Hey @Firedog,

I’ve raised this to someone internally, they’re back in the office tomorrow so should be able to give an update then.

Thanks 

Hey @Firedog,

I’ve had quite a technical, not entirely public facing response as we’re talking about other companies here. 

But this is the premise of the response:

I’ve spoken to our expert who has advised we have raised this with the third party suppliers, as it is an issue for customers. However, it’s not an OVO issue so unfortunately we aren’t able to resolve this ourselves, as it is is the responsibility of a third party. 

I’m really sorry we can’t be of more help in this instance. 

Hi

My contribution

Responses:-

• OVO: Not responsible for third party data.
• Glowmarkt/Hilderbrand/Bright: Unable to acquire data from DCC
• n3rgy: Problem with meter, speak to supplier.

Someone must be responsible for third part access to meter data. With several parties involved it is so easy to pass the buck rather than take responsibility.

As you know @Firedog , my situation is similar :

Region 14 (WM)

Supplier - Octopus

Meter - Aclara SGM1411-B

CH - WNC UBC-TN6

Last DP - 8:30am June 20th (Elec)

so this is looking more like DCC again. All third parties point to a meter block which does suggest supplier but perhaps the data hub/meter link is more complex than we realise. 
Interestingly there is little noise in the Octopus forum on this but they likely get data via the account API which is working fine. 

Thanks - that’s more than I expected! 

We’re not alone, but the common factor does seem to be Aclara. I’m in touch with another Octopus customer in the same situation: Aclara meter, but in his case he’s in the frozen North, with an EDMI CH communicating via LRR. Octopus have told him that ‘at least half a dozen’ of their customers have reported this problem (including, I expect, @BPLightlog!).

Happy update

On Friday, I learned from another victim that Bright had told him “DCC and Aclara have confirmed there is a comms problem with some meters and they are working on a fix.” (I also had a response at the same time from Aclara customer support saying they were unaware of any issue but would look into it ... )

Today (Sunday) out of the blue, the Bright app showed me all of the data that had been missing since 13 June. This suggests that their authentication credentials are again being accepted; of course, they might have acquired new ones. 

So far, it’s only Bright. Hugo and n3rgy (and those like Loop that piggyback on n3rgy) are still in the dark ages, but I’m not panicking about that - I’m sure that if a fix has been applied by DCC, it will take time to arrive everywhere it needs to be. 

Squeaky wheels come to mind …

Keep an eye on all feeds .. I heard from one or two that restored data in one part also stopped data in another (supplier data), at least temporarily. 

Mine hasn’t come through yet, but hoping!

Just had this reply from Glowmarkt

Apologies for the very delayed reply - your ticket was in Tech Support's Inbox.  The DCC and Aclara have confirmed that there is an issue affecting some meters communicating with the Other User role (which is what we are in the smart metering ecosystem) and are working with us to identify the root cause and get things fixed. Thank you for your patience in the meantime.

Thanks. I had just the same from Aclara Support today (after she’d done a bit of digging): “… we have an active investigation with the DCC on this. We don’t know what is causing it yet, but we are looking into it.”

Bright is still behaving for me, although I do see a few lengthy gaps in June and July. At least they’re getting through to my meter now.

One more titbit: in my correspondence with one of the ‘other users’ involved in this, I was referred for background to a thread in a customer forum for one of the electricity suppliers. Yep, this one!

When I confessed to being the instigator of the thread concerned, I learned that it had ‘highlighted to the DCC that the issue is now public knowledge’ and pushed them to put the right people on the case to help.  

Don’t underestimate the power of well-run customer forums!

Wow @Firedog, it sounds like your Forum powers have been strong with this!

It just goes to show the time and effort you spend doesn’t go unnoticed.

I know of several instances where the third party data remains blocked so either they are looking at individual accounts at present rather than updating all similar or there is no single fix.
On the ‘public knowledge’ bit, I think once Hugo, Hildebrand and others began getting repeated similar issues, it became public quickly. What hadn’t happened was the open discussion which this forum provides. 

Hello all,

This is Jane at Hildebrand, we power the Bright App.

Our CTO has spent days worth of his time following up with the DCC and Aclara - and providing support material to guide their diagnostics since we first identified the problem three or four months ago. They still can’t work out the root cause - or why some meters suddenly start reporting again. But the good news is that the issue is being dealt with - and to give the parties credit, that investigation started a few months before this thread was opened.

Obviously, as Other Users, we aren’t energy suppliers and don’t have the same leverage but we can confirm that they are investigating and when there is resolution, everyone who is a Bright user and has been in touched will be updated by us.

Have a good weekend!

Welcome @JaneatGlow ,

Thanks for the heads up! Please can you send an email to forum@ovoenergy.com from your work email to verify your status - this just helps the Forum Moderators confirm who’s representing a company so they can keep track.

Just curious, but do you also plan to stick around by any chance? If so, are you OK with us letting you know about threads you might be interested in?

Thank you!

Many thanks Jane to all at Hildebrand 

I know of a COO of one of the ‘other users’ who spends Saturday morning trawling through the support ticket stack just to check that things are being done as they should. I don’t know whether this is before, after or instead of the park run, but in any case, it’s an admirable exercise which other COOs might emulate.

Thanks for your input, @JaneatGlow 

Quick thanks to @JaneatGlow for keeping me updated regards progress on third party access to my electricity data.

I now have my first day of data in three months! Just wondering if it will in-fill the missing months.

Yes, you are welcome to - no promises to get back to the post as I haven’t got time to manage our own forum posts (but hopefully a new member of the team will!). We’ll do our best if we can help.

We probably need to kick off our backfill process and see if that does the trick - if you, or others, have gaps - please drop us a line at our support from your Bright account. 

There seems to be no pattern about when meters recover, and what has changed…. Which isn’t logical but is the case. 

Hi @JaneatGlow,

Welcome to our forum. Thanks for stopping by with an update on this, it’s really appreciated.

Please feel free to reach out to myself or our other forum moderators @Chris_OVO, @Emmanuelle_OVO or @Abby_OVO if there’s anything we can help with, e.g. updating our relevant threads once this problem is resolved.

Thanks for the welcome @Shads_OVO - progress is very slow but when we have something concrete we’ll let you know, of course!

Glad I found this via google - exact same problem here in the north of England and OVO customer service have been struggling to even understand what the hell the DCC is..

I’m missing all Electric data since 19th March 2024. 
Bright, Hugo & Loop all report the same.

Sorry, Degsy - could you clarify a bit? Are you saying that OVO are getting your Hh data, but none of the third parties can? Or that nobody can get them?

OVO receive the meter reads correctly - just the electric data is missing for 3rd party apps since March.