Solar Assistant sadness

[timselectric]

Well, after 6 months of solar monitoring ecstasy. It finally happened...... it crashed and I had to reflash the SD card. I won't go into that 3 day nightmare. But the real sadness is from losing all of the logged data. It's like the last 6 months never existed. I can't even imagine how upset I will be if it happened again after a few years.
I think that I read something about saving the data externally, but can't seem to find it.
There's got to be a solution for this problem.
I really like the functionality and ease of use of Solar Assistant, but I'm very uncomfortable setting off on another journey with it. If I don't have any protection from this gut punch, next time.

 

[houseofancients]

Well, after 6 months of solar monitoring ecstasy. It finally happened...... it crashed and I had to reflash the SD card. I won't go into that 3 day nightmare. But the real sadness is from losing all of the logged data. It's like the last 6 months never existed. I can't even imagine how upset I will be if it happened again after a few years.
I think that I read something about saving the data externally, but can't seem to find it.
There's got to be a solution for this problem.
I really like the functionality and ease of use of Solar Assistant, but I'm very uncomfortable setting off on another journey with it. If I don't have any protection from this gut punch, next time.

be smart, use a ssd .
SA does a lot of writes, killing the microsd rapidly

Best Working SSD / Storage Adapters for Raspberry Pi 4 / 400

Guide on working compatible high performance storage adapters for the Raspberry Pi 4 / 400. Speed up your Pi with a SSD upgrade using these adapters!

jamesachambers.com

 

[timselectric]

Update
I just received an email from Pierre.
He is going to add a backup/restore function, soon.
This will be an excellent addition.

 

[timselectric]

be smart, use a ssd .
SA does a lot of writes, killing the microsd rapidly

Best Working SSD / Storage Adapters for Raspberry Pi 4 / 400

Guide on working compatible high performance storage adapters for the Raspberry Pi 4 / 400. Speed up your Pi with a SSD upgrade using these adapters!

jamesachambers.com

Thanks, I'll check it out.
Is it plug and play? Technology and I don't get along with each other.
I need something that works for the computer illiterate.

 

[houseofancients]

Thanks, I'll check it out.
Is it plug and play? Technology and I don't get along with each other.
I need something that works for the computer illiterate.

wouldnt call it plug and play, but not hard

 

[timselectric]

Not hard for you, could be nearly impossible for me. lol
I'm an analog kinda guy. Sometimes I feel like 38 years of working with electricity has created a magnetic field around me. That causes problems with electronics. It could just be a coincidence. But cash registers, gas pumps, and VFD's seem to stop functioning when I'm around.

 

[houseofancients]

Not hard for you, could be nearly impossible for me. lol
I'm an analog kinda guy. Sometimes I feel like 38 years of working with electricity has created a magnetic field around me. That causes problems with electronics. It could just be a coincidence. But cash registers, gas pumps, and VFD's seem to stop functioning when I'm around.

here's a step by step yt..

 

[timselectric]

Yeah, that's way to advanced for me.
But thanks.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Could also try a "high endurance" SD card like they use for dashcams and such. They're built to a higher write spec.

 

[timselectric]

Could also try a "high endurance" SD card like they use for dashcams and such. They're built to a higher write spec.

Do you think that would solve crashing?
I had only used about 10% of the storage.
This was mostly with one inverter. When my system is complete. It will be monitoring 8 inverters and 1 or more shunts. And possibly 14 BMS's. It would really suck, to lose all of that data.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Depends on what the reason of the crashing was. If it is was caused by excessive writes to the SD card, effectively wearing it out (despite not using the capacity) then it could help.

Thing is, it could be caused just simply by a defective SD card. You said you reformatted it. Guess you could run it and see how it does - if it very quickly starts crashing again, that could point to a failing SD card. Could also be something else. If it runs fine for 6 months at a time and bombs every 6 months, it could be some bug in software.

I really don't know for sure, I've never used SA or any of that. I'm a PC nerd but been out of the game for a while. My personal PC is based on a 2nd gen Intel and it doesn't even get turned on for weeks at a time. I do most personal stuff on my phone anymore (as annoying as a small touch screen is) just because I usually do little bits in spurts here and there to get things done around everything else I have to do.

 

[jberger]

Tim,
You are not alone, I killed mine too!
I moved over to a high endurance storage card for the new build.

 

[Quattrohead]

So a card like this one then ? Sandisk are known good.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Endurance-microSDXC-Adapter-Monitoring/dp/B07P3D6Y5B?th=1

Max endurance ??? - https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Endu...r-Security/dp/B084CJ96GT?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1

 

[timselectric]

Well, I think I will try it. It's worth a shot, since I am starting over anyway.

 

[Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries]

Update
I just received an email from Pierre.
He is going to add a backup/restore function, soon.
This will be an excellent addition.

This solution sounds half baked.

So if you need to get a different kind of storage for this to run reliably, but they don't inform you of that, what else did they not tell you? How is it going to fail next time? They're paying you to be the beta tester for this home brew immature solution right?

 

[timselectric]

Would this be good? It's from my old dash cam. I don't use it anymore.

 

[timselectric]

This solution sounds half baked.

So if you need to get a different kind of storage for this to run reliably, but they don't inform you of that, what else did they not tell you? How is it going to fail next time? They're paying you to be the beta tester for this home brew immature solution right?

This is the response I received.

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 6:38 AM SolarAssistant <info@solar-assistant.io> wrote:

Hi Tim

We are going to add an easy backup/restore function soon, that will allow you to restore data if something like this happens again. It's rare that you need to reflash the SD card, unfortunately it's hard to tell why it was necessary.

Kind regards
SolarAssistant

 

[timselectric]

They're paying you to be the beta tester for this home brew immature solution right?

I wish

 

[Quattrohead]

Get the Sandisk, you will not have to fight it again.

 

[Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries]

This is the response I received.

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 6:38 AM SolarAssistant <info@solar-assistant.io> wrote:

Looks like the kinda place that wrote a program on a computer once, enough to get it running for them, and then immediately tried to turn around and start selling that solution bundled with draconian hardware locked licensing. Since they were FAST to get EG4 battery support, I paid attention to them for about 5 minutes, but when I went to PAY THEM MONEY, and they wanted to play stupid games instead (hardware licensing), I went and found better solutions.