Dongle Connection.

Hi all,

Recently installed a Hybrid system in my own place, one of the first couple of installs we have done as a company, I’ll call tech support when they’re open but thought I’d try on here, I’m having really bad connection problems with the dongle, it was an absolute nightmare during commissioning to get it to remain connected for long enough, its constantly dropping off the network and then reconnects again after some time, even connecting directly to it to interrogate the settings takes very long and again it drops in and out despite me connecting to it with a laptop that it is plugged into, I thought it maybe my mesh Wi-Fi system for a minute, so I removed the entire thing and went back to the single BT router I had before just to check, I also powered down every other networked piece of equipment in the house to see if it was interference. Still no good, my last resort was to install an extender with its own SSID next to the inverter, I reset the dongle and basically set it up again as if I was commissioning again, it was the same painful experience as the first time, and even though I did get it to work it drops out every ten minutes, what’s frustrating is I have a data cable to the inverter but obviously that doesn’t help me. Just wondering if there was any one who had this and it turned out to be a faulty Dongle? I’ve exhausted most if not all other possibilities now, I’ve done resets, reboots; reconnections, power cycled I don’t know how many times, I thought it was congestion on the Wi-Fi channel but removing all over equipment made no difference and the Dongle is the only thing in the entire house that seems to have an issue connecting. Any thoughts? Thanks.

holmanbuildingservices Does sound very much like a dodgy dongle - given the amount of faffing around you have done.
Have you tried unplugging and plugging the dongle back in so it reboots itself? Or rebooted the inverter?

I find the dongle can be unreliable - it was a nightmare during our commissioning as well. It's not helped by the inverter being in the loft at the opposite end of the house from our main router - I do have a mesh system which covers the house overall but I suspect the combination of loft insulation, structural timbers and the loft rail system I have may be restricting the wifi coverage up there.

anglefire hi, yes done all that more times than I can count, what’s weird is now I’ve connected it to an extender which only serves that dongle the extender itself is playing up. The dongle seems to be having an adverse effect on the network itself. Very odd. I only have 2 or 3 items on the 2.4 GHz frequency at the moment so it can’t be congestion, although I have a sonosnet, sky Q creating a mesh and the network itself but I’ve set the sonos channel, BT router channel and the dongle channel far enough apart it shouldn’t be an issue. Annoyingly I think my system is stuck in power reserve or something, it should be supplementing load with the battery this morning but it isn’t, I can easily recharge the battery with generation but instead I’m drawing off the grid, that maybe DOD though as it was down to around 20% this morning before the sun came up. I’ll have to contact GivEnergy and see if a new dongle will help, hopefully the lead times aren’t as long as the rest of the kit, all I. Demand at the moment.

holmanbuildingservices One thing that could also affect your wifi is noisy neighbours! If your neighbours have their wifi set to maximum output and auto channel hopping, your dongle could connect to your wifi on say channel 5; if your neighbours wifi then automatically changes to channel 5 (maybe they also have noisy neighbours), your wifi will move to another quieter channel and your dongle could be chasing the best channel 5 access point, but of course, it can't connect because the userid and password are wrong. It then scans the spectrum to find your access point that it can log into and it starts again although this may be a red herring. I downloaded a free wifi scanner program for my laptop to scan available networks to rule out this channel hopping and noisy neighbour syndrome.

The gen2 inverters have an ethernet cable option and I'm just sorry I can't backfit one to my gen1 devices. It would help if the dongles would operate at 5GHz which is less penetrating than the 2.4Ghz signal, but that means that any neighbour's 5GHz access points would also struggle to reach your loft. One thing you could try is to reduce the output of the wired access point near your dongle to 54Mbps or 130Mbps (to reduce the number of channels it spreads itself across) and ironically, set it to not automatically channel hop. If you choose either low or high channels (1 or 13), you are more likely to prompt noisy neighbour access points to move away from those channels towards the middle.

On the other hand, if you live in a isolated rural area with no other wifi nearby, I wouldn't have a clue about why this might be happening.

Just wanted to update this thread, i pretty much gave up and left it alone and it appears to have settled itself down, ive not had an issue connecting since my last reply, perhaps everything has figured out what channel it needs to be on, was going to put my TP link mesh back in place but i think i'll just leave it alone for now and see how it goes, there is alot of Wi-Fi in the area so as mentioned it could be inteference from neighbouring properties wifi, so maybe i should have just left it all alone to begin with and let the network sort itself out. An ethernet mod down the line would be good though, i'm sure its something that can be done at some point, the data is there to be had over a wired network just a case of getting it out of the inverter and where it needs to be.

Another update, dongle has been terrible today not been able to view the status of the system for most of the day, interestingly my Ring Video doorbell has also gone offline and i happen to know that is on the 2.4Ghz frequency, not sure if its realated but ive never had an issue with the doorbell prior to the GivEnergy install. The plot thickens.

