Schneider XWPro Firmware Upgrade Version 2.04.00

[Darcy Costa Rica]

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has upgraded their Schneider Conext XWPro units to the latest firmware posted on Schneider's support site.

My InsightCloud is showing the new firmware as an upgrade for my inverters, but when I tried upgrading it said it was not correct.

 

[Bajanmonkey]

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has upgraded their Schneider Conext XWPro units to the latest firmware posted on Schneider's support site.

My InsightCloud is showing the new firmware as an upgrade for my inverters, but when I tried upgrading it said it was not correct.

Not the newer Pro.....but....

My 6848 is on 2.07.00.
My 5548 is on 2.03.00.

My InsightHome is showing 2.07.00 as current.

 

[Darcy Costa Rica]

Odd.

The Schneider website is only showing 2.04.00

https://solar.se.com/us/en/product/xw-pro-120-240v/#downloads

 

[Bajanmonkey]

Odd.

The Schneider website is only showing 2.04.00

https://solar.se.com/us/en/product/xw-pro-120-240v/#downloads

Not the XW Pro.....maybe my comment is irrelevant.....

 

[Willy510]

I put the latest V2.04_BN0029 on my XW Pro without any issue so I can tell you that it does work

 

[Darcy Costa Rica]

As a followup. I was able to install the V2.04 update. I think the firmware on my Insight Facility was 1 version out of date.

It seems to have a few improvements in the status pages, but nothing else seems significant?

 

[Darcy Costa Rica]

Another update. After installing the firmware, I noticed many strange changes to the operation of the system.

First, the Slave was reset to Split Phase Master. This prevented it from starting up.

Second, the Charge controller settings were changed and were no longer communicating with Insight Local. Under Advanced Device Settings I had to turn on Periodic Transmit Enable. Other charging values were changed in the inverters and charge controllers.

So, do not expect the firmware update to be problem free. Check all settings before changing the equipment to Operating Mode.

 

[Willy510]

I think my previous post should be clarified, I did get the 2.04 to update without issue but once I got around to starting it up and running there were some strange things that occurred.
Once I started up the inverter it immediately started to export 6500w out of my battery bank to the grid and the inverter had more of a "buzz" noise to it. So after shutting down the export I noticed that the firmware update had changed a few random settings like external power control and a few others and it wouldn't charge the battery bank any higher than 2000w no matter what I set it to. After a call to Schneider tech support that was no help at all I ended up doing a factory reset on all inverter settings and rolling back the firmware to the previous version and entered in all my old settings and it all works fine again.
Main changes I saw with 2.04 was a new expanded menu and a louder buzzing noise coming from the inverter so for now I'm going to stay on 1.11

 

[Andino2003]

what was the buzz about?

 

[Roman59]

 

[JustJoe]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with the firmware updates.

I find it so bizarre that for such a very expensive "tier1" manufacturer, Schneider still has so many amateurish firmware quirks.

If the firmware had any decent testing, it would never modify what can be critical voltage and power settings, at least not without first raising flags and warnings.

And ... Conext Gateway / Insight has been out there for several years, as the superseding tool for managing XW Pro. The Gateway can export/import its own configuration ... Now, I apologize if I am missing something, but why on earth would it also not support the export/import of the XW Pro configs??? That is a lot of parms to have to check and reenter.

I guess though, it is still above "tier1" SMA SunnyBoys firmware updates, where they introduce bugs, and then don't allow re-installation of the previous version you had running.

 

[400bird]

Now, I apologize if I am missing something, but why on earth would it also not support the export/import of the XW Pro configs???

It does, but more importantly everyone is right. The settings should have persistence through a software update.




Also, I've been very happy with 1.11.00 build 28 for my XW pro

 

[JustJoe]

It does, but more importantly everyone is right. The settings should have persistence through a software update.


View attachment 156372

Also, I've been very happy with 1.11.00 build 28 for my XW pro

Thanks for the reply, but maybe you missed that I said, yes:
"The Gateway can export/import its own configuration ..."

And yes, the page you attached shows where to do that.

But @400bird
What I don't see is where one can export/import the XW-Pro Inverter/Charger values.

 

[JustJoe]

From my experience 1.11.00 build 28 had some settings quirks when setting up the 2 XW-Pro's in Master/Slave mode with AC coupling.

So for that, 1.11.01bn49 worked better ... However ... When using Modbus to modulate

Devices / Configuration / Power Control Settings / EPC Maximum Charge Power

It turns out EPC Enable had to be set to Disable (very counter intuitive),

otherwise, from my recollection, it would not even charge.

 

[400bird]

Also, I've been very happy with 1.11.00 build 28 for my XW pro. I tried 1.11.01 build 49 and had issues with EPC ignoring my commands or something, so I rolled back to 1.11.00 build 28. Since then that experience I realized I'm happy with the current firmware and haven't tried any new firmware versions.

But @400bird
What I don't see is where one can export/import the XW-Pro Inverter/Charger values.

