Measureit not uploading solar at the start of a new day

[Warren333]

I’m currently using the measureit and rasp Pi image available because it was the best option for me because I have no programming knowledge. Anyway measureit is uploading both my energy used and solar generated to PVoutput, but at the start of a new day unless I manually restart the grabber, it stops uploading my solar generated. When I access the web interface of the Pi I can see the live solar data, but it doesn’t upload it. As soon as I restart the grabber, it starts sending the data. Strangely the power used data continues to upload whether I restart the grabber or not. Any suggestions? Remember I am a complete novice and have no programming abilities.

Additionally something I’ve noticed is when I am not producing any solar power during the night, measureit doesn’t upload this zero production figure. Should it?

[wotid]

I noticed this behaviour early on with my installation too. I simply get cron to restart the grabber for me every night and it fixed it (covered it up) for me.

Restart the measureit grabber at 00:01 each day

1 0 * * * /usr/local/bin/svc -t /service/measureit

[Warren333]

Brilliant, I was thinking there must be a line of code to add that would restart the grabber every day. Now the problem for me is I haven’t got a clue how to enter this code and the *** bit I’m assuming is three numbers? If you get the time and can be bothered can you write an idiot guide on how to do this (I’m talking a very basic, switch on rasp Pi, enter password, etc...). If you really can’t be bothered it’s not the end of the world, but I’m sure there must be other useless people like me out there that would benefit from this.

[wotid]

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/usage/cron.md

Once you have logged in to your Pi, open a terminal window, type crontab -e to edit the file. The asterisks are actual asterisks and are wild cards so the cron job is done every day of the month, every month, every day of the week.

(You may have to log into the terminal window as root, or type sudo crontab -e, I can't remember who owns measureit on the Pi in a standard installation and can control svc).

[Warren333]

Really appreciate this. I had just found that same page via google, after I first googled what the hell a “Cron” was. It’s a big old world out there that I’m clearly oblivious to.

Thanks again

[wotid]

If you reverse engineer my cron job, you'll see it restarts MeasureIt at one minute past midnight every day :)

[wotid]

Also head over to the Google group for fixing your uploading of solar data during the night. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/measureit/45FYnBZ0daM

(edited for the correct link)

[greentangerine]

I had to edit the path to make it work on my install - /usr/bin/svc i.e drop the local.

[Warren333]

Thanks again wotid. I’ll check the google forum out properly. I just had a quick glance and saw a fix for the zero pv generation issue by checking the box in the web settings “save same watt multiple”

Greentangerine - cheers for the heads up on the cron address change.

Will make the changes tomorrow as I’m heading to the pub. Yeah I know it’s only 1pm but that beer isn’t going to drink itself.

[Warren333]

Interestingly this morning the solar data has started to be displayed on the pvoutput site without having to restart the grabber. The only change I made yesterday was ticking the box to apply the “save same watt multiple” setting. The Pi now constantly sends solar data even when production is zero watts ie through the night.

[lalelunet]

If the production is 0 measureit stops uploading to PVOutput. 0 production is 0 production even if I submit it once or 100 times :)

With checking the box you can force measureit to save 0 watts storage and upload to PVOutput.

If you not check the box measureit should start to submit data when the production is starting the next day again.

[Warren333]

Thank you latelunet. I agree with everything you are saying, but for some reason my Pi stops uploading solar the following day. You can see the solar generated on the pi web page, but it doesn’t upload it until I restart the grabber. Then it works until the next day. Rightly or wrongly when I check the “save same watt multiple” box it fixes the problem and the grabber no longer needs restarting. I do not know why, but I know it now works thanks to this

[lalelunet]

Ok. I will setup a dev RPI with measureit again. Maybe I can find this problem

[Warren333]

I was discussing the issue I was having on https://forum.pvoutput.org/t/xively-and-currentcost-energy-meter/380/65 and another user has had the same issue and the “save same watt multiple” also fixed the issue

[john942s]

I beleive I am that other user, and I spoke too soon, I'm still having to restart the grabber most days before solar output is uploaded to pvoutput. Also, I'm getting blank gaps throughout the day where the output has not been recorded on pvoutput

[lalelunet]

I am running a system that uploads to PVOutput without a problem. I can not reproduce the problem. I update the grabber with some logging. You should update measureit and create a log.

https://github.com/lalelunet/measureit/wiki/Help---FAQ#how-do-i-update-my-measureit-installation

Can you please start the grabber in debug mode and create a log https://github.com/lalelunet/measureit/wiki/Help---FAQ#does-my-system-receive-data-from-my-currentcost-device-something-is-not-working-why-not-how-do-i-get-debug-information

Replace the PVOutput API key and the password settings with some xxxxx before uploading the log :)