Growatt Data Logger connectivity via ER605 gateway
Growatt Data Logger connectivity via ER605 gateway
Hi,
I have recently started to upgrade to omada based devices from the existing home tp-link devices, however, I am now getting internet connectivity issues from a Growatt Data Logger device on the network.
At the moment the setup is simple
ER605 -> TP-Link switch -> EAP670 + TP-Link ArcherA8
After days of troubleshooting,
I tried the following, which worked.
Used just the old TP-link Archer A8 (home wifi router), factory reset device, plugged in NBN cable and configured PPPoE, disabled 5GHz wifi channel, attached laptop, and the Growatt Data Logger SUCCESSFULLY attached to the 2.4GHz channel
A very simple setup, and confirmed the data logger works
Without factory resetting the TP-Link ArcherA8, I disabled the WAN & DHCP, changed it to another static IP and attached it back to the original solution (see above).
It is just acting as an Access Point (AP)
The Growatt Data Logger is still attached to the Archer A8 Wifi, but it will not connect over the internet to the Growatt servers. I can connect my laptop to the Archer A8 wifi and the internet is fine.
It seems that there is some config on the ER605 that is blocking communication to the Growatt server on the internet.
I went onto online chat with TP-Link support but they have not answered in 4 hours.
I am looking for advice on what I need to change to fix the issue or configure on the ER605 for better logging.
Ashley
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The Growatt Data Logger is still attached to the Archer A8 Wifi, but it will not connect over the internet to the Growatt servers
Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting the data logger ?
The default gateway will have changed from being the A8 to the Er605. Unless a device is reconnected and gets a new IP address via DHCP , it will have the wrong default gateway
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Hi @ashleyh
Thanks for posting in our business forum.
You have selected firewall and ACL. So do you have them enabled on the ER605?
With the given information, many key points are left blank.
You might wanna specify the IP addresses of the devices mentioned. What's the IP when your device connects to the Internet?
Do you literally change its working mode to AP or you try to disable DHCP to make it seem to be an AP?
Please be precise about these stuff as they matter.
Chat service will be available as long as you connect during working hours.
It should be available right now as the shift is there.
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The Growatt Data Logger is still attached to the Archer A8 Wifi, but it will not connect over the internet to the Growatt servers
Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting the data logger ?
The default gateway will have changed from being the A8 to the Er605. Unless a device is reconnected and gets a new IP address via DHCP , it will have the wrong default gateway
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A quick Google search brings me here, as i am also experiencing the same issue with a Growatt Shine Wifi-S RS232 dongle. I am currently using a completely different standalone mobile hotspot to give my Growatt inverter internet access.
I think it is something to do with the ER605 gateway and the ESP chip inside the Growatt dongle. Maybe it does not like VLAN's or something?
I have seen various projects to replace the firmware on the Growatt dongle, but i don't want to go down that route and lose being able to upload the Growatt inverter data to the Growatt cloud.
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Status update
I had the Solar installers back out in Early Jan and connecting the Data Logger to a Mobile Phone hotspot worked.
I eventually reconfigured my network to have the
ER605 as my internet gateway (PPoE) and the EAP670 as the Wifi AP for the Data Logger.
However, this time I had a replacement DataLogger (with updated firmware) and also a separate WiFi SSID for the Growatt Data Logger (following all the recommendations from Growatt support).
It will not connect.
I used this previously mentioned TP-Link Archer A8 as a temp internet gateway instead of the ER605.... magic it connected in minutes and continued to work for days
Summary of the network topology: TP-Link Archer A8 (Internet GW) and EAP670 as the Wifi AP for the Growatt DL.
Switched it back to the ER605 and immediately stopped working.
I logged an issue with TP-Link support and currently the ticket has been open for 23 days, troubleshooting it.
My argument is it works with a TP-Link Archer A8 (home equipment) but will not work with the ER605 (Small business equipment).
I have been capturing network packets when using the Archer A8 and compared with the packets when using the ER605, and you can see different behavior.
I even configured remote access for TP-Link support to connect to my Omada Controller.
Yesterday, they made a new suggestion based on their remote analysis of my network.
Thinking it might be related to the TTL for DNS queries.
Going to look at this tomorrow (i.e. switch the DNS servers)
Regards
Ashley
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@ashleyh Glad to hear that you and TP-Link are making progress with this issue. I am looking forward to hear your update after running with some new DNS server settings.
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@ashleyh I am runnning fimrware version 3.0.0.2, what version were you running and what version did you update too?
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My ER605 is a v2 model
and the firmware is the latest available 2.2.6
TP-Link support has not said anything about this version or any more recent version
regards
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I've seen similar problems in the past with another router and an IOT device.
The IOT device used the default DNS server as supplied to it via the DHCP request to the router, and had no option to set specific DNS servers.
In this case, typically, the DNS server address supplied will be the router itself, which acts as a DNS cache and forwarding server,
forwarding DNS requests upwards to either specific DNS servers or those supplied by the ISP.
Now DNS requests are normally sent using UDP which has a packet size limitation of 512 bytes. Where this is exceeded by the size of the DNS response,
the DNS request should be resent using TCP which allows for a larger packet size.
In the previous case refered to, the router DNS server failed to resend the request using TCP and so effectively the client saw a DNS lookup failure.
Many routers use software based on linux and so the same code is used for the DNS server (DNSMASQ) so it would not be surprising if other routers
exhibited similar effects, particularly if they used older versions. In the refered case, the solution adopted was to enhance the IOT device
to provide an option to define specific DNS servers thus bypassing any problem in the router.
You may find that, if your Data logger has an option to set DNS servers , either still using DHCP or by setting a static IP, then you can fix the problem by using googles dns servers 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4. Failing that you (or TPlink) should be able to establish if my theory is correct by capturing packets showing the DNS queries
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@ashleyh Ahh, i now realise that i hadn't made myself very clear in my previous statement. I meant to say that my Growatt Shine Wifi-S Dongle is running firmware version 3.0.0.2
I am also running the ER605 v2.0 with firmware 2.2.6. So i believe that we most lkely have an identical setup (depending on what firmware version your Growatt dongle is running.
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@MisterW Many thanks for your insightful post.
I set my IoT LAN settings to use Googles DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and lo and behold, now my Growatt inverter can now use my Omada wifi setup, for the first time.
Most appreciated for the solution and the background info on why it wasn't working.
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