There aren't much for settings in the Insight itself, feels pretty pointless for them to include the ability to import/export the insight only.
I was under the impression that the import/export there was for everything attached and would import/export the inverter and MPPT settings. But I'll admit I haven't tried it. Did you try it?

 

[JustJoe]

Also, I've been very happy with 1.11.00 build 28 for my XW pro. I tried 1.11.01 build 49 and had issues with EPC ignoring my commands or something, so I rolled back to 1.11.00 build 28. Since then that experience I realized I'm happy with the current firmware and haven't tried any new firmware versions.


There aren't much for settings in the Insight itself, feels pretty pointless for them to include the ability to import/export the insight only.
I was under the impression that the import/export there was for everything attached and would import/export the inverter and MPPT settings. But I'll admit I haven't tried it. Did you try it?

OK, I was wondering if that's what you meant. We have been saving these, but it's a small file. When you start getting people using it to manage multiple XW-Pro's, each Master/Slave) has a different config. Ans then start adding multiple MPPT-100s, etc.

I will try to tear that file apart and feedback here what I find.

 

[JustJoe]

Well, the Export function creates a zip container with 2 files, one of them encrypted.

So I started wondering about the latest documentation for the "Insight" box ....

InsightFacility Owners Guide_990-91411

Unfortunately, my intuition that they would not be able to assemble and export something so complicated as all the vaviable number of device configs into one file, seems confirmed:

p.42 Import and Export Settings

This command setting allows you to either export the configuration of this InsightFacility to another InsightFacility unit or import the configuration of another InsightFacility to supersede this InsightFacility unit.

 

[400bird]

OK, I was wondering if that's what you meant. We have been saving these, but it's a small file. When you start getting people using it to manage multiple XW-Pro's, each Master/Slave) has a different config. Ans then start adding multiple MPPT-100s, etc.

I will try to tear that file apart and feedback here what I find.

Yeah, I tried opening both with a text editor and there's nothing much readable in there. Some hex data could easily store all the settings for their hardware.

The import/export feels like an installer level thing, where they get the desired settings figured out and just load them onto every install. Or for me to back up my settings and load from a known good set of settings.

 

[JustJoe]

Yeah, I tried opening both with a text editor and there's nothing much readable in there. Some hex data could easily store all the settings for their hardware.

The import/export feels like an installer level thing, where they get the desired settings figured out and just load them onto every install. Or for me to back up my settings and load from a known good set of settings.

Before I retired, I engineered a rural county stationary wireless Internet subscription service. I learned a lot of the pitfalls of trying to maintain firmware updates across widely dispersed client "radios" ... basically routers. Of course we used commercially available hardware, and that came with the firmware provided by those manufacturers, and they provided updates ... Very much like the business model of these alternate power devices..

One of the lessons I'm sure we all know is the Internet is a dangerous place. But my gosh, the continual evolution and sophistication of even specialized and targeted malicious exploits is ongoing. So for example, you read the release notes for Conext Gateway/ Insight v1.17 Build 079 [23 Feb 2023]

Summary of fixes provided:

• Corrected Q(P) Gateway User Interface
• Fixed HVMPPT custom battery setting missing issue
• Prevent AC2 from setting to GRID
• Fixed connectivity status issue when using static IP
• Fixed AGS SoC trigger issue
• Fixed a Remote Code Execution vulnerability in Gateway

We saw several variations of that a few years ago in our wireless business. Hackers had managed to rig the websites of useful wireless reference info pages. If you opened a targeted router's GUI and logged in with valid credentials, while simultaneously opening another window to that hacked reference page during the same browser session, the hack would then download and install a hacked version of firmware into that router. The router would seem to keep working normally, but all the while it was "phoning home" to the hackers, where they could have full control of it.

Yes, were are here talking about the Conext Gateway, so maybe we just update the firmware on that since the XW-Pro doesn't have direct Internet access? Problem with that is you know at some point the "latest" Gateway firmware will only go "back so far" in their firmware level compatibility.

My more immediate case is that I isolated a bug in the Conext Gateway's WiFi. We are trying to report it to Schneider, but I am sure that at the first level of support, they will not help until we update all the boxes to the latest firmware. Since there is custom Modbus code access, I want to know how hard it will be to move between firmware levels.

And so that's why I really hate that they don't have a way to back up each XW-Pro (master/slave) to their own files.

 

[400bird]

So for example, you read the release notes for Conext Gateway/ Insight v1.17 Build 079 [23 Feb 2023]

Yikes, I'm off to update at least the Insight tonight.

And so that's why I really hate that they don't have a way to back up each XW-Pro (master/slave) to their own files.

Does that mean you tried the export/upload function and it does not transfer settings to the attached inverters, MPPT, etc?

 

[JustJoe]

Yikes, I'm off to update at least the Insight tonight.

