Zappi says "Master Lost"

[Rolfe]

I don't know whether to start this thread in the MG4 section or in a more general place, because I don't know if it's the car or the Zappi.

A little while ago I had some minor charging hiccup and the Zappi was saying "Master Lost", which I didn't understand. However it seemed to right itself and I thought no more about it. But things have been getting stickier. Two or three times I recently when I asked for an Octopus Smart charge, the car didn't start charging and I had to fall back on the Zappi's own schedule to get it to go. But as far as I remember, that worked and it was fine. Then within the last few days I did manage to get successful Smart charges.

Now though, things are getting positively weird. I had asked for a Smart charge a few days ago which brought the car up to 81%, so everything must have been OK at that point. (I had only expected it to go to about 78%, but I don't think that was an issue.) It sat at 81% for two or three days, then got some usage on Tuesday that brought it down to around 75%. That's where we were on Tuesday night, and wanting the car full on Wednesday morning I set a schedule on the Zappi for three hours, that should have brought it to 100% with time to balance. However on Wednesday morning it was only on 83% and the Zappi said only 5.something kwh had been added. The charge history shows a number of spikes of charge rather than continuous charging. This can be seen better in the GivEnergy web view. The continuous 2kw load just after midnight is an electric heater, and the 3kw load 4.30-5.30 is the water heater. The 7kw spikes are the car charging from the Zappi, whereas the Zappi was set on a schedule to charge from 1am till 4am.

When I saw this in the morning I tried to initiate a boost charge from the Zappi, but it didn't take, I can't remember why, so I just set off anyway. It turned out there were destination chargers where I was going, so I hooked up to one of these. These were new dual-connection posts with "11.5kw max" on the screen, although I think the app said 22 kw. Anyway, the car started to charge and off I went on the bike. Some time later I thought to check the charging, and the charge had dropped. However, when I asked the car to start charging through the app, it did it - until it dropped again. It was also only charging at 3 kw. This happened several times all afternoon, until the three-hour charging window I had requested (thinking three hours at 7 kw would be plenty) was ended. Then there was nothing I could do.

When I got back the car hadn't picked up enough to get me home comfortably, so I stopped off at an Osprey for five minutes. Everything on the DC charger was fine, but I was still on 7% when I got home.

I thought I might just take the opportunity to do a calibration charge and asked Octopus for 100% finishing at 8am. However, although the schedule came through, the car didn't start charging. (This is not the first time this has happened, as I said.) It wouldn't start from the app and it wouldn't start when I went out to the garage and tapped things on the screen. Eventually I cancelled the Octopus Smart charge and asked the Zappi for a boost. That seemed to work, but I thought I'd rather set a schedule, and cancelled the boost to do that. The car did start to charge with the schedule, but at low and fluctuating power. Then I got out and locked the door and the charge dropped. This happened a couple of times, and I tried unplugging and plugging in again, but all I got was this low-power (up to 3kw but fluctuating) charge which dropped again. Then the Zappi started reading "Master Lost" again, and that was more or less that.

So I plugged in the granny charger. That too seemed to start low and fluctuating, but it seemed to settle on its usual 1.8kw, and didn't drop the charge when I locked the door. It's still charging, and has made it to a whopping 14% and counting.

There is clearly something happening. I'd blame the Zappi, but then I was getting this weird behaviour with the destination charger as well, which at the time I put down to the charger, and maybe my single-phase CPU only getting 3kw from a 22kw charger. And at least the charge did resume every time I asked the app to re-start the charge, and this was not happening with the Zappi at all.

Is it the dreaded CPU failure? I thought it was only the phase 1 LR cars that were affected by that, and mine is a phase 1 SR. Or is there something up with the Zappi? What does "Master Lost" mean? Does anyone have any idea?

 

[Archev]

I’ve read that a couple of times and view the car as the common denominator I think.
Can you try the car on a neighbour’s charger before going the garage checking route ?
Loved the steam, pedal and Cullen skink assisted Trossachs trip. My diabetes nurse would have a hairy canary at the sight of the scone and the jam though

 

[decrep]

Sounds a bit similar to my problems with the EVSE in PV mode, stops and starts at 4 to 5minute intervals and charge rate changes, (it's meant to when clouds come over or other stuff starts up, but that wasn't happening). However the other day it worked fine. I think when mine played up it said it was "off line", but when good it said "available"

Not sure if this relates to "master lost", but I sense some sort of similarity.

