How can we help you today?

Start a new topic
Discussions OpenEVSE Forums Feature Requests

Auto clock sync after power-on

Having had surprisingly many power outages in the past few weeks I've noticed that the OpenEVSE won't resync the time after the power returns. Whether this is because it syncs at a much later time and I'm too impatient, I don't know.


If (as long as time sync is set to "automatic" the charger resynchronised it's time every day at 12:05am, it would mean that five minutes after power-up (when it'll have gone back to midnight at whatever date it says it is, I can't remember) it'll resynchronise. Perhaps this would even go so far as to render the backup battery redundant?

1 person likes this idea
38 CommentsSorted by Newest First
I'm not as knowledgeable as Doug, but I had the same issue. I lost power a few days ago and the date/time reset basically to 0 when it came back on. Power was out a few hours. Like Doug, I have a Juicebox v2 board. I installed it 3-4 months ago. I confirmed it is running the latest firmware. It is connected successfully to my wifi (I see it on my network and can access the web interface). NTP is not blocked by the router. When my vehicle didn't charge overnight after the outage, I went in to check the settings. The date/time was way off. I pulled up the time settings on the browser interface and it was set to pull NTP automatically. I switched it to manual time entry thinking I'd do that in the short term, but the correct time popped up without me entering anything when I toggled it to manual. I switched it back to NTP and it stayed with the correct time. It was as if it hadn't automatically checked NTP when the power came back on, but when I switched it to manual, for some reason it prompted it to check and adjusted then. I know that's not the way it's supposed to work, but that's what happened. I mostly wanted to confirm Doug isn't crazy and add my experience with it checking and adjusting when I switched to manual time entry.
1 person likes this

@Doug. Do you have a phone with cellular data you can use as a hotspot? If yes, turn your phone into a hotspot and have your station join the phone hotspot. Does NTP work in this configuration?

all signs point to ntp working inside our Wifi network and I reset my OpenEVSE to factory defaults, setup my wifi( same network as the rest of the house ) and setup Time and ntp service but still no time update on OpenEVSE.  Stranger things?


image


just ran a test on the openntpd I installed on my machine in the house and it shows it's getting data from pool.ntp.org, time.google.com, 0.debian.pool.ntp.org and 1.debian.pool.ntp.org


So it's obvious the wifi and networking routers are not blocking ntp since this machine is on the same WiFi network as the OpenEVSE esp32.


sudo ntpctl -s all
16/20 peers valid, clock unsynced

peer
  wt tl st  next  poll          offset       delay      jitter
45.84.199.136 from pool pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   13s   30s       -10.625ms   176.720ms    34.526ms
23.150.41.122 from pool pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   14s   34s        -8.545ms    74.907ms    37.820ms
172.233.177.198 from pool pool.ntp.org
   1  9  2    0s   34s        -4.720ms    93.684ms    33.135ms
142.202.190.19 from pool pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   16s   33s        -0.129ms    32.850ms     4.058ms
2001:4860:4806:: from pool time.google.com
   1  2  -   15s   15s             ---- peer not valid ----
2001:4860:4806:c:: from pool time.google.com
   1  2  -   15s   15s             ---- peer not valid ----
2001:4860:4806:8:: from pool time.google.com
   1  2  -   15s   15s             ---- peer not valid ----
2001:4860:4806:4:: from pool time.google.com
   1  2  -   15s   15s             ---- peer not valid ----
216.239.35.0 from pool time.google.com
   1 10  1   10s   31s        -1.957ms    31.043ms     5.577ms
216.239.35.12 from pool time.google.com
   1 10  1   22s   33s        -7.043ms    60.796ms    43.391ms
216.239.35.8 from pool time.google.com
   1 10  1   23s   33s        -0.056ms    29.183ms     5.057ms
216.239.35.4 from pool time.google.com
   1 10  1   23s   32s        -0.381ms    28.092ms     5.330ms
99.28.14.242 from pool 0.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  1   14s   32s        -9.616ms    87.154ms    32.270ms
66.59.198.178 from pool 0.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   18s   33s        -6.007ms    88.751ms    31.415ms
45.55.58.103 from pool 0.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   14s   32s        -4.359ms   102.161ms    26.208ms
23.186.168.126 from pool 0.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2    7s   30s       -11.485ms    61.889ms    43.769ms
108.61.56.35 from pool 1.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2    9s   30s        -7.693ms   100.173ms    27.318ms
45.63.54.13 from pool 1.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   15s   31s        -1.842ms    23.410ms     7.173ms
216.229.0.50 from pool 1.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   13s   31s       -12.944ms    86.933ms    32.633ms
172.233.177.198 from pool 1.debian.pool.ntp.org
   1 10  2   20s   33s        -5.323ms    95.098ms    31.088ms

it's just really odd because all of our devices use ntp on our WAP incuding esp32 devices I've made like tide clocks and LoRaWAN gateways, rPi's besides all the computers in the home.

