I’ve had an email asking for my meter readings, but when I go to my account page it says “we couldn’t get a reading from your smart meter, mind sending one manually?” if I click the button it says “a problem has occurred”.
My question is therefore twofold - why are my smart meters not sending info, and what is wrong with the manual readings entry page?
Best answer by Tim_OVO
View original
Updated on 20/01/22 by Jess_OVO
You might be seeing that “we couldn’t get a reading from your smart meter, mind sending one manually?” message because of a couple of reasons:
As for that “a problem has occurred” - that’s not a very helpful message is it. If your smart meters haven’t sent us a reading for 5 days or more, this ‘Submit a meter reading’ function should allow you to enter your readings, so sorry to hear there seems to be a technical issue with this page.
Luckily the problem with manual readings entry on the website has cleared and I’ve been able to update the electric. I believe an engineer will be dropping in at some stage to look at things.
Glad to hear you’re able to log the readings manually in the meantime though - until we’re able to get the communication issues resolved this is the best way to ensure your account is up-to date and your monthly summaries are accurate.
Hope we can get things up and running again for your quickly! 
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+1
Hmm… This is an interesting one…
If it wasn’t for the network maintenance I was doing over the weekend I probably would have caught this one faster, sorry for the wait!
It does sound like there’s some kind of bug going on here, but even I’m struggling to figure out why this is happening. You might want to try submitting a reading by phone using the automated system and see if the reading goes through that way. If it fails via the web, phone and via the app then it could be account specific. But if the phone method works, that would suggest a bug.
A bit of a weird one though!
OK, I still get the error on the webpage, but cust services (hello@ovo ...)have replied and asked for photos of the meters - which I have sent today.
+1
Thanks for the update! That’s some progress at least.
Those photos can be used to verify the meter readings and help with a few other checks. If you let the Support Team know that you’re also getting help over here from me and Tim as well, this thread can be added to the case notes. It quite often helps the team to keep track on anything that we recommend over here, to avoid duplications.
I’ll think about this one overnight and try to visualise the scenario while I’m at at. I’ve got a pretty good understanding of the system these days - not least because I constantly break it - and I can usually figure out what might happen in response to certain things.
Have looked at the hub, it’s SMETS2, all LEDS except MESH blink every 5 seconds. Sounds normal after reading the guides.
That does sound like the lights are flashing as they should be,
Have the Support Team been able to confirm the reading schedule you have set on the meter?
I’ve heard nothing back since I emailed the photos, I also need to check my IHD which now looks like it’s only showing electricity usage, no gas.
+1
That’s rather strange. But that may provide something of a clue at least.
Can you go over to the gas meter itself and try to wake it up to see if it will give you a reading? If there’s no signs of life from the display when you attempt to press any buttons, then that suggests a fault with the gas meter which would need to be looked into as well. But if it does wake up correctly, the gas meter may attempt to send a heartbeat to the Comms Hub and this might get something to show up on the IHD within an hour or so.
It does wake up and show a reading when a button is pressed, but I’m not there at the mo so will try it with the IHD when I get home. But the GAS LED is flashing normally with the rest every 5 secs?
+1
Thanks. It’s almost certain that someone in the S2 Team will need to run some diagnostics to try and figure out what’s going on. In the meantime, please don’t request for anything to be rebooted or reset as this may wipe the diagnostic logs and this will make diagnostics much more difficult.
I got it wrong - it’s the GAS that’s showing on the IHD, not electric. I’ll have a read through the above guides to see if I’ve missed something.
+1
Ahh ok. We’ll try to get to the bottom of this if we can. Do you see any signs of recent meter readings in MyOVO at all, or is it completely dead for both Gas and Electricity?
If you’re able to show us some photos of your meters and IHD as well, that would be great.
No readings show in my account, it gives kwh used but under Meter Readings tab I get “A problem has occurred …. etc”. In Billing details figures are given for Gas on 27 April, 27 May and 26 June which look right, but all electricity are estimated. Is my meter not compatible as it was installed by Eon, and I’m just chasing my tail?
+1
It should be compatible if it’s SMETS2 - you only have to panic about the SMETS1 meters and even then, E.On used to use the same Secure meters that OVO did, so they would have also been compatible.