Another update which i thought i would add for anyone whos interested, i had a think back and remembered i had a couple of issues with my sonos system prior to the Givenergy install, the sonos system if anyone doesnt know creates its own mesh called sonosnet and it too operates on 2.4ghz, i then had a thought to try and think about any changes that had happened to my property that may have had an effect on the sonos and i suddenly remembered i had the smart meters installed, bit of a long shot but i did some research and it has been reported by other people that the Zigbee protocol which the smart meters use to communicate to the in house display can intefere with other 2.4ghz systems in the area, my router is situated right next to the front door which as it happens is also right next to the new gas and electric smart meters, obvioulsy my ring doorbell is also at the front door, so what i have done is relocate my router to the other side of the house, removed the wifi extender i put in the other day and reconfigured the dongle on the Givenergy to connect straight to my router again rather than the extender just to remove any other 2.4ghz networks competing for channel space, moved it all and let it all settle and the router find the best channel and for the first time in a long time i managed to get my one troublesome piece of sonos kit to reconnect to the network, the doorbell reconnected with a little alteration, and the Givenergy dongle connected, itys still not perfect as i have still lost connection to the inverter a couple of times but moving the router certainly helped other kit on my network operating the 2.4ghz frequency, i have asked Givenergy if i can try a new dongle as it still doesnt seem right to me, through our company portal it says my inverter is online but all the data is an hour old, where as somoen elses system is right up to date when i refresh it. Anyway, just wanted to add the points on smart meters having an effect on any nearby networks operating on the 2.4ghz frequency, may help other installers down the line if they come across really poor connectivity and the router is close to the smart meters if they have them. I understand Givenergy using 2.4ghz as it has better range, but i think dual band would be better as even in the worst case people can use powerline adaptors and get an AP adjacent or near the inverter. Just my thoughts. Thanks

Another update apologies: The data being an hour out mentioned in my previous post was because the time was set wrong, That is now up to date.

The time being an hour out mentioned on my previous post was due to a time setting that needed adjusting, just thought i would add that.

Interesting about the smart meters because our inverter is bolted to the wall in the garage with the smart meters on the other side of the same wall. Can’t be more that about 4’ apart.

And the AP is either directly inline with the meters in the lounge or the AP in the loft. It usually connects to the lounge.

Never had an issue. And if I look at the router it tells me there are loads of other WiFi networks within range. Must be over 20.

@"anglefire" Yes i think its rare that they cause a problem, and since my last post my dongle drops off the network every day and usually around the same time and stays offline all afternoon then comes back online in the evening and thats after moving the router well away from the smart meters so i'm now not sure, its baffling me, i dont think its inteference from neighbouring properties, i also know the dongle itself is fine as i plugged it into my laptop and took it outside away from the house and used my phone as a hotspot, the dongle performed perfectly, connection to it was flawless and quick and it was working as an AP via my mobile hotspot perfectly, as soon as i got within 8ft of my house it went haywire! And the dongle wasnt even connected back to my wifi it was still connected to my mobile but it wouldnt work at all, wouldnt stay conected, something near or inside my house is causing this, i am going to isolate the entire house from power and remove any battery operated devices like doorbells and door locks, turn bluetooth off of anything that has it so nothing in theory inside my house is emitting any kind of signal, then see how the dongle performs, if it works fine i will slowly add one thing at a time to see when it drops off, it will take some time but its the only way i can see of finding the issue and eliminating anything in my house casuing the problem.

holmanbuildingservices Givenergy using 2.4ghz as it has better range

The 2.4GHz band is more penetrating because of the frequency and will more readily pass through walls and so on while the 5GHz band can carry traffic at a higher data rate. If you have a low data rate which the inverters and doorbell have, then 2.4GHz is fine, even if it is not the most recent technology. Modern wifi devices are supposed to comply with standards that prevent them from causing problems to other devices using the same channels. They "listen" for traffic on the channel they are connected to and if there is nothing happening, they can start to transmit. If two devices start to transmit at the same time, they both detect this and both stop for a random amount of time (milliseconds I think) before they start listening again.

Does the drop outs happen to coincide with your PV production? Curious as to why it sounds like it works at night but not in the day. You inverter properly earthed/grounded?
That or as you say work through your MCB's until it stops being weird.

hoggy Hi, no not really, i'm generating pre the 8:00AM dropout and often post it coming back online again, and even with the dongle removed and just plugged into my laptop it doesnt operate correctly, as soon as i get outside my house and away from it by say 10 feet the dongle responds as it should. Inverter is connected and earthed as it should be though yes. Today my system has been offline since 07:57, i was generating before that a little bit. I see what youre saying and i did have that thought but as i said even with the dongle removed from the inverter it doesnt play ball. I will have to isolate all sources of potential inteference and see what i find. I guess it is still possible that it is purely a channel congestion issue on teh 2.4ghz but i dont know why that would go away at night then come back in the AM, of course i could have more than one issue theres just no way of knowing at the moment. Very frustrating!

Sounds stupid here, but could it not be a conflict of IP address's? I've had instances before where there has been a outage and some items (fire TV stick) booted quicker onto an IP address which caused issues.
Have you tried to set a static IP address on the dongle?

