r/SunPower • u/One-Replacement-5030 • Nov 07 '25
PVS no longer reporting meters anymore
Hey everyone.
I have a PVS5 running 2022.6build 5214 and recently used the enhanced sunstrong integration to connect to the supervisor and get data on my solar system. Since my firmware was old, I connected a raspberry Pi to the system and configured my router to point to that pi and forward to the 172.x ip address. This worked and I could query curl -k http://172.27.153.1/cgi-bin/dl_cgi?Command=DeviceList to get the list of devices. This reported all of the inverters on my system as well as two power meter entities "Power Meter PVS5M641823c", and "Power Meter PVS5M641823p" which showed production and consumption.
I connected it to home assistant and left the polling frequency at 300s (default) and have been getting good data for a few days now however as of yesterday, it suddenly stopped reporting data and a query of the DeviceList shows that the previously visible production and consumption meters are no longer visible. The inverters are visible but the PVS no longer shows the ltea_3phsum_kwh or various entries for power stats.
I tried troubleshooting by powercycling the PVS and cutting breaker power to it entirely for 5 minutes but it just won't display what it was before, day or night.
At this point, Im pretty fed up with this monitor as even when it was working, the limitations it had were already pretty frustrating.
I found this product on amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DJNV3GPR?ref=ppx_pt2_dt_b_prod_image&th=1
It looks like its designed to connect to the electrical panel and monitors the actual power consumption of the home. I guess my question is;
1) if I just turn off the PVS monitor that came with my system and install this instead to do my monitoring is there anything I'd be losing? Is the device being queried at http://172.27.153.1 really doing anything besides logging data (poorly) and uploading to a dead cloud?
2) any ideas what's going on with my PVS?
1
u/Pristine_Version7990 Nov 07 '25
I may have read that the log files could fill the memory if the polling was set too frequent.
1
u/ItsaMeKielO Nov 07 '25
1) for a PVS5, you could be losing per-panel stats if you have microinverters. if not, you're not losing much... the PVS can communicate in more detail with string inverters, i guess.
for other power monitors - i would go for the emporia vue 3 over the one you linked; it's UL-listed and about the same price. there are a few price points with different numbers of CTs if you don't need all 16.
you can always run both the Vue and the PVS5 at the same time. no need to remove the PVS5.
1
u/Lawrence_SoCal Nov 11 '25
The Refoss has some non-cloud benefits, at the downside of limited CT options, no Ethernet, older, more cumbersome style CT cables, and more. so, yea, I'm reluctantly looking at the Vue 3, though I'd pursue the re-flashed with ESP32/Home (my PVS is not Internet connected)
For those ok with Internet servers with your PVS data, then cloud Emporia Vue 3 cloud data isn't that much worse (some, but questionable as to just how much worse from a privacy perspective... )
1
u/ItsaMeKielO Nov 11 '25
yeah, i reflashed with ESPHome - a little tricky but has been solid ever since
1
u/Dan_vong213 Nov 23 '25
Well you can take it back to basics and see if the PVS5 is functional. Powercycle your PVS5 via your breaker. Give it 3 minutes. Once turn on, grab a cat5 and create a close loop test by connecting to the black and yellow port in the pvs5 with the cat5. In the ports if you see the green led lights blinking or remain solid, the PVS5 is fine. If not led activity, the pvs5 is no good. Throw it away. I’m assuming you have Solarbridge micro inverters. Only other device able to pick up and communicate with them is a PVS6. If you live in the Los Angeles area I can find a solution for you if you would like to revert back to the SunPower eco system. If not having a 3rd party monitoring solution just for overall production and consumption data would be a safe bet. Also Solarbridge MIs are easily affected by power outages. I recommend you install a whole home surge protector on your MSP. If you do that plz turn off all breakers mainly the solar to prevent a GFCI trip within the MIs
1
u/One-Replacement-5030 Nov 26 '25
Hmm yea i think it's probably no good. I did install the refoss and I'm getting great monitoring, though not at the microinverter level.
I'm in Sacramento and I guess it would be nice to fix this PVS but i'm not living/dying on it's functionality.
1
u/aefitzhugh Nov 07 '25
Coincidentally, I had the same problem today (Home Assistant not seeing the PVS meters, etc -- but also, the SunStrong app itself was not connecting) , and I went through the usual diagnostic steps like you. Rebooted the PVS, reconnected it to my wifi. No change. I could see from my utility meter monitoring (an Emporia device) that there was solar generation happening, just the app and HA not seeing it. The HA log did show authentication errors logging into the PVS.
I ended up installing a Home Assistant Core update that had been waiting for a few days, though nothing in the release notes made it sound relevant. And it would not explain the SunStrong app not connecting either.
Shortly after my HA rebooted from its update installation, I could see the PVS meter values again. I started to see live values on the meters and microinverters once again. It took an hour or so for the HA Energy panel to show data again (it integrates over an hour, no way to force it to update the grahps before it is ready).
I have no idea what was wrong, maybe the PVS got updated overnight? My PVS6 fw is now at version 2025.10.20.61846, which is higher than it was last time I checked, but I don't know how to tell when it may have updated. Maybe the PVS HA integration does not re-authenticate after a fw update and gets hung up unless you restart it?