3 Red LED Flashes - Panic Mode

Support
1

I have owned my Iotawatt since December 2018 and it has been very reliable up until a few weeks ago.

Now the unit will randomly enter a state which prevents access to the user interface and the LED flashes red 3 times, also data feed uploads to EmonCMS also stop.
A number of power cycles are required to get the unit operational again.
I have noticed it is easier to get the unit to restart if the VT transformer is un-plugged (this is subjective).

The last occurrence was last night (23-July) at 23:12.
Looking at the message log (attached) there appears to be a Software/System restart which then hangs around the HTTP server ?
Also looking through the log there appears to be a Software/System restart every day or so, is this normal ?

Any idea what is going wrong ?

Thanks
iotawatt red LED log.txt (9.7 KB)

2

I can see problems that seem to be related to the datalog. What doesn’t add up is the red-red-red led that you report. That code is only triggered during startup, so I’m at a loss to explain that. Can you double check that symptom next time it occurs?

Notwithstanding that the RRR led code does not indicate this, there is evidence in the message log that the datalog is not functioning properly. In a couple of the restarts, the last thing IoTaWatt did was dispatch the datalog task. Having that happen twice is more than coincidental. Another halt comes in the Emoncms uploader when it tries to read the next datalog record. Finally, the datalog is not updated when there is no VT - another correlation with your observed sysmptoms.

So I’m throwing shade on the datalog. It could be a structural issue with the log or it could be that your SDcard has become damaged. You can try remediating those potential problems to see if it resolves.

To replace the SDcard:

  1. Obtain an 8GB FAT32 formatted SDHC card, preferably level 10 although level 4 is OK.

  2. Power down your unit, open it up and remove the SDcard.

  3. Mount your SDcard on a PC and copy the entire contents to the PC. If it won’t mount of any of the files will not copy, Post back with the details.

  4. Mount the new card and copy the contents of the old card to it.

  5. Insert the new card in the IoTaWatt and restart.

If all is well and correct, it should start normally and run. If it still exhibits the same problem, try removing the current log:

Enter the URL http://iotawatt.local/command?deletelog=current

The unit will restart and create a new current log. The history log will remain and should be adequate to peruse your usage history.

If the problem persists, you may also have history log damage. If that is the case, you will need to remove both logs simultaneously: http://iotawatt.local/command?deletelog=both

3

Many thanks for the speedy reply.

Sorry it has take a little while to get back, I had to go into the office to get a 16GB SD card as the biggest I had at home was 4GB.

I have taken an image of the existing 8GB SD card and burnt this to the replacement 16GB SD card.
The IotaWatt has fired up and at the moment appears to working normally, but I won’t have a definitive answer if this is resolved for a couple of weeks or so.

I will report back mid August with an answer either way

Thanks again for the super support.

Regards
Andy

1 Like
4

As promised an update, after replacing the SD card the unit has been faultless without any further re-boots.

Thanks for the speedy assistance in resolving my problem.

Thanks
andy