Gosh, I'm sorry I had not been too busy to see your reply until now so I could point out from the release notes:

Known Limitations

• Analog and Digital I/O is not supported
• After downgrading an XW device, the gateway must be restarted
• Upgrading from v1.07 and earlier to v1.08 and later will cause the cloud to be disabled, requiring the user to re-enable the cloud via the Web UI
• The gateway does not have a web server trusted root certificate
• PDF Generation does not work correctly in Internet Explorer
• Temperature will not be shown in Battery Summary page if only MPPT device installed BTS (Battery Temperature Sensor).
• For XW+, upgrade Gateway firmware to v1.17 is not recommended
• It is recommended to upgrade Gateway firmware v1.17 along with XW Pro 6848 v2.04 and XW Pro 8548 v2.06

Sadly they just issued a statement to cover their butts and let you proceed "at your own risk" rather than listing specific incompatibilities.
If you should find you then also want to try v2.04 on the XW-Pro, keep track of my post in #14 above, because I vaguely recall from about 14 months ago, after scratching my head, I finally got lucky and found disabling EPC is all that was required to get variable charging via Modbus to work again.

Does that mean you tried the export/upload function and it does not transfer settings to the attached inverters, MPPT, etc?

No, I guess after I read p.42 as described up in #17, I just could not imagine they would not have such a huge feature of config backup of all Schneider Xanbus devices without much more (even marketing) fanfare.

Today I went back and reviewed that entire Owners Guide, and also the XW-Pro pdf's.

Look at how they breakup that Gateway/Insight GUI. "Setup" is only about things related to the Gateway itself. All of the related pdf's discuss the ability for the Gateway to make config changes and export/import to itself under that Setup tab.

They then separately discuss making config changes to the managed devices under the "Devices" tab. For those they give BIG warnings about making those device changes only in "standby" mode.

If the export/import under "Setup" was affecting the managed XW-Pro configurations, I am sure they would have had the same warnings.

Even if they implement that all-devices feature some day, in my opinion, it would have to be very much more complex. It would be much easier if they just offered export/import under Devices for each device, which they do not. :/

 

[400bird]

Well, I lied and didn't yet update the Insight. I guess I'll figure out when I can update the XW along with the insight and test out the Modbus comms and features that are pertinent to my use. Bummer, but I've got to do it. Thank you for pointing it out.

I'll try to export and import settings as part of that process just to see if it does settings on the XW.

 

[JustJoe]

Well, I lied and didn't yet update the Insight. I guess I'll figure out when I can update the XW along with the insight and test out the Modbus comms and features that are pertinent to my use. Bummer, but I've got to do it. Thank you for pointing it out.

I'll try to export and import settings as part of that process just to see if it does settings on the XW.

That sounds like a good plan. As I pursue the Gateway WiFi bug with Schneider, I will update here on my firmware experiences, and probably open a separate thread for that bug. (I say probably because there is an older thread with lots of people having WiFi performance issues, and I bet this bug was the underlying cause.)

One thing you might consider is that apparently going between 1.11.00 build 28 and 1.11.01 build 49 (for either you or me) did not seem to have any unexpected "change the config settings" issues of 2.04.00. You might therefore find it less painful to re-try 1.11.01 build 49, check that EPC is disabled, and then run your modbus management tests. If that were to work, you would then have fewer quirks to deal with on the new 2.04.00.

Gosh, these computers make our lives soooo much easier ...

 

[pvdude]

Updated my Insight v1.17 Build 079 [23 Feb 2023]
Inverters are running 1.11.01bn49
Noticed a new thing in the inverter advanced config:

Not ever going to try that, I will continue to use the HW config tool, and PC application for calibration!

Also noticed that 1.17 thinks all the MPPT 100-600 charge controllers are disabled.
Except that they are working fine..........

 

[JustJoe]

Updated my Insight v1.17 Build 079 [23 Feb 2023]
Inverters are running 1.11.01bn49
Noticed a new thing in the inverter advanced config:
View attachment 156943
Not ever going to try that, I will continue to use the HW config tool, and PC application for calibration!

Also noticed that 1.17 thinks all the MPPT 100-600 charge controllers are disabled.
Except that they are working fine..........

I recall last year after starting a Gateway/Insight firmware update, initiated from the GUI on a PC, it sat for several minutes until the browser said it lost the connection. Started a continuous ping from the PC until it finally started to reply ... Nothing really abnormal about that. OK, so then opened a new browser window, logged in, noted that the version indeed was the desired new one. But then found under devices, one of the XW-Pros was grayed out, as though it was physically disconnected. At about the same time I read the last firmware update step in the Owner's Guide that said something like "When prompted, reboot the Gateway". But I did not see such a prompt (due to communication loss ???). So just rebooted at that point. Afterwards both XW-Pros appeared and were accessible with no further trouble.

It really doesn't make much sense that if the firmware update requires a reboot (like to re-itemize the attached devices with the new firmware) , why doesn't the process just DO IT ?

Is it possible pvdude that your Insight still needs a reboot before it sees the other devices on its Xanbus with the correct status? And for that matter, I'm curious, under the Devices tab, does it let you choose the MPPT 100-600 and read through its config, simply showing a "disabled" status, or is it grayed out like my XW-Pro was?