@Doug


The things that cause it to not work are typically no internet and firewall rules.


Using initial configuration mode OpenEVSE_xxxx SSID and IP address 192.168.4.1.


A firewall that blocks NTP all together or has just a specific rule to a specific server.


There are no settings on the EVSE that affect NTP other than the ones on the Time Page.

Is there anything in the settings which would stop it from working?
This unit is a JuiceBox v2 upgrade board I purchased last year and this hasn't work since day 1.
I was running it off a 12A 120VAC outlet at first and a weak GFCI was causing the circuit to turn off and when OpenEVSE booted back up I got no updated time. I've upgraded the firmware and it's not worked and I built the firmware off github and uploaded that it still ntp hasn't worked.


This is a software issue for sure, ie not hardware, so I'm at a loss for why it works on other systems yet not mine. I will retest ntp updates on each of my WAPs to verify my laptop can see the ntp servers.
I've installed openntpd on my laptop and checked status and it's functioning getting to the servers and putting my laptop hostname into OpenEVSE still didn't work so that's why I believe the issue is within the OpenEVSE setup/device.


Again, it sounds like you saw updates and even tested 3 builds so the firmware code works.
Maybe I'll delete my config and try to see if that changes something which changes ntp to working.

Also why I checked MQTT data to see that sntp_enable was true.

@Doug NTP was added about 6 years ago in 3.1.0 on Apr 29, 2020 and was last changed almost 3 years ago. It is functioning as expected on the test unit I just set up in the shop as well as on 2 units I am running at home. It does not appear to be a bug in the firmware or I would see the same issue as you are seeing.


last change was in 5.0.0  Sep 19, 2023 

  • fix time not updated immediately after NTP server change by @KipK in #624

fix in 4.2.2  Apr 12, 2023 

Fix in 4.1.1 Dec 13, 2021

  • Fix NTP Not updating automatically #194

Fix in 4.1.0 July 22,2021

It has to be on the network/wifi because I posted pics from a browser on my LAN on the same wifi network/WAP.  I also use the phone app/browser page. So it must be connected.

Odd yours works and mine does not.

@Doug Can you confirm your station is connected to your home WiFi? Here are my screenshots same firmware version...



I just installed openevse_wifi-v1.bin which is 5.15 and this is what I'm greeted with. Notice the time?

image


and I changed the time server from pool.ntp.org to time.google.com and still no updated time.

My home computers all update over ntp via the same Wifi access points so I can't see how that could be blocking.

image


@Doug

 
I have just tested NTP on 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.1.4 and 5.1.5 with pool.ntp.org and time.google.com. I have rebooted the module with the reset button on each and recycled power leaving off for at least 10 seconds. Every time the time is acquired perfectly.


Is it possible your internet/firewall is blocking NTP to the internet? If so, maybe you can run a NTP server on a computer on your local network.


If you want to add a hardware DS3231 RTC chip and battery they are available here. It would connect to the OpenEVSE controller on the I2C port https://www.adafruit.com/product/3013

What programmatic mechanism is available to set the time since the previous mechanism has been eliminated via hardware elimination? 


NTP doesn't work and the time drifts or worst the time gets zero'ed out if there's a power glitch/cycle on the OpenEVSE device and the only way I've found to set it is to connect over Wifi and run the Manual time set option.

@doug The old time system uses a DS3231 RTC time chip with battery plugged into the OpenEVSE controller via i2c. The RAPI commands set and read the time on the chip. If you try to do so today, there is no DS3231 chip the to receive the set commands.

1 person likes this

I know this is old but since NTP is not working, does anyone know why the current script doesn't work?

I can tell it doesn't work because my when my system time(Linuxx) changes the minute, a refresh of the OpenEVSE browser shows the previous minute for about 30 seconds. So, when my system time changes I immediately send run the script and then refresh the web page but the time isn't updated. I look at the developer console and see the S1 command being sent and it has the updated minute value but the OpenEVSE time is not updated.


Thanks.

Login or Signup to post a comment
More topics in Feature Requests
See all 31 topics