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Landis + Gyr E470: Not readable (Error Code: 'V24.01. 10.00 -71b803) Coming up to a year!

  • 15 November 2022
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Its Been like this almost 1 Year and we’ve been on estimated Electric bills.  (Gas is working albeit I have to punch in the readings manually, probably because electric is faulty)

Bulb are absolutely hopeless at getting it fixed despite multiple emails. Last message was that they “Rejected” the request (“They” being some kind of Smart Meter Engineer I guess)

I just want to know if its actually still taking readings in the background? if so things will turn out fair in the end I suppose.  But if its not then I need to know the next steps.

Anyone else had a similar code or situation?

Thanks

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Best answer by Blastoise186 15 November 2022, 17:13

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Blastoise186
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Heya @beatdegree !

Can you post photos of the meters by any chance? I’ve never seen this error before!

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Hi,

Here it is ^

Blastoise186
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Thanks. Not sure that’s an actual error code. It looks more like a firmware version.

I have three more questions for you. The answers to these combined with everything you’ve posted so far, should be enough for me to give you a diagnosis and recommend options.

  1. Above the meter is a Comms Hub with five green LEDs, marked: SW, WAN, MESH, HAN and GAS. What are each of them doing please?
  2. You should see a red light on the meter itself, below the display. When you’re using electricity, is that red light flashing, or solid?
  3. Does the meter respond at all when you press the Green A or Grey B buttons?

 

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Hi,

  1.  The five LED’s are doing nothing (Even when i press of hold A/B, they remain off)
  2. The Red Light on the meter is flashing (Approx 5 seconds on and 5 seconds off). The Display shows the code (V.24.03...) 2 seconds after the red light flashes on and goes blank at the exact moment the red light goes off.
  3. The A or B buttons have no effect on any of the above nor do they cause any other event

Thanks

Blastoise186
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Perfect. Here’s what that tells me.

The meter is basically dead due to firmware corruption. There is no fix for this while the meter is in the field, so it will need to be replaced. The Comms Hub is likewise, either dead or not getting power from the meter. It too may need to be replaced if the new electric meter can’t get power to it.

I’m truly disappointed to see so many Landis+Gyr meters fail in stupid ways like this one. Most other brands have safeguards like recovery firmware or dual-firmware to prevent this i.e. if one firmware fails, the meter boots from the other one. Alas, it appears that L+G may have omitted this critical feature, or not made it robust enough.

I’m also disappointed (for you!) that Bulb didn’t bother to diagnose this properly based on what you’ve said. I’d make a formal complaint at this stage and then go to the Energy Ombudsman if you need to.

Oh, and I’m also giving you my full consent to use the entire contents of this thread as part of both your complaint to Bulb, and any cases you submit to the Ombudsman. You won’t need to ask me again for permission to use my content. Go right ahead!

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Thank you so much for the diagnosis. Not great news but at least I know what state it's in now. (More than they could ever work out)

I was hoping that I'd be able to have my readings retrospectively calculated once the issue was fixed but it sounds like it hasn't been "ticking" at all in the background behind this firmware issue.

With Bulb being taken over by Octopus I'd imagine they will want to just this type of problem over the fence to thier new owners.

I will be started a Financial Ombudsman case with all the evidence from emails etc and hope that I can at least be settled at the low end average of the street or something. 

What a mare.

 

Thanks again for the quick and detailed info on this case.

 

Beat.

 

​​

 

Blastoise186
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Yeah, it’s a blatantly obvious issue that should have taken mere seconds for Bulb to diagnose. I don’t expect everyone to know rocket science but…

  • Dead comms hub lights
  • No Comms received for a YEAR
  • Weird code on the meter display
  • Strange Metrology Light behaviour
  • Doesn’t respond to button presses

Should LITERALLY be the easiest thing in the world to diagnose as a failed meter. How on earth that is beyond even the most basic diagnostic steps is beyond me. I don’t think it’s even been recording usage at all either...

