No Notification on PowerWall Grid Failure, App Bug? V 3.10.5, iPhone

[swedge]

...snip... But oddly when they emailed me to tell me that they thought they had fixed it, they said that the tier 2 team was able to see the option when they logged in as me. ....

Brett,

That is very, very interesting! I had what seemed like an entirely different problem, but with the same "tier 2" inability to reproduce it. This may be a clue to the cause, and may even suggests a solution.

What fixed my other problem was to change my Tesla account login email.

Apparently both problems are caused by some detail in the account record in Teslas authentication service. Tier 2 does not need (or know) our passwords, which means they bypass the authentication process when they log in to our accounts. Apparently when the login email is chnaged, a new record is created without whatever glitch is making authentication fail.

My other problem was that I could not log in to my account on the Tesla web site. I could log in to the App, and it worked fine, but I could not work on my Model Y reservation at all. I could post that story if anyone wants the gory details.

Anyway, just maybe, if you change your account login email and then log in with the new email, the Notification problem may, just maybe, be fixed. This is done on the Tesla web site, Account page. If you wish, you can change it back to the old address after.

I have a friend with the same problem, and am waiting to hear back with permission to try this on their account. In the mean time, you could try it yourself.

I have my own internet domain, and so creating an email alias is easy for me. Many email services allow creation of alternate or alias addresses. Or you could just create new gmail account. Heck, I could create an alias for you on my domain.

If you try it, let us know if it works. Fingers crossed!

SW

 

[charlesj]

Brett,

.... Fingers crossed!

SW

Which way, left to right or right to left. It might matter

 

[swedge]

Brett, et al,

No joy, sorry it did not work. Never mind.

My friends who have the same no-Notification-menu-item problem said it was OK for me to play with their account. So I changed the email/login to a new address. And, while I could log the app into their account using the new login there was still no Notifications item on the settings menu. Sigh. So I put the account email/login back the way it was.

Maybe I had the wrong fingers crossed?

So it looks like the only known way to fix it is to get Tesla support to do it. But hang in there, my case proved that they can in fact do so. Hang in there and pester 'em till they do.

SW

 

[Tezzie]

Still no notifications, no notification setting in the Tesla app, which is now up to 3.10.6, and gateway now 1.47.0. So new versions did not fix this problem. That is consistent with my current hypothesis that the problem lives in the back-end server, perhaps a problem in the registration of new installations.

I contacted Support again, and they said: "I can see this issue is being worked on and escalated further to determine where the disconnect is. We're collecting more information on additional customers with this issue to get a resolution out to the fleet. We've seen this is not specifically tied to a phone, so are researching what the issue is on our end."

I'm wondering if every new installation is having this problem, or is it just a few unlucky ones of us.

Is there anyone who had a PowerWall installed since mid May and does get grid failure notifications?

Also, please, anyone with this problem please join me in pestering Support, a squeaky wheel tactic.

Thanks, all!

I have Tesla car and Powerwalls. I have also never received PW notifications for power outages or storm watch., despite all notifications on my iphone X and in the Tesla app being on.

I used to get notifications when my car was charging, stopped charging, software updating, etc, because I had those notifications turned on. Recently, I haven't received any car notifications, either.

The issue is being escalated via Tesla support. Since I have never received any PW notifications, I thought it might have something to do with the original set-up on the server, but Tesla support swears it's not that. I'll keep you posted--they say I should knw something in a couple of days. My car is supposed to be updating software tonight so maybe I'll at least get that notification.

 

[Tezzie]

Maybe set the Banner Style to be Persistent?

I'm thinking about this stuff now because we have some electrical maintenance scheduled on our street for Wednesday (replacing one or more utility poles) and we'll be having a multi-hour outage...kind of a mini-rehearsal for PSPS season.

Bruce.

My banners were set to persistent, and I have sounds and badges on. But no notifications.

 

[Tezzie]

Here are two locations in the iPhone I made sure to have it set up.

View attachment 561682 View attachment 561683

Not sure what that "allow Tesla to access" and "Contacts" being on does.
I had it both ways no, still no sound and this morning, no banner either following another test.

I am ready to just give up.

Weird. I see almost the same thing as you've shown here in Settings under Tesla app, but Contacts toggle switch does not appear for me. My contacts are synced with my car so I can call people in the car, but no toggle switch in the Iphone settings for Tesla.

 

[charlesj]

My banners were set to persistent, and I have sounds and badges on. But no notifications.

Same with me.

And, a banner only announcement without sound or persistence is also not very useful.

 

[Tezzie]

Still waiting to hear back from the Powerwall support peeps, who escalated the issue to Tier 2. They're surprisingly responsive, so I'm hoping the issue can be resolved. Give them a call--the more people who report the issue, the better.

 

[garrett5688]

Does the TEG “know” the difference between flipping the main breaker and a true grid outage?

i don’t get notifications of an outage either, but I haven’t had a real outage... only flipping the TEG disconnect for off grid testing.

Oddly I get the “power restored” notification, as well as all chosen car notifications.

(iPhone 8)

 

[Tezzie]

Does the TEG “know” the difference between flipping the main breaker and a true grid outage?

i don’t get notifications of an outage either, but I haven’t had a real outage... only flipping the TEG disconnect for off grid testing.

Oddly I get the “power restored” notification, as well as all chosen car notifications.

(iPhone 8)

Where I am, there's an average of one power outage a month. They are usually SCE planned safety power outages to protect against wildfires or to replace power lines/poles. I have never received notifications for ANY power outages, though I can see them in the History. If an outage of less than a few seconds happens, I might not expect notification. But I am talking outages of 2, 4 and 6 hours. The shortest one was an hour and a half.

