Why have my Aclara SMETS 2 smart meter readings reset to 0 on my OVO online account?

Whether you choose the webchat route or not, @JP9000 please remember that I think this meter needs analysing - not just replacing!

Now I may just be another humble customer, but it really shouldn’t be possible for a meter to have its cumulative readings reset under any circumstances.

This is a potential security loophole, similar to being able to “clock” a car and then sell it for more money as it’s apparently done fewer miles.

The SMETS hardware and firmware has been designed (and tested!) to ensure that the memory used for readings cannot be over-written. The cumulative readings system is the absolute bedrock of providing correct/accurate billing.

However, in this case it’s more serious; there are other protected memory locations which it might also now be possible to over-write. Although I’m not going to expound on this here on a public-forum, there are consequences of doing so which would threaten the energy-supply for the UK.

It is vital that the OVO S2 engineers first test out your meter in-situ, and then recover it for proper investigation. This will need to involve the manufacturers (Aclara and Toshiba, I presume) and the National Cyber Security Centre. NCSC advised on the necessary steps to prevent the UK energy supply being threatened by a malicious 3rd-party actor.

Please do not accept a standard “faulty meter exchange” until we are sure that the S2 Engineers are tracking these meters!

PM response sent. 

I agree! Meter readings should be tamper/fault-proof and this unique situation needs further investigation.

I’ve had a similar issue with my smart meter (SMETS 2 Aclara). It was installed on the 24th of August and was running fine until the 1st of September, when it reset back to 0. The IHD no longer shows electricity information.

Gas meter readings are unaffected and IHD is showing gas information. 

I have carried out the health check and everything seems to be working as expected, no issues there.

The last reported electricity meter reading was 86 units, then it reset to 0 and has started sending readings as if normal. I’ve attached screenshot below from the app.

I’m not sure if this is normal, as it’s not been 6 weeks yet since the meters have been installed. The meter resetting to 0 doesn’t sound normal to me. 

I’ve spoke to customer services and they’ve not been very helpful. Is there anything I should do or this would resolve itself?

I’d go and press some buttons on the meter to see what it has stored right now, @dmm7 (it’d be worth writing down what it has, even taking photos). FWIW my Aclara SMETS2 meter only displays whole kWh, but fractional kWh are shown on the IHD.

At least, they were a few minutes ago. Perhaps I’d best go and check mine...

Howdy @dmm7 ! I think I know what’s happening here. My own electric meter that I call Raichu is an S2 Aclara SGM1411-B and my two IHDs that I call the Kecleon Brothers are S2 Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID so I think I’ve got a similar setup to you. I’m electric-only though, so I don’t have a gas meter. I previously had an S1 Aclara SGM1311 electric meter that I used to call Pikachu before it was replaced with Raichu, so I know how things should work in these cases.

When any electric or gas meter is replaced for any reason, the reading history from the old meter usually gets archived and removed from view in MyOVO once the new meter is registered to your account - and this usually results in the readings starting from zero again, to match the fact a new meter should always start from zero - but MyOVO will do some additional number crunching in the background to make sure you’re still billed correctly by calculating the next bill using the readings from both meters. I will admit that it does seem a bit strange to be seeing what you’re getting there - it shouldn’t normally reset in the way that’s shown in your screenshots because all the old readings from the meter that’s been removed should vanish once the new meter is registered.

In my own case, Raichu started to submit Smart readings exactly 14 days after the install, but the “reset” occurred after just five days (the meter reading history from Pikachu was also archived at this point and removed from view), allowing me to submit manual readings under Raichu’s MSN in the interim. While six weeks is the target, you can sometimes get lucky and it has been known for some Smart Meters to start submitting much faster than that.

It is also known for the incoming data to be a bit flaky during the commissioning process, but it usually settles down afterwards. Most of what you’re seeing appears to be normal, but I agree that it’s a bit strange to see your reading history appear to reset to zero without old readings being archived first.

It can take up to six weeks for newly installed Smart Meters to fully commission, and Smart readings generally should start coming in sometime during that period or very shortly afterwards - and within eight weeks of install at the absolute most. It’s possible that your IHDs might need to be paired with the electric meter again, or it could just be a case that the electric meter isn’t quite ready to talk to the HAN yet. Keep an eye on things for now, just in case. If you still don’t get any electricity usage data on your IHD within the next week or two, the Support Team should be able to take a look.