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Every time I press button A the display lights and has every display element 'on' 

It stays that way for some time.

This is clearly a fault.. its a brand new install. 

What department will replace it?

Blastoise186
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Hey @rowifi !

Ahhh… That’s… Not good at all!

Forgive me, I’m Blastoise186 and I’m one of the forum volunteers here. I can’t fix this myself as I don’t work for OVO.

I guess I’ll just have to add this to the ever growing pile of stupid L+G meter fail reasons.

You’ll probably want to have a chat with the Support Team to let them know the meter is faulty. Especially if those elements don’t clear and actually show something useful after a few seconds.

All I can say is that Landis+Gyr meters seem to be far more unreliable than most other brands, but I’ve yet to nail down why. I’ve actually got a few meetings with some of my OVO contacts tomorrow and I might be able to ask them if they know anything about this.

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Blastoise186
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Could you post photos of the meter to help me out actually? Especially ones showing the fault! It may help me get advice.

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It begins showing 'rate ... etc' unilluminated

Then pressing button A it illuminates and shows the screen as above for 8 seconds or so then returns to the Rate .... display but illuminated.

I read somewhere they are prone to crashing but this happens everytime so is a fault. <electronics engineer here>

We were left with no instruction on using tthe buttons on either the gas or electric smart meters.

 

Blastoise186
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Thanks!

I think I’ll be able to chat with one of OVO’s internal smart meter experts tomorrow who knows even more than I do. Leave this with me for just a bit longer and if I can get his opinion, I will. He’s helped me before when I’ve got stuck, except that it’s always been via the forum moderators so this could be fun.

But yeahhhh… My initial diagnosis is that the unit is probably toast.

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Tim_OVO
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Hi @rowifi 

 

It turns outs that @Blastoise186 has come into Bristol HQ today and has spoken to one of our smart meter platform heads. Wow that was fun.

 

The verdict for this meter is, it’s very likely a fault that means it needs to be replaced / exchanged. Our Support team can arrange this via live chat - feel free to link to this topic!

 

Blastoise may have more details and will be online later this week

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
Blastoise186
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Yup, I was literally sat next to Tim as he wrote that in the atrium café.

I'll provide you with more information by Friday afternoon. 

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Blastoise186
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But for now, the short version is that we believe that the Application Firmware has bricked itself during a Firmware update and is unable to recover. This definitely should NEVER happen but you got unlucky.

Our recommendation is to have it replaced with an Aclara SGM1411-B to avoid it happening again. 

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Blastoise186
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Phew, I FINALLY got chance to come back to this thread. Sorry for being so slow about it - the forum exploded again since I was at the office last week and I just didn’t get the chance to stop by this thread and be more detailed.

Anyway, better late than never!

What I’m posting here is just a cut-down version of what I wrote a year ago. If you’re interested in ALL the details, check out my full version:

Anyway, this info that I’m posting in this thread is also using the info I got from OVO’s internal experts.

What’s supposed to happen is that the commissioning process pulls down the latest firmware update (well, it’s actually a firmware image but that’s meta techy stuff we can skip over) for each device on the site which is capable of being updated. It’s also performed on a regular basis whenever there’s a need to do so. Usually it’s done to fix bugs, improve reliability and most importantly, resolve security issues. It can sometimes bring new features as well.

These firmware updates are absolutely tiny in todays world, as we’re talking less than 1MB in size per device but they are critical for keeping things working.

When it comes to most meters, there’s at least three types of firmware running on them.