Your meters appear to be in Monthly Mode however, so this might explain something. You may want to consider changing to Daily or Half-Hourly Mode in order to get more readings in and hopefully mitigate this kind of issue.
Ah, but if they’re not seeing ANY readings from it how could they change frequency to daily/half hourly? I’ll try emailing but it’s pot luck whether I get a response!
+1
If the Communications Hub is chatting away happily with OVO, that's good enough to at least establish a connection and run remote diagnostics.
If you want a way to speed up email responses however, throw the secret codeword Blastoise186 in there somewhere. I'm well known to the Support Team for destroying stuff but they also trust my judgement.
Ah, but if they’re not seeing ANY readings from it how could they change frequency to daily/half hourly? I’ll try emailing but it’s pot luck whether I get a response!
You’re right in suggesting we can’t update the reading schedule without being in communication with the meter - but if there’s intermittent signal updating this to a daily or half-hourly signal gives us many more opportunities to receive a reading.
Sounds like you’re still waiting for a response to your Smart meter health check results. If you haven’t heard back from the team via email (usual response time is around 2 working days) why not try reaching out to them via webchat - there’s a link to this at the bottom of this page.
Hope this helps - let us know the outcome! 
It’s an EDMI ES-10B by the way. I see nothing in the menu about connecting it to a HAN, so as it’s fixed onto the hub is it hard wired?
Sorry for any confusion with this one - unfortunately there’s not a way for you to connect the comms hub to the HAN yourself.
The best course of action would be to contact the Support Team to investigate this one further - they may check the results of your Smart Meter health check to determine what’s causing the issue.
Keep us updated once you’ve contacted the team - we’re hoping they can get to the bottom of things quickly for you! 
Have been in touch with support by email, although it’s a slow process. Answered some questions about the meter locations, and strangely the Gas meter (the one that does work) has a different serial number from the one on my account - the number on my account is the previous meter removed by Eon. Luckily the problem with manual readings entry on the website has cleared and I’ve been able to update the electric. I believe an engineer will be dropping in at some stage to look at things.
+1
That’s good to see then and clearly some progress is better than no progress.
I suspect what’s likely to happen next is that OVO will probably attempt to get your electricity meter working via remote controls such as SMETS Commands and an engineer will probably need to stop by to attempt to either commission your gas meter or do some troubleshooting on it to get things working.
I do think that E.On should be taking some of the blame here though. If E.On had removed an old gas meter, then E.On were responsible for updating the records on Xoserve to ensure that all other suppliers knew that the removed meter was gone. OVO shouldn’t have had to do that, but I suspect the Support Team will get the records fixed anyway on the basis that it needs to be done, otherwise the same issues could crop up again repeatedly in the future.
Answered some questions about the meter locations, and strangely the Gas meter (the one that does work) has a different serial number from the one on my account - the number on my account is the previous meter removed by Eon.
That is a strange one,
Luckily the problem with manual readings entry on the website has cleared and I’ve been able to update the electric. I believe an engineer will be dropping in at some stage to look at things.
Glad to hear you’re able to log the readings manually in the meantime though - until we’re able to get the communication issues resolved this is the best way to ensure your account is up-to date and your monthly summaries are accurate.
Hope we can get things up and running again for your quickly!
OK I’ve given up now. I just had an email suggesting that my “question has been solved”, well only in that I can now enter readings on the website, the electric meter still isn’t sending. Each time I ring or email the helpline I just get the same questions: is the meter in a good reception area/are there any obstructions/are the lights flashing, etc. and I’m not going to answer them again. The meter can stay offline and I’ll manually enter as I always used to. 
So sorry to hear that the smart meter issues aren’t yet resolved,
If you’ve already completed a smart meter health check and submitted it to the team, this will be investigated by the Smart metering team who should get back to you to let you know the next steps (although it can take several weeks for the investigations to be completed). Sounds like there’s been a bit of miscommunication in asking you to answer these same questions again, as long as you completed every question this shouldn’t be needed, sorry for any confusion that might have caused.
Great to hear that you’re now able to submit the readings manually for the moment - Keep us posted when you hear back from the Smart team!
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