Dear mods-community members & followers,
This item is to announce a new Venus OS version available for beta-testing, v2.30~35. For those new to these sort of announcements; please read till the end. You'll there find a link to our Venus OS beta-testing page and instructions. Use this thread to report bugs.
I used to send these announcements to the victron-dev-venus mailing list; but that is being closed now in favour of the Mods space on Community).
I'll send out below email to the beta testing group in a few minutes.
Have a good evening, Matthijs
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Good evening beta-testers!
Its time to work on the next major release again, after a brief intermezzo with v2.23. Since earlier today, v2.30~35 is out for testing as a release-candidate.
First a short note: please use this post in Mods (Modifications) on Community for feedback:
https://community.victronenergy.com/spaces/31/mods.html
Lets see how that works out. For me, community is proving to be quite an efficient tool; I hope its the same for you. Thank you!
Now back to v2.30~35:
The main new feature, integration with MFDs as used on the helms of a yacht, has seen major progress. It now shows information about solar, battery chargers, inverters, inverter/chargers, secondary batteries and 3-phase systems. With that; all pending functional improvements are done; its time to test them!
To test, enable MQTT in Settings -> Services, and then open a webbrowser and navigate to http://[ipaddress]/app. In some cases http://venus.local/ will even work; so you do not have to look up the local IP address, but that does not always work; see below for details.
Also it can already be tested on compatible Navico and Garmin displays. Preliminary documentation is available here:
- https://www.victronenergy.com/live/venus-os:mfd-navico
- https://www.victronenergy.com/live/venus-os:mfd-garmin
In the mean time the developers are working on the last round of visual improvements.
Besides the MFD integration, there are lots of other small improvements; each of them might mean a lot to some systems; and will mean nothing to many other systems.
General:
* Major update of the new Marine MFD integration.
* Add Settings -> System Setup -> Battery measurements page. This is where you can configure the `Batteries` page in the MFD Integration app. Also known by some as the HTML5 feature. See this video.
* Fix Remote VEConfigure being slow; this issue was introduced earlier in v2.30 development.
* Rename the "ESS" state to "External control" for solar chargers. This fixes the confusion around off-grid systems where no ESS was running; but still were reporting it. Thank you JohnC, Guy and others for reporting this.
* GX GSM: Enable the GPS also when there is no simcard inserted. Thank you Jondal for raising this.
* Generator start/stop: hide the battery monitor selection. It now always uses the same battery monitor as is used by the rest of the system. Except systems that already had a different battery monitor configured: their behaviour will not change by installing this update.
* Generator start/stop: log RunByConditionCode for generator start/stop to VRM so its possible to analyze why the generator was started. For now only visible on the XLS and CSV download buttons on VRM.
* Various fixes and improvements for the CANvu GX; there are no pending todos or open issues any more.
* Add Battery temperature measured by Multis and Quattros: its shown in the menus; it can be selected to use it for Shared Temperature Sense; its logged to the VRM Portal; and its available on ModbusTCP.
* Fix various touch & other issues in the gui
* Firmware updates: allow downgrading; this fixes the problem that it wasn't possible to go from a candidate version, v2.20~something for example, to the latest official version, v2.18 for
example, and back.
* Add support for the next generation of Zigbee to USB Converters - DRF2658C
* Add network watchdog: automatically reboot the Venus-device in case it has not been able to sent data to VRM for a while. See Settings -> VRM online portal -> Reboot device when no contact.
* Fix Phoenix VE.Bus Inverters being called MultiPlus. They are now properly recognised as an Inverter.
* Add support for the new SmartSolar VE.Can chargers.
DVCC:
* Make multiple BMSes in the same system work well by making the BMS selection deterministic: it will use the BMS with the lowest configured BMS instance for DVCC. Any others are just shown in the menus. This allows, for example, to add a second Lynx Ion BMS with battery pack used for (only) a large electric bow-thruster; besides another pack thats used as the boats main service battery.
* Improve the Shared Temperature Sensor function: Multi/Quattro inverter/chargers, Venus GX temperature accessory and the VE.Can Solar Chargers were added as possible inputs to measure -and share- battery temperature. Before this change it only accepted BMV and Lynx Shunt battery monitors.