With that being said, if you go into the app and tap Account > My Meter Readings, you should be able to see the Meter Serial Number (MSN) for both your Gas and Electric meters. Do these match up with the meters you’ve currently got? If they do, then that confirms the meters are correctly registered on your account, but if not it could be that the records are still being updated. This should sort itself out within a few days.

Erm… two points:

1: I’m assuming that the ‘reset to zero’ is occurring at the same time when your correct tariff information is downloaded into your Smart Meter. Until that time, your IHD will have been picking up whatever default setting happened to be in that memory location.

Personally I don’t like the concept of resetting a meter to zero. It keeps a cumulative total and it really shouldn’t matter where it starts from. The fact that it can be reset remotely is slightly concerning. Incorrect use of such a feature (by accidental software glitch) could create havoc with our National Smart Meter Network.

Reliability and integrity are more important than having a neat display.

2: I fail to see any reason why resetting the display of the electricity Smart Meter to zero could stop the readings being sent to the IHD from the Communications Hub.

I suggest you report this immediately. It’s possibly indicative of a fault in the software signals that pass through the Intimate Communications Hub Interface (ICHI).

OVO can’t ‘see’ what’s on your IHD, only that the Home Area Network (HAN) is ‘live’. You have to tell them if the display is wrong.

Thanks everyone for their prompt replies.

@Blastoise186 I’ll let the smart meter run it’s course for now and see how it behaves in the coming weeks.

@Transparent As far as I remember before meter had reset, it had the correct Tariff information. After the reset I can no longer see the tariff information on the meter. It shows up as 0s or blanks.

I did go through the event log for the meter and found this code: 0x81BC around 05:15 on the 1st of September. I’m guessing an update of some sort must’ve broken something on my end. Can’t find anything online that would shine light on what the code means. I’ll get the meter reported.

In the meantime I’ll be keeping an eye on the smart meter to see how it behaves in the coming weeks. 

No worries. By “reset” what I actually mean is that the Meter Reading History from the old MSN from the removed meter is erased from your view in MyOVO and archived, so that the new MSN from the new meter takes its place and helps to make sure the readings match up with the meter itself. It’s unrelated to any config/tariff downloads being sent to the meters/IHD via SMETS Commands. Apologies for any confusion.

I’ve managed to look up the Event Code you mentioned and I’m a bit puzzled. According to the Aclara SMETS2 User Manual that I have a copy of, that’s a really weird event code to trigger randomly. Feel free to check it out on SmartMe if you’d like to.

Anyway, according to the user manual, 0x81BC is the Event Code for Strong Magnetic Field Removed which is a Non-Critical event that is recorded in the Event Log as well as triggering Alert WAN i.e. sends an alert back to the supplier with the same message that’s in the event log (unless the supplier chooses to disable the alert). I’m not really sure why your meter has generated that log entry, since that’s usually related to the anti-tamper mechanisms and I don’t think you’d have been playing with neodymium magnets near your electric meter at 5am in the morning… Right? Plus, they’d have to be awfully strong neodymium magnets too…

Also, I don’t think it’s possible to remotely reset the registers back to zero either. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any SMETS Commands for it and I don’t think there ever will be, since that could cause havoc if it did.

@Blastoise186 - do you think that 0x81BC : Strong Magnetic Field Removed relates solely to the anti-tamper mechanism?

The current measurement could equally well be using magnetic flux. The error codes don’t seem to specify what part of the meter was adversely affected.

Personally I’ve found that obscure error codes are more likely to occur late on a Friday afternoon, just as Customer Services staff are heading off for the weekend.

Hard to say really, it could be unrelated. However, given that it is related to 0x8F75 Unauthorised Physical Access - Strong Magnetic Field which lands in the restricted Security Log and always triggers Alert WAN to the supplier (and probably sets off some giant klaxon alarm I guess ), I wouldn’t be surprised if 0x8F75 triggered first and was then followed up by 0x81BC.

And I fail to see how things like Geomag will trigger it either. Sure, those things do use neodymium magnets, but I don’t think they’d be that powerful!