I have had my IotaWatt almost a year, but only installed it a few weeks ago due to a low wifi signal at the meter box location.
The way I resolved the low wifi situation was to install a Raspberry Pi 4 (which has wifi and ethernet) and the IotaWatt in a small metal box adjacent to the meter box with Rpi providing wifi connectivity for the IotaWatt and bridging to my household ethernet. This all seemed to work great initially, but I have noticed the IotaWatt seems to regularly “run out of steam” - almost like a memory leak situation and running out of resources. A few days ago it was stuck in the G-R-R-G mode and after reading about SD card issues I tried a different SD card with little improvement. I then tried a different wall-wart PSU with little change. Yesterday I got a new Rpi 3 PSU and fitted that, but it still locked up again overnight.
Another thing to mention is that there is one channel that has a CT coming into it but I have not set it up as an input as I forgot which type of CT it was and have to take meter box apart to check, but I mention in case that could be an issue. - I will check and fix that today but not expecting that to be the issue.
When I look at the iotamsgs.txt file there seem to be a high number of resets that happen without me doing anything so I have posted that log file here in case someone who has more experience can interpret more from the log and trace numbers than I can.
I have also posted a pic of the installation for reference. There is small serial port connected LoRa radio in the box connected to the Rpi also ATM, the antenna for this is outside the box and I will try totally disconnecting that also to eliminate it, but highly doubt it is the problem as I haven’t finished software for it yet and it is just sitting there doing nothing unless I am actively testing the radio for the moment and typically the IotaWatt seems to die overnight when I am definately not using the radio.
I suspect that your datalogs are corrupted. You can delete them and the unit will create new. Restart your unit and enter the following URL into your browser:
It seems to have done similar thing overnight, I have attached the updated messages file below.
I did identify and add to the settings the one unconfigured CT before deleting the datalogs yesterday.
I normally have one browser tab open monitoring the graph at http://192.168.1.167/graph2.htm - after I reset the unit this morning (it was flashing R-R-R) and went to the graph page it was all messed up no graph showing, but when I went back after it had been running for a while all is normal again, but missing the data from about 4:30 till 7:00 this morning.
I can’t say definitively what is going on. When it restarts it is timing out doing a query, which could be the Graph+ that you say you leave running, or possibly Home Assistant if you are using that.
If I had to guess, and I suppose I do, I would suspect the SDcard is bad. Replacing it would be the next diagnostic step.
Thanks overeasy,
The unit is already using a different (but not new or re-formatted) SD card as this was one of the first things I tried, so I will try using the original graph interface for a while to see if there is any change there first, if no joy there will get a new SD card and start from scratch with new install.
I will post back what I find.
Hi overeasy - just a follow up on progress so far -
After swapping to using the traditional graph interface it was evident from viewing the log file during the day that the spurious resets that had been frequently happening had now stopped. At this point I thought OK that must have been the problem and it would be plain sailing going forwards…
However the next morning I found it had locked up again overnight flashing R-R-R - so at that point thought sure enough SD card must be the problem. I reset the IotaWatt then forgot to get a new card when I went out that day, I got one day after that, however it has now continued to run trouble free for several days since then so still a bit unsure as to what that is telling me - interested in your thoughts as what to do next…
It’s not clear from your chronology if you installed the new card. I’m assuming you did not. I would still recommend the new card but you could try copying the old card to it. Then start using Graph+ again. Any trouble wipe the data logs.
Thanks overeasy - did not expect a response so quickly - you must never sleep given we are opposite sides of the globe!
You are correct I didn’t install it yet but will do as you suggest and report back in a few more days.
I put in a brand new SD card (high endurance) and has now run perfectly for 24 hours with no error messages in log file using the graph+ interface so definately problem solved now.