ESS:
* Fix ESS operation in systems with more than one VE.Bus system connected (second is then connected using a MK3-USB): ESS will always use the main VE.Bus system, selected by sorting on instance number.
CCGX only:
* Fix the CPU load. Thank you Torsten for raising this, its back at its normal level again.
ModbusTCP:
* Add registers for manual start, runtime, and RunByConditionCode which shows why the generator is running.
Developers & under the hood:
* store Multi/Quattro settings which are stored on the Venus-device per connection. These inclue the settings found in the Device list -> Multi/Quattro -> Alarm setup menu. Settings for devices connected on the on-board VE.Bus port will be maintained. But settings for devices connected using a MK3-USB, such as a RaspberryPi, will be reset to defaults.
* fix some bugs in vebus-updater
* fix some `corner issues` in date & time handling
* fix gui fixes related to mouse / touch / Remote Console
* fix (very rare) logging to VRM issue (unique-id file not found)
* VE.Direct: Add check that bidirectional communication is possible (except for BMV60x). In the support desk we have seen multipe self-made USB-VE.Direct cables now; of which only the RX signal works; rather than RX and TX. And that works somewhat; but not 100%; and nobody understands why. So; now the code tests if its a properly working cable; and if not; hides the connected device completely.
* enable zeroconf name resolution using mDNS and llmnrd: venus.local.
* Tested to work on iOS and macOS: a Venus device can now be found on those clients by typing http://venus.local in a webbrowser.
* Tested to work on Windows: a Venus device can now be found on those clients by typing http://venus.local in a webbrowser.
* But does not work on Android, since it does not seem to support any zeroconf style name resolution mechanism: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=405925&desc=2
---
Do not contact any support channels when having issues when running a beta firmware version. Preferably report on the correct thread on Victron Community -> Mods Space. Or contact me directly. Also, don't run beta firmware in systems that need to just work.
For more information on the Venus OS beta-test program, see here:
https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ccgx:beta-testing
Thank you for your testing efforts again, and have a good night, or day,
Matthijs Vader
Ps. changes of previous testing version:
Change log v2.30~24 up to and including v2.30~27
General:
* Fix setting the date & time not working properly for off-grid systems: changes to the date and time were only stored to the device when being rebooted from within the menus (which nobody ever does). Power cycling a unit would make it jump back to the previous date & time. This is now fixed. Note that only installations without internet were affected: with internet, the date and time are set automatically; as well as stored properly. This bug has always been in the system, since the first release.
* Debounce VE.Bus warnings: warnings now stay valid for at least 20 seconds in order to reduce the number of warning -> ok -> warning changes; notifications and VRM emails.
* Add the names of various new VE.Bus inverter/chargers
* ESS with DVCC enabled: Fix solar voltage offset not going into DVCC mode. Thank you Simon H. for finding and reporting this.
* Fix internet connection issues for a small number of systems; by lowering the MTU to 1450. If affected you typically see that logging data to VRM works, but Remote Console does not work; and Remote VEConfigure and Remote Firmware Update work partially: scanning typically works; but anything using full packet sizes; such as uploading a firmware file; or transferring the VEConfigure file; does not work and returns error 1300. More information here: https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/3608/how-to-solve-error-1300-on-remote-ve-configure.html.
GUI:
* Add manual mode for relay two (Venus GX) - Thank you Ole S. for contributing this.
* Add diagnostics page for Fiamm 48TL series batteries. Thank you Ivo G. for contributing this.
* Change the "Solar Charger" -> "BMS Controlled switch" into a reset button: the feature is auto-enabled. Therefor, having an on/off switch was confusing. Now
Under-the-hood & developer related changes:
* Fix that data was not sent to VRM in some rare occasions. Only seen on Warwick his beaglebone and new Venus devices not released yet (random entropy & python ssl patch).
* Nodejs 8.4.0 -> 8.15.0; preparing for node-red; see here: https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/issues/378.
* Add xupd and xupc: commandline firmware update tools for coming products
* Report data partition errors on the GUI & and on VRM (error 42).