As I said earlier in this thread, I have never had any STORM WATCH notifications either, and I should be getting those, too.

 

[charlesj]

Does the TEG “know” the difference between flipping the main breaker and a true grid outage?

i don’t get notifications of an outage either, but I haven’t had a real outage... only flipping the TEG disconnect for off grid testing.

Oddly I get the “power restored” notification, as well as all chosen car notifications.

(iPhone 8)

Your backup history on your app indicates all grid power down real or main breakers turned off.
There may be a question how long power need to be down before sending an alert. Some say 5 min but in my past test of much longer, didn't se anything unless banner came and went without staying.

 

[wjgjr]

Your backup history on your app indicates all grid power down real or main breakers turned off.
There may be a question how long power need to be down before sending an alert. Some say 5 min but in my past test of much longer, didn't se anything unless banner came and went without staying.

Yeah - it is all the same for the app, whether it was a real grid event or self-triggered. And ~5-6 minutes does (did?) seem to be the minimum before it reports the outage, but it is clear there are some changes and bugs in the current versions. That time seems to be based on the fact that at least for some of us, any power interruption - however brief - causes the system to isolate from the grid for about 5 minutes before attempting to link back up to the grid, and they did not want to send out alerts for brief interruptions.

 

[Tezzie]

Yeah - it is all the same for the app, whether it was a real grid event or self-triggered. And ~5-6 minutes does (did?) seem to be the minimum before it reports the outage, but it is clear there are some changes and bugs in the current versions. That time seems to be based on the fact that at least for some of us, any power interruption - however brief - causes the system to isolate from the grid for about 5 minutes before attempting to link back up to the grid, and they did not want to send out alerts for brief interruptions.

I don't are about short outages. When there are outages lasting 1 hour or more, I want to be notified. There have been 5 outages in the last 6 months and I haven't received ANY notification. I also want to be notified when Storm Watch is initiated, and never have been notified.

 

[holeydonut]

w

Your backup history on your app indicates all grid power down real or main breakers turned off.
There may be a question how long power need to be down before sending an alert. Some say 5 min but in my past test of much longer, didn't se anything unless banner came and went without staying.

How do you get the backup history to tell you the timestamp of the outage?

My wife and I saw the lights flicker for a second, and my cable modem and DVR rebooted. The mobile app just says there was a 27 second grid interruption in the history, but it doesn't say what time. If we weren't there to literally witness it, then we may have missed the time that it occurred.

Don't get me wrong; this used to happen before the Powerwalls were put in place, so it's not like I'm experiencing something new. I'm just trying to understand that the Powerwalls didn't mitigate it, and the Tesla software doesn't report when it happens. So it's kind of like the Powerwalls don't really provide a benefit in this type of brief dip situation.

The Powerwalls SoC were around 25%; and my home was only pulling about 1 kW at the time of the dip.

 

[Tezzie]

Backup history only gives the date and hours/minutes of the outage when Backup power was used (attached screen shot).

 

[BrettS]

So I’ve been dealing with no outage notification from the app since my system was installed in June. I’ve spoken with support a number of times and my case keeps getting escalated, but so far no fix. I just got the following email though:

The latest update on the issue with your system is that the matter has been escalated to Engineering and that there are thousands of other sites that are also affected with this issue. Needless to say, we are working on a fix. Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA on when to expect it to be resolved. But we are working diligently to fix this. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this is causing.

So it looks like Tesla is finally acknowledging that this is a widespread issue. Hopefully they will be able to fix it once and for all soon.

 

[Tezzie]

So I’ve been dealing with no outage notification from the app since my system was installed in June. I’ve spoken with support a number of times and my case keeps getting escalated, but so far no fix. I just got the following email though:



So it looks like Tesla is finally acknowledging that this is a widespread issue. Hopefully they will be able to fix it once and for all soon.

Ack! I haven't had ANY notifications since my PWs were installed in March of last year! Yesterday was my third convo with Tesla PW Tier 2 support. I sent them a bunch of screen shots of my Notification set-up on my iPhone and in the Tesla app, then did an off-grid test for 10 minutes and sent them another screen shot showing no power outage notification, and sent a screen shot of that. Of course there was a notification for my Model S software update). The rep told me it was likely an engineering issue, but I haven't gotten any emails.

 

[swedge]

I am the original poster on this one, and I have now seen two PowerWalls with this problem, and both were fixed by "engineering" after multiple contacts with the support folks. In both cases it took weeks of pestering, but they actually can fix it.

To be clear, the key symptom of this particular problem is that there is no Notifications item in-app settings menu, the one accessed by the little gear in the upper left of the main screen.

If this is your problem, hang in there and pester support repeatedly.

Oh, and on one case I was told that when support logged into an account without the Notifacations menu item, they did see that item. This made them assume that I didn't know what I was talking about. But, they didn't use the account password, instead logging in with their "masquerade" tool. So, I had them log in using my password, and boom, they saw the problem and escalated.

SW

 

[garrett5688]

So have you tested and confirmed you get a grid failure notification now?

I’ve always had the notification settings, and they work well for the cars, but if i flip the main disconnect, I do not get a grid down notification...

 

[russmd]

I just joined this thread and read the entire thing. I also have the no notifications issue, but I do have a notifications check box for power outage in my app. I don’t have a vehicle. I have the latest app and IOS versions on two iPhones and an iPad. All the notification settings in both places are enabled. I have had my PW’s for two months and have had several outages, both real and breaker tests longer than 6 minutes. I have NEVER received any notifications. My support agent says it was escalated to level II but I’ve heard nothing back. I have a whole house system and if I don’t know the grid went out, I could potentially deplete the batteries in a short amount of time. This is ridiculous. Are there any updates or fixes yet? Thanks.