring the dongle to have a fixed address or configuring the DHCP server/(router in most homes) to allocate a fixed address to the dongle's MAC address.
Thats what I did. Granted its not a low number, it was the one initially issued before I made it static. Just left it with the same number, 192.168.0.81
mrand31 @Danlambert (GivEnergy) It's got to be easier than this! Although it's fun pinging devices and doing DNS lookups or checking DHCP table entries, we should just be able to put the inverter IP address or hostname, if we already know these, into a setting in the app.
I have no idea how the local search is coded but my app flashes up when I start it saying a local search could take up to two minutes and flashes up again a couple of seconds later saying it's failed. I know the host name of both inverters (they may both have been HF-A21 at some point, I can't remember) but I do know their host names now and could ping the host names to find the IP addresses if I needed to.
C'mon Givenergy, "local hostname/IP for inverter 1" and "local hostname/IP for inverter 2" as a user-configurable setting in the app please?
Latest beta version of the android app has fixed it for me. I have local data now!
Thank you devs!!
Same, just updated and now seeing local data! Great work devs! Version 2.8.2.2099.
Yep working now with 2.8.2.2099 (Android 9, no special network config) 10 second auto refresh is a big change 👍
Mine working now as well. Great work by GivEnergy.
Any update for iOS yet to get the local working as per above?
stv not sure this is the issue = the nslookup on my local network for HF-A21 finds it immediately. IoS or Android App doesn't find local inverter though
It'd be interesting to know what the app is doing to find the IP address of the dongle.
Edit: I've just upgraded the Android App (beta) and it's now working!
Edit: out of interest I renamed the hostname on my hub to something other than HF-A21 and it still worked, so it's definitely not that
Strange, doesn't find local server on the chromebook though
You’d think the inverter would know the IP address it was given, so save that to the cloud and sync it down to the app?
I guess manual setting option a good idea anyway, just in case…
I had a problem with my iPhone connecting to local data but the iPad would not. Turns out there was a setting on the iPad to give the givenergy app access to the local network - flipped that and it worked. May be different for you of course but this solved my issue.
mebrown101 Thanks for the tip. My Givenergy iPhone app already had access to local local network but it's still coming back after just a few seconds saying "failed to find.."
mebrown101 you genius 😄 . That worked for me.
Mines working now too (android) 😃
My iPhone app does now find the inverters locally and seems to be getting 10s updates. Something has changed since yesterday because when viewing server data, it reported my battery to be exactly 50% of the actual charge level (2 inverters). It's now showing the correct charge level when using the server and when in local mode. The only thing is that the flow animation isn't currently working and the grid export is reporting 2939W with 1785W from PV, so I suspect it's connecting to one inverter but not both!
mjkelly5a @mebrown101 as a follow on updated my iPad. There was no local network option in settings. I closed the app, rebooted the iPad and it appeared.
The app on both the phone and iPad is very flaky. It'll connect 4/10 but will lose connection regularly when I have to reboot.
I downloaded the update app for iOS over the weekend and all has been resolved. 10s updates working great, thanks.
Birth iPhone and iPad started working today….very useful.
mjkelly5a iPhone worked from the get go, the android works phone worked once the latest version came out the other day - never a hickup or connection issue. (Or not yet anyway) - to be fair, I don't use it very often as i use GivTcp and Home assistant.
anglefire I've given up. It's about useless too me. Still won't connect
I even set up a dedicated 2.4ghz network on my Voda router for it. Connected the dongle to it, tried it on my iPhone and iPad and it just won't work.
I'm done with it now. It worked for 2 days and that is it. I'll stick with the MyEnergi app.
Mines working fine. Fingers crossed for everyone else too!