* Update Oceanvolt drivers to latest versions
* Limit max logs size; reducing space on the data partition
* Remove /log symlink; Use /data/log
* Enable tun/tap for all kernels
* Enable netfilter for various kernels
* Re-enable rfkill for the CCGX kernel; its went missing in the change from 3.7 to 4.19
CHANGE LOG v2.22 -> v2.30~23
General:
* Add the first version of the Marine MFD aka Chart-plotter integration. Tested with the Navico brands; Garmin and Raymarine. See blogposts for more information. Note that this is not officially supported yet; we're still making lots of changes, and it doesn't work on a Raymarine display unless that is running a development firmware verions, and this is also pending official approval from the mentioned MFD manufacturers. More information here:
https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2018/11/02/mets-2018-preview-glass-bridge-smart-everywhere/.
* Add multiple demos; One ESS demo, and two Marine/Motorhome oriented demos are available to choose from.
* GX GSM: Fix handling of bad PIN
* Add a low-cell voltage warning and alarm for Lynx Ion BMS systems. Not that this only works for the Lynx Ion BMS. It does not work for the (discontinued) Lynx Ion + Shunt models. It will first issue a warning; and that will change to an alarm once the voltage is so low that the system has disabled the 'allow-to-discharge' signal; which shuts down any connected inverters and other loads.
* Carlo Gavazzi Energy Meter power or current overload now results in no data being stored; this used to be a very high value; distorting the graphs on VRM. Thank you Tilo Ritz for reporting.
GUI:
* Fix mouse/touch getting stuck when touching cancel while the options menu is closing.
* Various small improvements; mostly to make it work better when using it on a touch device; such as the CANvu GX and as Remote Console is typically used.
* Fix duplicated vebus warning and alarms in the menu and notifications (bug was introduced in v2.18)
* Fix issue where en empty battery service appeared in the Device list when the `PageLynxIonDiagnostic` was entered
* Update Eastern Europe time zones; fixes issues with Romania and other countries
PV Inverter monitoring and control - add support for ABB PV-Inverters:
* Fix incorrect handling of negative power values. This caused logging of incorrect values: above 655 kW.
* Allow for types with dashes in the serial-numbers, such as ABB PV Inverters.
* Enable power limiting for ABB PV-inverters: same as Fronius Zero Feed-in; use the Fronius switch to enable it. Note that this is an opportunistic trial: it might work; might not; And if hard to fix we might consider not to fix it in case it doesn't work.
ESS:
* Fix bug in Scheduled charging that caused the PV to not be optimally used when in the scheduled charging window.
* When Active AC input is a generator, enable the Fronius zero-feedin limiter. Thanks to Simon Hackett for reporting.
* (Systems with CAN-bus BMS batteries, and DVCC enabled only): Compensate for PV-power when calculating maximum discharge power from BMS current limits.
DVCC:
* Fix CAN-Bus BMS overwriting the maximum charge current as configured in VEConfigure
Venus GX:
* Improve flexibility of the multiplier setting for the pulse counter; the spinbox has been replaced with a normal edit box where a number can be entered now; with up to 6 decimal places.
ModbusTCP:
* Make battery relay writable, i.e. Lynx Shunt (thanks Shane)
* Add paths related to charge current and temperature alarms.
Developers and others:
* CCGX: Update the kernel from 3.7 to 4.19.
* Reduce wear on the internal flash storage (remove the sync mount option from the /data partition & add express sync calls to all places that need it)
* Add a link local interface parallel to the ethernet: this make the link local address directly available instead of only after a DHCP timeout. See https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/issues/361
* Fix (very rare) issue that causes the internet connection not working on a CanVU (dns race condition)
* Raspberrypi 3B+: fix the wifi. Thanks to Per and others for helping us out.
* Update vbdup, the commandline tool to update a VE.Bus device, to version 1.00; lots of improvements, including -I think- that it can now also be used to update a MultiPlus-II and MultiGrid.
* rtl8723bu wifi driver: update to latest version to fix building for Linux 4.19. This driver is used in the Venus GX.
* Reduce CPU load when ESS is enabled; and also for ModbustCP connected PV Inverters
* Rename vecan-mk2 to mk2-dbus
* Update qt5 to qt5.11
* Further improve CCGX robustness by starting the watchdog really early (in the bootloader; u-boot)
* Generate an alarm (Error 42) in case the data partition can't be mounted
