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Lost connectivity on wired ethernet to powerwalls?
- Thread starter arnolddeleon
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- powerwall 2
eml2
Member
My PW/Gateway was updated from 1.20.0 to 1.21.0 yesterday and now I have lost connection to Web UI. Ironically, 1.21 Release Note stated that it
Added Customer login to Gateway to allow:
How do I get it Gateway login back?
Added Customer login to Gateway to allow:
- Local monitoring of power flow and charge level
- Viewing system information
- Updating network settings
How do I get it Gateway login back?
It it's just not-responding/timing out, you may have been hit by the dreaded web-server lockup bug, in which case you'll have to reboot the gateway, either by pressing the reset button if it has one, and otherwise by turning the Powerwall battery off, and shutting off power, bother from the grid, and from any solar panels.
eml2
Member
I just called Tesla Support and they told me that it is not a web-server lockup bug, but in fact, they are blocking it!
I asked them to reboot my Gateway and they refused because there is nothing wrong with my Gateway.
Does anyone in US running 1.21 have access to the local Web UI?
I asked them to reboot my Gateway and they refused because there is nothing wrong with my Gateway.
Does anyone in US running 1.21 have access to the local Web UI?
It's frustrating that we're getting conflicting statements from Tesla about this.
This is a quote from an email I received from Tesla in Australia, after I visited their office.
"As discussed we are still investigating why the web server on the Gateway has become inaccessible to yourself. As a first step we would like to remotely run some diagnostics and restart the Gateway."
I think the support staff reached by phone, who are likely to have the lowest level of techical knowledge, are just misinformed.
If they won't reboot it, you'll have to try to reset it, either by pressing the reset button, if you're luckly enough to have one, or by completely powering it down, including switching it off by the switch on the powerwall, tripping the main grid breaker, and turning off all the solar power. (This of course means that your house is totally powered down too). Wait for ten minutes before turning on again.
eml2
Member
I don't have a reset button, so I have to completely power it down. After ~ 5 mins, switch it back on and Web UI is back.
I would point a customer agent that claims Tesla is blocking to this page:
Software Updates | Tesla
which recently got updated so the "learn more" link now points to a page which now shows how you connect locally (if your webserver is not hung).
24 hours on 1.21.0 and still connected - crossing fingers that it stays.
I've had bad experiences with Powerwall support telling me some things that are dubious and others that are provably untrue. The support rep I talked to seemed to have the attitude she knew better and that I was giving her incorrect information. This was in the context of the scheduling bug they had with cost-savings where it did the wrong thing on Fridays and Saturdays. She insisted it was the correct behavior. I would not put it past this rep to insist that blocking the web server was on purpose too so she didn't have to deal with trying to track a difficult bug.
I've had bad experiences with Powerwall support telling me some things that are dubious and others that are provably untrue. The support rep I talked to seemed to have the attitude she knew better and that I was giving her incorrect information. This was in the context of the scheduling bug they had with cost-savings where it did the wrong thing on Fridays and Saturdays. She insisted it was the correct behavior. I would not put it past this rep to insist that blocking the web server was on purpose too so she didn't have to deal with trying to track a difficult bug.
Thank you for the information on the software update details of 1.21.0. I used this information to finally convince a guy (Dan) at PW Support to force an update of my PW2 from 1.20.0 to 1.21.0 and re-enable my local network access to the PW2. I specifically mentioned the details and decisions by Tesla to support customer access. After being on hold for 30 minutes, he came back on the phone and told me "no problem, he'll force an update". He also confirmed that this update should re-enable my PW2 web server. Unfortunately, they gave it overnight, but he contacted me today that he could force the update. Now on to second tier. I'm also waiting on tier 2 for my inability to change my self-powered reserve percentage. Perhaps these issues are related.
Thank you again!
I have access again!
When the system is "hung" they can't login to the wizard either (locally and apparently they can do it remotely as well)
They ended up forcing an update to 1.21.0
The people I worked with knew about local customer logins so I had no issue with getting to them understand there was an issue. It also helped tremendously that they couldn't login in either.
When the system is "hung" they can't login to the wizard either (locally and apparently they can do it remotely as well)
They ended up forcing an update to 1.21.0
The people I worked with knew about local customer logins so I had no issue with getting to them understand there was an issue. It also helped tremendously that they couldn't login in either.
Thank you arnolddeleon for your posts on this topic - very helpful. I have been in contact with Dan at Tesla support for over a week. He tried originally on the 15th to update the Powerwall firmware, but no luck. I emailed him right after you posted this and quoted your statements. Moments ago, I finally have 1.21.0 and local access has been restored. I was told twice by Tesla support that they turned off my webserver. Through my conversations with Dan, its clear that this was a bug. I've waited 7 weeks to get this resolved.
Looks like it's time to dust off the raspberry PI and get my PVOutput.org flowing with better data.
My generous interpretation is that some of them were informed about the change that created customer logins versus installer logins. This got passed around as turning off customer access to the local web server (which could be argued is true, if you by local web server you mean the local wizard UI).
I had purchased and Raspberry Pi and was about to put it together to feed PVoutput.org when this whole kerfuffle started. Now I also get to dust it off this weekend I hope.
BTW they have clever mechanism for doing a customer password reset. You have to know the last 5 digits of your serial number *and* you have to be someone physically present at the site to toggle the power switch on a Powerwall (in a multi-unit configuration it doesn't matter which). This presumably demonstrates you have some physical control of the system.
This seems to support my notion that the connection the gateway makes to a Tesla server is in fact establishing a VPN. The earlier version of the firmware exposed an SSH server on the LAN, but the port is no longer accessible. I suspect that the server is still there and that Tesla can access a shell over the VPN, which essentially means that they have access to a Linux system (I strongly suspect), that sits on one's internal LAN. All the more reason to put it on a VLAN so that Tesla do not have access to things they shouldn't. (This is an example of do as I say, not as I do, since I haven't got round to it yet).
That can't work for a powewall gateway, because Tesla have no way of addressing a device on a LAN from the Internet. So any access Tesla has to the gateway has to be as a result of the outward connections that the gateway makes to Tesla's servers.
The gateway certainly connects to the https port on the Tesla servers, but that doesn't mean it has to use the https protocol.
Sure, but it would be pretty easy for one of the things to return from the https calls be an instruction to establish a VPN connection. I didn't mean the "into" that literally.
I've seen traffic on the OpenVPN port (1194) for my Model X. It doesn't seem like there would be any pressing reason to use the HTTPS port to tunnel a VPN connection. I wouldn't expect them to routinely keep a VPN connection open.
I think they'd use the https port simply because it's unlikely to get caught up in any internet provider blocking activity.
This info on the reset button is great news. My Powerwall regularly loses the direct web interface. More critically at the same the the ability to change settings like the mode and backup threshold also get lost at the same time. I've been calling Tesla support each time to get them to do the reboot which can take up to a week. Now I can do it myself
Thanks
P.S. The issue has persisted intermittently since the powerwall was first installed (April 2018 - 1.16 I think) right though to today (1.25 installed over the week-end). The worst instance, in terms of impact, was when I needed to switch to backup mode the night before a scheduled 8 hour grid outage, but couldn't. Luckily the 15% plus a sunny day was enough to get me through (I work online from home).
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