I have a feeling the controlling software is on the cloud, and a bad connection can interrupt the charge.

 

[Diggsy]

Do you have an Eddi or similar device installed to heat your water etc.?

Master Lost sounds like a communication issue, where the Zappi is looking for the Master device but can’t locate it.

 

[Rolfe]

Mmmm, yes to that last, I have an Eddi and it is the master if that's the terminology. But would that explain the low and variable power? And it wasn't saying "master lost" when that was happening.

It's still working fine on the granny charger.

My WiFi was down all the time I was away from home, about eleven hours, but it was back up again before all this carry-on.

 

[decrep]

I've come to believe, these things are a total mystery

 

[Giller]

Mmmm, yes to that last, I have an Eddi and it is the master if that's the terminology. But would that explain the low and variable power? And it wasn't saying "master lost" when that was happening.

It's still working fine on the granny charger.

My WiFi was down all the time I was away from home, about eleven hours, but it was back up again before all this carry-on.

From memory master lost indicates a weak connection between the eddy and Zappi, has anything changed that would affect that?

 

[Rolfe]

Not that I know about.

 

[Giller]

Not that I know about.

Strange. Well that is the master lost bit, but that wouldn’t account for the issues with charging away from the home, that would appear to be an issue with the car itself. Perhaps the master lost thing which in itself is an issue is just coincidence?

 

[GaryMG4]

Isn't there an issue with some 3 phase 11kW chargers where the MG only 'sees' a single phase so only gets around 3kW.
Edit.
Thinking about it, last year in Scotland most of the 22kW chargers gave me around 10kW with my 3 phase cable, but a local Tesco 22kW one would only ever supply 7 kW with the same cable.

 

[Diggsy]

If you haven’t already, I’d highly recommend reaching out to my energy for support. Their forum is pretty good too, and monitored by their support staff if I recall correctly.

 

[Rolfe]

I've had help there before, and I can always contact my installer too, but my first priority is finding out whether it's the car or the charger. Especially as the car's third birthday is in a few days and it's possible this might be something caught by a three-year warranty.

 

[Giller]

I've had help there before, and I can always contact my installer too, but my first priority is finding out whether it's the car or the charger. Especially as the car's third birthday is in a few days and it's possible this might be something caught by a three-year warranty.

Regarding the possibility of a 3 year warranty would it be worth reporting the issue with your dealer Snead of the anniversary so it’s logged on their system?

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, I'm going to do that this afternoon, as soon as I've tried a few things that might illuminate the issue. This is Thursday and the car's birthday in on Monday!

 

[siteguru]

Re. Master Lost .. do your devices (Zappi etc.) connect via WiFi are are they hard-wired? If via WiFi, can you be sure that they've all reconnected properly to your WiFi network after it went down?

Have you tried a power off/on cycle on these devices to force them to reboot and reconnect?

 

[Rolfe]

I've just turned the Eddi off and on again, so we'll see. Going to try the Zappi again now.

 

[Everest]

Is it the dreaded CPU failure?

...

Yes, I'm going to do that this afternoon, as soon as I've tried a few things that might illuminate the issue.

If you mention it to the dealer, the charging unit is called a CCU, not CPU.

Best not to confuse the dealership any more than they'll probably get confused themselves!!

 

[Rolfe]

THANK YOU!!

 

[Rolfe]

Plugged the car into the Zappi. At first it was saying it had lost communication, but then it switched to its normal "waiting for surplus". I imagine that was just an effect of my switching the Eddi off and on again. I've set a schedule on the Zappi for half an hour starting at eleven, so I'll be watching to see what happens.

Other things to try are the village charger which has a 48kw AC plug, a neighbour with a home charger (don't know the make) and the 7 kw CPS chargers in Penicuik. That's a fair old range of AC inputs to play with.

 

[Rolfe]

So far so good. After the usual delay so the Zappi can choose its starting moment, everything proceeded normally. Zappi says it's charging at 7.1 kw, car says charging power is 6.4 kw. Zappi says 1.2 kwh added, Car has put on 2% battery and five miles. (That's a bit optimistic but never mind.)

I'm just going to let it run for the 30-minute schedule, smothering my normal aversion to paying 27p/unit for peak rate electricity.