Common Problems
The faults we see most often, and what to do about each one. If yours is not here, Diagnostics covers how to gather what we need to help you.
Start here
Two things resolve most of what people write to us about.
Read the Settings Log. Settings has its own Log tab, and it is where your system talks about itself: backups taken or failed, software updates installed, licence check-ins, restores, and devices added or removed. If something changed recently, it is written down there. See Diagnostics.
Put a backup back. If your system still runs, open the Sensa Settings panel, choose the Backup tab, and press Restore. This is the answer to most problems, including a change you want to undo, a device setup that went wrong, or an update you would rather not have taken. See Recovery.
If neither helps, find your symptom below.
A device you set up appears twice
You will see the same physical device listed twice, once managed by Sensa and once by Home Assistant's own integration for it. Teltonika routers are the usual case.
Why it happens. When Sensa manages a device instead of Home Assistant's native integration, it needs to read that integration's unique identifier to suppress it. Sensa can only read that identifier while the native integration's discovery is active. If Sensa Nomad was added before the native integration appeared in the Discovered list, the identifier was never captured and the suppression did not happen.
What to do. Go to Settings > Devices & Services > Discovered, find the native integration for the device, and press Ignore.
Once Nomad has captured the identifier it is stored in the configuration, and the suppression is recreated automatically every time Home Assistant restarts. You will not have to do this again for that device.
If you are setting up a new system, you can avoid this entirely: wait for the native integration to appear under Discovered before you add Sensa Nomad.
Victron Cerbo devices come and go from the Devices list
You will see the sub-devices nested under a Victron Cerbo GX, your battery, solar charger, grid meter and MultiPlus, disappear from Settings > Devices when the list refreshes, then come back on the next refresh. The list refreshes about every thirty seconds.
Why it happens. This is the list drawing itself, not your devices dropping off. A Cerbo is found by several routes at once, and on a refresh where the wrong one wins, the child rows are left out of that draw.
What to do. Update to the current release, where this is fixed. Nothing is at risk in the meantime: your devices are still there, still controlled, and still logging.
Relay switches are missing or controlling the wrong thing
You will see a Sensa relay card showing unavailable switches, or switches that do not match the relay they are labelled with. This affects systems where the relay was added to Home Assistant before Sensa managed it, under an older firmware name.
Why it happens. The relay was registered under one name and later re-registered under another, leaving two sets of switches and no certainty about which set the card picks up.
What to do.
- Update to the current build
- Restart Home Assistant fully, not just a reload
- If switches are still unavailable, go to Settings > Devices & Services and find the duplicate ESPHome entry for the relay, the one using an IP address as its host
- Delete that entry
Sensa will not recreate it, because the correct entry now matches first.
Roamer Gen 1 battery readings drop to unavailable
You will see voltage, current, state of charge, temperature and cell readings on a Roamer Gen 1 leisure battery flicker off and back on. Gen 2 packs are far less affected.
Why it happens. Sensa reads the pack over Bluetooth every thirty seconds. If a reading does not arrive in time, the affected sensors go unavailable until the next one does. Gen 1 packs allow only one Bluetooth connection at a time, so anything else connected to the battery takes the slot Sensa needs.
Work out which one you have. Open the Settings Log and look at what it reports:
| What the log says | What it means | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| No device found, out of range of any scanner, or a low signal reading | The battery is too far from anything listening | A Bluetooth proxy near the battery |
| Partial readings or timeouts after connecting | Something else is holding the connection | Close the Roamer phone app |
What to do. Close the Roamer phone app and leave it closed. If the log points at range, fit an ESPHome Bluetooth proxy near the battery.
A Bluetooth proxy fixes range. It cannot help if the pack's single connection is already taken, because the limit is in the battery, not in the listener.
A fix that holds the last good reading through a missed check is planned, and will remove most of this flicker.
A device went unavailable after a power cut or a router restart
You will see a device that was working go unavailable, most often after the van has been switched off at the mains, or after the router has restarted or updated itself. Two identical devices can also swap places with each other.
Why it happens. Devices are given an address by your router. A router that restarts can hand out different addresses than it did before, so a device Sensa was told to find at one address is no longer there.
What recovers by itself.
- Your Victron Cerbo GX. It is identified by something that does not change with its address.
- Your router. It is recognised by its hardware address, so a new one is picked up and applied with nothing for you to do.
- Sensa's own devices, where your network allows it, because they are added by name rather than by address. This applies to devices added from now on. One added before this changed is still tied to the address it had at the time, and re-adding it is what moves it onto its name.
What does not, on purpose. The Zigbee coordinator. Its address is held inside the Zigbee service's own settings, and changing that automatically risks taking your whole Zigbee network down, so it is left to be done deliberately.
What to do. On a router you control, give the Sensa unit and the Zigbee coordinator a fixed address, usually called a static lease or a DHCP reservation. That is configuration rather than a temporary allocation, so it survives router restarts and power cuts, which is what makes "back again" also mean "and stays there".
Every Zigbee device goes unavailable at once
You will see all your Zigbee things stop answering together, lights, sensors and buttons alike, rather than one of them dropping out. Pair Zigbee does nothing when you press it, and no new device can be added.
Why it happens. The service that talks to your Zigbee coordinator has stopped. Nothing is wrong with the devices themselves, and nothing is lost: they are still paired and come back with the service.
What recovers by itself. Most of it. A brief interruption, a coordinator that loses its network connection for a moment, is retried on its own and picked back up without you noticing. An update also repairs the one setting that could previously leave the service refusing to start after a coordinator was swapped.
How you are told. If it stays down, a message appears in the Settings Log saying Zigbee has stopped, rather than the van going quiet about it. Press Pair Zigbee while it is down and you are told the service is not running, instead of the button appearing to work and nothing joining.
What to do. Check the coordinator is powered and on your network, then restart the system from Settings. If it comes back and then stops again, get in touch.
A Zigbee device is paired to the coordinator, not to the service. Waiting for it to come back is always better than re-pairing everything, which is the one thing that really does cost you an afternoon.
Updates have stopped arriving
You will see no new software updates offered, while everything already installed carries on working normally.
Why it happens. Update delivery is part of your support plan. If the plan has ended, updates stop.
What to do. Renew the plan and updates resume. Nothing is disabled in the meantime: your system keeps running exactly as it is, and it keeps working offline as it always did. Renewing also restores remote support, which cannot let us in while the plan has lapsed.
When to get in touch
Write to us at hello@sensa.systems when:
- Your storage has failed. This is the one case you cannot finish on your own, and Recovery explains why
- Your unit will not power on
- A device is behaving in a way that is not described here
Tell us your licence key and what the Settings Log says around the time it went wrong. If it would be quicker for us to look directly, we will ask you to turn on remote support, which stays off until you turn it on and can be turned off again the moment we are done.