Update: So i did what i said i was going to do in a previous post and isolate all supplies in the house including the PV system and battery so as to remove any potential inteference from my own equipment, even isolated the BT router, and plugged the dongle into the laptop, connection to the dongle was perfect and once i setup a hotspot with my mobile it worked exactly as it should connecting to the internet as an AP worked fine also, so i had kind of debunked the smart meter theory and neighbouring property inteference by doing that to a certain extent barring channel congestion etc.. which my not be present with all my equipment isolated, so next step was to configure the dongle to connect to my router, i was able to keep everything else isolated and only turn power onto the router so all that was on was the BT router and the dongle powered off of my laptop, as soon as the BT router was powered up i started noticing dongle issues, i logged into the dongle control page and chnaged it to connect to my BT router now instead of the mobile hotspot, it did do it eventually but i could already tell it wasnt stable, sure enough my laptop wouldnt remain connected to the dongle and it was not working as a connection to the internet through the BT router, so i thought what i would do is remove the BT router and plug in one of my TP LInk Deco's, just the main one none of teh other ones in the mesh, again leaving everything else isolated, the beuaty of the TP link is the app that controls it means i can see in real time connected and disconnected devices and there data rate etc.. with the router now changed the dongle connected fine and worked as an AP fine also, so my next step was to re-introduce one piece of equipment at a time, i started streaming the radio through the dongle so as i was introducing equipment round the house i could listen for any drop outs to the stream, i was also viewing the deco app as i was introducing bits of kit to make sure it was connecetd to the network before i went onto the next bit of kit, i went through the whole house and one by one i had re introduced all equipment back onto the netwwork with no problems to the dongles performance, finally i re-introduced the oterh 3no TP Link Deco's to re-form the Wi-Fi mesh, again the dongle remained connected and working, i removed the dongle from the laptop and plugged it back into the inverter, it reconnected to the network and has remained connected ever since, that was around five days ago, its been fine ever since and has not dropped off the network once, the long and short of it is i have no idea really what was casuing the issue! Which is even more frustrating, i removed the Decos and put the BT router in because of the problem and seemingly changing it back round has fixed the problem, perhaps i was too hasty in the initial stages and it was a bit of an IP issue that hadnt had a chance to resolve itself, but i am not sure why the BT router was casuing such a problem, firewall issue maybe? Maybe it was just a sequencing thing and doing a full shutdown helped but it doesn't explain why the BT router still wouldn't have it. Hopefully thats the end of the saga for now!

likely unrelated but I encountered problems with device connectivity particularly related to esp8266 and esp32 based devices. Long story short I had extended wifi channels 12 and 13 enabled on my asus mesh wifi. After disabling these channels the intermittent / temperamental problems disappeared.

I'm not sure if this is germane, but to get a smart plug connected recently I had to suppress the 5GHz waveband on the router and connect using 2.4GHz. After it was connected, I could reinstate the 5GHz band and all was well.

I knowthe GiVenergy wifi dongles also work on 2.4GHz only. Mine connected OK with both bands present from the TP LInk extender in the garage, but who knows?

wilfleek Yeh i'm really not sure what has actually solved my issue which is kinda worse to be honest! I dont like not knowing! But its working now so i'm not going to mess with anything now! haha

I had a similar issue with channels, whenever my BT homehub reboots, I need to check the channel and my invertor is connected. I think channel 1 is bad for it, so I switch it to 6 I think it is and then it is happy again.

Just had a Solar system installed with GivEnergy Hybrid Inverter and WIFI dongle.
The donlge would not connect to (or even see) my local WIFI access point.
Fortunately, I was able to use a few tools to see what was happening in my installation.

My GivEnergy WIFI dongle is only able to use the 2.4GHz WIFI band and it can't access access WIFI channels 12 and 13 which means if your local WIFI access point is on these channels, the dongle can't see it. 🙁

As well as connecting to your local WIFI acess point, it broadcasts its own WIFI hotspot which uses the same WIFI channel as your WIFI (it switches channel when it connects to your WIFI) so there could be some interference. 🙁

Also, on my installtion, the GivEnergy dongle WIFI hotspot was unsecured and once into the dongle setup pages, there is your WIFI access password in plain text. A bit of a security hole. 🙁

alan_johnston My GivEnergy WIFI dongle is only able to use the 2.4GHz WIFI band and it can't access access WIFI channels 12 and 13 which means if your local WIFI access point is on these channels, the dongle can't see it. 🙁

Utilising 2.4Ghz is common for this type of device. Same with many home devices. It has better range than the 5Ghz band.

Not being able to use channels 12 and 13 is perhaps why some can’t see the inverter?

I would be surprised if there is any interference as the hotspot is not used apart from initial config. So yes it’s there and visible and you can connect to it. But there is no need.

But yes the password should be changed to something else - and probably the hotspot turned off.

I’ve just scanned the many WiFi networks I can see and my ssids are sitting on channel 11 2.4Ghz and the dongle is on 1.