POW-U constant rebooting on "newer" firmware

[thorbearswe]

I updated my POW-U yesterday. I believe from 2.2.3 to 2.3.6 (im not 100% it was from 2.2.3) and it seemed to go well and worked as it should for a couple of hours. but today i noticed in home assistant that i had no values delivered from the meter since yesterday evening. with external power everything works as it should, but when i disconnect the usb power the pow-u reboots and i get about 6-10 scs of uptime between reboots. if i connect external power the reboots stop and i get readings again. my guess is that something changed between the firmware versions that made the pow-u need more power. i have tried to downgrade the firmware to see if it solves the problem but i have NOT had any success to back all the way to 2.2.3. this behaviour is observed with 2.3.4 and 2.3.5 as well.

Hardware information:

• Country: Sweden
• Meter: Kaifa MA304H4D
• Encryption enabled: yes
• AMS reader: POW-U esp8266 HWver 1.4
• M-bus adapter (if applicable):

Relevant firmware information:

• Version: 2.3.6
• MQTT: yes
• MQTT payload type: Home assistant
• HAN GPIO: ?
• HAN baud and parity: 2400 8E1
• Temperature sensors [e.g. 3xDS18B20]
• ENTSO-E API enabled: yes (fetch from remote server)

[ArnieO]

This is a strange and unexpected issue, so let us try to debug. You're running quite old hardware. One of the disadvantages with ESP8266 is that it has some flaws in the power saving.

Can you as a start provide a screenshot of your Config page?

[thorbearswe]

yes, ofc.

[ArnieO]

Thank you! I don't see any issues with this config. We have sometimes seen issues with such "long" updates at the one you did.

I would in this situation try a Factory reset. If you want to preserve historical values: Do a backup from the Info/status page first - and restore from the file after the Factory reset is done.

Try this:

• Do a backup with all parameters stored (except "Include secrets").
• Do a Factory reset and restart the unit as per Firmware User Manual chapter 3.
• When device is running: Observe if it still reboots before restoring from backup.
• Restore parameters from backup
• If it now starts to reboot, please post the content of the backup file (configfile.cfg). (Delete potential sensitive information first)

[gskjold]

I was working on a unrelated thing on friday which may affect stability for 8266. Could you please try the attached firmware: esp8266.zip

Update guide: https://github.com/UtilitechAS/amsreader-firmware/wiki/Flashing-via-web-GUI

[thorbearswe]

• estore parameters from backup

ok, i have now tried a factory reset. entered my wifi credentials and nothing else (no mqtt or anything) cut the external power and i get a reboot right away. after that i have seen at most 13secs of uptime before the next reboot. (with external power = still ok). I have also tried the test firmware. see reply to gskjold

this is the content of the cfg you requested:

amsconfig version v2.3.6 boardType 7 netmode 1 hostname ams-3804 mdns 1 use11b 0 mqttHost mqttPort mqttClientId Kaifa MA304H4D mqttPublishTopic Kaifa_MA304H4D mqttPayloadFormat 4 mqttSsl 0 homeAssistantDiscoveryPrefix homeAssistantDiscoveryHostname ams-3804.local homeAssistantDiscoveryNameTag meterBaud 2400 meterParity 8E1 meterInvert 0 meterDistributionSystem 2 meterMainFuse 20 meterProductionCapacity 0 gpioHanPin 12 gpioHanPinPullup 1 gpioApPin 0 gpioLedPin 2 gpioLedInverted 1 gpioLedPinRed 13 gpioLedPinGreen 14 gpioLedRgbInverted 1 gpioVccOffset 0.00 gpioVccMultiplier 1.000 gpioVccBootLimit 0.0 ntpEnable 1 ntpDhcp 1 ntpTimezone Europe/Stockholm ntpServer 1.se.pool.ntp.org priceEnabled 1 priceArea 10Y1001A1001A46L priceCurrency SEK thresholds 5 10 15 20 25 50 75 100 150 65535 1 dayplot 6 1719946857 139106.552 0 1039 1244 1093 1005 1192 1200 1202 1492 1383 1686 1141 1139 1700 1282 936 1165 1536 3134 4068 1225 1482 1139 1054 1244 monthplot 7 1719871211 139075.617 0 33841 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 32110 0 energyaccounting 6 7 12.51 12.51 10.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 1 2.69 2 3.13 0 0.00 0 0.00 0 0.00 32.11 0.00

[thorbearswe]

I was working on a unrelated thing on friday which may affect stability for 8266. Could you please try the attached firmware: esp8266.zip

Update guide: https://github.com/UtilitechAS/amsreader-firmware/wiki/Flashing-via-web-GUI

I've tested the test firmware but I still experience reboots without external power. but it seems more stable. now i see uptimes around 2 minutes

[ArnieO]

this is the content of the cfg you requested:

Thank you! I see nothing out of the ordinary.

What puzzles me is:

• You tried to roll back to v2.2.3 which you think is the version you were running before the upgrade; no luck.
• We know for a fact that there are a quite large number of ESP8266-based devices running also with v2.3.x - without issues.

There have been situations (@gskjold can maybe elaborate) where devices need a full erase of the flash memory before getting back to normal behavior. This is not something particular with our firmware, but a generally known issue that may occur sometimes with ESP8266 when flashing firmware. It is however extremely seldom we see the need for that related to OTA (over-the-air) update, which is what you have done now.

But to do a flash erase on your device you would need an FTDI module. However, I cannot guarantee that it solves the issue you're seeing.

So to cut the chase, I prefer to send you a new Pow-U. Please email us on post@amsleser.no so we can identify you and arrange a new shipment.