Inverter has fallen off the Wifi

I replaced my router yesterday. I set up the new one with the same SSIDs and passwords and all my other IoT devices reconnected just fine, but the inverter is giving me grief.

The first time, I was able to connect to the 10.10.100.x wifi, get to 10.10.100.254, log in, re-detect the SSID, re-enter the password and get it connected again. I even had the local detection working, which never has before.

Foolishly, later on that day, I tried to make the SSID hidden, and the inverter has stopped connecting again.

I changed it back to a visible SSID, but it hasn't reconnected. I've rebooted the router, but it hasn't reconnected.

Again, every single other device I have has had no problems with this whatsoever, it's just the inverter.

I've tried reconnecting to the WHxxxx wifi, but it's now unbelievably flaky. I can connect, and it'll just disconnect again in a few minutes. If I try and do something (like go to 10.10.100.254) then it disconnects me quicker. If I try a Test-NetConnection to 10.10.100.254 on port 80, it doesn't succeed, and I can't ping it either. I've tried from a Windows 10 laptop and my Mac. Same results.

I've seen posts that say "reboot your inverter", but I have no idea how to do that. Do I just turn off the big chunky circular switch on the wall next to the inverter, leave it for a couple of minutes, then turn it back on again? How will this affect power to the house? Surely there's a better way of restarting just the wifi? (I don't know if it's integrated or if there's a separate dongle. It's been almost a year since it was installed and it's all screwed up, I can't just peek inside it or anything...)

TheMongoose I've heard that the inverter doesn't like 5GHz wifi signals - assuming your new router has that, can you turn it off ?

Log into router and turn off the 5MHz. Dongles only do 2.4MHz and you can get issues
To reboot the inverter you need to log into it on the portal page (pc or laptop) https://beta.givenergy.cloud/dashboard
Go to my inverter on LHS of screen. Then top right you will see 5 icon. The far right is "restart inverter". Obviously you cannot do that if you are not connected.
If you want to restart your inverter you need to kill all power to it and run it down for 30 seconds or so. You will also need to turn off your battery if you have one.

For me. Open 2 number DC breakers to PV panels.
Shut down 9.5 battery. Switch high on RHS. Then open breaker on LH side of battery case.
Open mains MCB in consumer unit feeding inverter.
wait 30 secs or so
Close all breakers and turn battery back on.

Did you installer give you a schematic of how your system components are connected together. Should have done!

Just a note - once it's all setup again, you can turn 5GHz back on, you don't have to turn that off permanently.

Also mobile phones / tablets have a tendency to switch to a better WiFi network if they can't find the Internet. Not helpful in this circumstance!

Even windows 11 does it now. Maybe updated versions of 10 do too?

What you might have to do (painful...) on windows forget all WiFi networks that are in range. Connect to the inverter dingle, get it all working, then forget that network on your laptop and rejoin the laptop to your home router.

Thanks for the quick reply both. I'd already turned off 5GHz yesterday, forgot to mention that.

@SteveCook - I'm not sure what "2 number DC breakers to PV panels" is/are. Is that in my consumer unit?

So to try and translate this into Mongoose-speak, I need to turn off the Solar switch in the consumer unit, shut down the battery, leave everything off for 30 seconds (probably 5 minutes to be safe), then turn the consumer unit switch back on BEFORE turning the battery on?

Am I better off doing this at night when I'm not generating solar, or during the day when I might be? Or does it not matter? What happens to generated solar if the inverter and battery are both off?

TX200 - Yeah, I've already had to do that. Even with it set to auto-join the inverter and nothing else, I can still see it disconnecting and reconnecting.

TheMongoose
I have East and West PV panels, so have 2 DC strings, each string with a rotary isolator/breaker.
I dont know how many PV strings you have

TheMongoose
Yes turn off "solar switch" in consumer unit.
Turn off the battery and Open the breaker/switch connecting it to the inverter.
Open DC breakers to PV panels (though now night there should not be any DC current)

Wait 30 secs (all lights on inverter to go out), just letting all inverter components go flat. Mine takes about 10 secs.
Close all breakers and power on again. It should all reboot, though whether that fixes the WiFi connection I dont know.

Thanks @SteveCook

I've done this, all lights went out, powered it all back on after a while, all lights back on again.

But still no wifi connectivity. And I still can't get to it on the default one either. I still just keep getting "Your connection was interrupted. A network change was detected" because as soon as you try anything, the network disconnects, then reconnects.

Not sure what to try next. If turning the wifi off and on again doesn't work, and turning the inverter off and on again doesn't work, I'm out of ideas for the moment...

Ok, I've discovered how to take the front panel off and have tried plugging the NIC into my switch. Nada. There's also a reset button for the wifi, but holding that for 5 seconds doesn't seem to do anything either, it's no more usable that it was before.

But if I plug the ethernet port into a laptop and give it a static IP in the 10.10.100.x/24 range, I can get to 10.10.100.254 and back into the admin console. So that's something.

I've re-discovered my IoT wifi and put the key in. Still doesn't connect. It won't connect to my device isolation guest wifi either. It doesn't seem to have any sort of logs, so I can't imagine what its problems are, since I set both of those to only 2.4GHz in advance.

It will join my regular wifi though, even though that's both 2.4 and 5GHz. So at least there's that.

I'm not entirely happy with having such an obviously badly designed device (from an IT point of view) on my primary internal LAN. I'd much rather isolate it on the IoT network so it can have internet access but if it does somehow get compromised (can't fully trust any cloud services these days!), it can't affect things beyond my smoke alarms and thermostat...

Do we know if it has a problem with password length maybe? It seemed OK on Wednesday, but maybe it's not really happy with a 33 character password...

sorry it is all a bit beyond me now. My password is 8 characters