  • The Metrology Firmware: Which is what measures your usage and does a bunch of metrology related stuff to meet regulatory requirements
  • The Bootloader Firmware: Which boots up the meter, performs firmware updates, kickstarts everything else and ensures the rest of the firmware is actually working - including forcing a reboot or recovery if needed
  • The Application Firmware: Which is basically everything else. Menus, display stuff, communications and anything that doesn’t fit the other two can be found here

For regulatory reasons (mainly certification stuff), the Metrology Firmware never gets modified at all once the meter leaves the factory. In fact, it’s actually locked in so it cannot be touched or modified at all by anyone or anything - and this is a requirement of the certification

The Bootloader Firmware isn’t covered by those rules, but almost all manufacturers make it read-only and lock it down anyway to reduce the risk of issues later and to make sure the meter can always boot something at all times.

The Application Firmware however, can be updated freely at anytime. But in this case, I believe it to have failed and catastrophically bricked the unit.

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Before I launch into my question, I’d just like to acknowledge OVO and Blastoise, for their true embodiment of support and integrity, so rare in these times.  I am floored at the display of helpful, insightful and considered information provided. To customers of other companies no less.


Dear Blastoise,

you are the first person to even acknowledge or have knowledge of the metrology LED.
 

I’ve been concerned about usage and simply wanted to know what a steady red Metrology light means? I’m using the e470 type 5394
 

Haven’t found an answer but plenty of unhelpful people, and as you’ve rightly pointed out, L+G are useless!!

 

 Cannot believe that the simple function, purpose and troubleshoot of a red light is not included in any single manual or “how to” guide about this meter. This blog is literally the only place that discusses it!


What causes a steady red light? When should you see it? When not? Does it flash? What does that flashing mean? Is it cause for alarm? What should you do? How does it relate to usage and rate? (Aren’t these questions reasonable, and important, or am I being a jerk for asking?)

a fan and admirer

JustKej

 

 

Blastoise186
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No worries! And this time, I don’t need insert sekrit internal OVO HQ smart meter friend to help me answer this one. :D

If it’s steady red, the meter is dead. Simple as that. You should never see it happen, ever. Your only option is to arrange for a faulty meter replacement.

Oh, and just for any naysayers out there… This type of fault is NOT specific to Smart Meters. It can happen to literally any electric meter ever. Ironically, the older traditional meters can be even more prone to it than Smart Meters are.

With older mechanical meters, the dial would stop spinning which means the same thing. I suspect that’d happen if the mechanisms got completely jammed up somehow for which there’s a bunch of reasons.

For a newer meter like a smart meter… It’s more likely the hall effect sensor has failed (this is NOT specific to smart meters!) or (smart meters only) the Metrology Firmware has crashed and cannot recover for some reason. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to dig deeper as I think UK Law likely prohibits me from cracking open electric/gas meters to poke around inside. There’s no way for me to know exactly what happened. I’d happily tell you if I could, promise!

In your case, it’s possible both the Application Firmware AND Metrology Firmware bricked, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Bootloader Firmware also got nuked and killed by the same root cause, preventing any chances of recovery or reboot. At least, that’s my suspicion anyway. It’s meant to be totally impossible to brick all three firmware images at once, but then again we are talking about L+G sooo… Erm… Yeah...

The L+G E470 seems to be on average the most susceptible to this type of failure out of all the smart meters people ask us about on this forum. It’s hard to say why, but I too would really appreciate it if L+G would offer an explanation as to why their meters seem to be far more unreliable than most others.

And yeah, thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated! It really warms my heart that people like you appreciate our help. This is exactly why I help out here. Because karma is a thing and I know it’ll come back to me someday.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
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I honestly think L+G are in hiding because you’ve figured out their problem before they did and you’ve shown them how terrible their meters are.  I have had my SMETS2 5394 for 5 years, guess that’s their idea of built-in obsolescence?

I wrote and asked about the light and they sent me the same one page “how to read” because “they only manufacture meters they don’t manage meters.” ….Wait, what?

Oooookaaaaayyy.

Yup, you’ve really made a huge difference, validating my concerns, highlighting an important yet poorly reported and never-described problem. 

You’ve also rightly pointed out that it’s not my problem to resolve. I’m calling the supplier tomorrow.

Thank you thank you a thousand times, thank you. 
 

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