grid only shown in devicelist but not on Venus OS overview

[Erkessolar]

Hi,

I have installed dbus-mqtt-devices 0.8.0 successfully, emulating a gridmeter.
However the "My Grid Meter" is shown with correct values on the devicelist but not on the overview
Is there a solution available for this issue?

[Candymirror]

Did you find a solution to this problem? I'm facing the exact same issue.

[freakent]

This is not something I have much experience with. The grid meter config was community provided.

Firstly, are you sure it should appear on the overview screen? The overview screen is fairly limited, especially in guiv1. Have you also tried it in guiv2?

Have you got an example of a gridmeter that does appear on the overview screen?

[freakent]

I've just looked at the config in the services.yml file.

https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/dbus#grid-and-acload-and-genset-meter

There are three different paths available. I wonder if com.victronenergy.grid or com.victronenergy.acload would give you what you are looking for.

[Candymirror]

I'm also quit new to this. Just installed a multiplus 2 and venusOS on a raspberry pi. I was under the impression that the ESS function wasn't correctly working while not showing up on the overview. Eventually I ended up using "https://github.com/mr-manuel/venus-os_dbus-mqtt-grid". With his code it ends up showing on the overview in both gui-v1 and gui-v2. Strangely It stops working as soon as I send a birth message for "services": {"pv1": "pvinverter"} using this implementation. Though showing up under devices.

This is the screenshot using mr-manuel's code

[freakent]

Please clarify what I am seeing in the screenshot. Is Net the Grid figure you are expecting?

If you ssh into your Pi, can run a Victron utility called "dbus-spy". You can then see exactly what values have been posted to the dbus.

[Candymirror]

Yes. Net is the grid figure I expect to see. And "Zon opbrengst" the vallue for actual PV power from my solar inverter.

dbus-spy output, while using mr-manuel's code:
com.victronenergy.adc com.victronenergy.fronius
com.victronenergy.grid.mqtt_grid_100 MQTT Gridcom.victronenergy.hub4
com.victronenergy.logger
com.victronenergy.modbusclient.tcp
com.victronenergy.modbustcp
com.victronenergy.packageManager Package Managercom.victronenergy.platform Venuscom.victronenergy.pvinverter.mqtt_pv_102 MQTT PV 2com.victronenergy.settings
com.victronenergy.system
com.victronenergy.temperature.RpiCpu06 Raspberry Picom.victronenergy.vebus.ttyUSB0 MultiPlus-II 48/5000/70-50

[freakent]

I guess this is the device you need to look at:

com.victronenergy.grid.mqtt_grid_100 MQTT Grid

Cursor down to it, then press enter.

[Candymirror]

Oops, thought of it as if it was a top like program.

Here's the output of "com.victronenergy.grid.mqtt_grid_100" (using mr-manuel's code)
Ac/Current -9.33
Ac/Energy/Forward -
Ac/Energy/Reverse -
Ac/L1/Current -9.33
Ac/L1/Energy/Forward 0
Ac/L1/Energy/Reverse 0
Ac/L1/Frequency -
Ac/L1/Power -2147
Ac/L1/PowerFactor -
Ac/L1/Voltage 230
Ac/Power -2147
Ac/Voltage 230
Connected 1
CustomName MQTT Grid
DeviceInstance 100
FirmwareVersion 0.1.8 (20250331)
Latency -
Mgmt/Connection MQTT Grid service
Mgmt/ProcessName /data/etc/dbus-mqtt-grid/dbus-mqtt-grid.py
Mgmt/ProcessVersion Unkown version, and running on Python 3.8.18
ProductId 65535
ProductName MQTT Grid
UpdateIndex 24

Here's the output for "com.victronenergy.grid.mqtt_dsmr1_meter1" (using this code, made sure both codes weren't running at the same time):
Ac/Current -8.2
Ac/Energy/Forward -
Ac/Energy/Reverse -
Ac/L1/Current -8.2
Ac/L1/Energy/Forward -
Ac/L1/Energy/Reverse -
Ac/L1/Power -1886
Ac/L1/Voltage 230
Ac/L2/Current -
Ac/L2/Energy/Forward -
Ac/L2/Energy/Reverse -
Ac/L2/Power -
Ac/L2/Voltage -
Ac/L3/Current -
Ac/L3/Energy/Forward -
Ac/L3/Energy/Reverse -
Ac/L3/Power -
Ac/L3/Voltage -
Ac/Power -1886
Connected 1
CustomName My Grid Meter
DeviceInstance 1
DeviceName dsmr1:meter1
DeviceType 0
ErrorCode 0
FirmwareVersion v1.0.0
Mgmt/Connection MQTT:dsmr1
Mgmt/ProcessName dbus-mqtt-devices
Mgmt/ProcessVersion 0.8.0

[freakent]

Interesting, many thanks for doing this comparison. The only significant differences I can see are :

1. Ac/Voltage
   Ac/Voltage and Ac/Current are deprecated according to Victron's documentation. So it really shouldn't matter but I have see other examples where the classic UI is still using the deprecated attribute.
   You could try adding this to your services.yml and restarting dbus-mqt-devices

2. DeviceType
   My suspicion is this could be the problem. Victron's documentation does not provide allowed values for this attribute. Mr Manuel is missing out that attribute altogether.
   From dbus-spy you could try setting it to a few different values. (just press Enter while on the DeviceType line and you can manualy set a value). Or you could try removing that attribue from services.yml altogether and restarting dbus-mqtt-devices.

# https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/dbus#grid-and-genset-meter
grid:
  ProductId:
    default: 65535 # 0xFFFF
  CustomName:
    default: "My Grid Meter"
    persist: true
  ErrorCode: # https://www.victronenergy.com/live/mppt-error-codes
    description: "0=No Error"
    default: 0
  Ac/Energy/Forward: # Total bought energy over all phases
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/Energy/Reverse: # Total sold energy over all phases
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/Power: # Total power of all phases, preferably real power
    description: "W"
    format: "{} W"
  Ac/Current:
    description: "A AC"
    format: "{} A"
  Ac/Voltage:
    description: "V AC"
    format: "{} V"
  Ac/L1/Current:
    description: "A AC"
    format: "{} A"
  Ac/L1/Energy/Forward:
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/L1/Energy/Reverse:
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/L1/Power:
    description: "W"
    format: "{} W"
  Ac/L1/Voltage:
    description: "V AC"
    format: "{} V"
  Ac/L2/Current:
    description: "A AC"
    format: "{} A"
  Ac/L2/Energy/Forward:
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/L2/Energy/Reverse:
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/L2/Power:
    description: "W"
    format: "{} W"
  Ac/L2/Voltage:
    description: "V AC"
    format: "{} V"
  Ac/L3/Current:
    description: "A AC"
    format: "{} A"
  Ac/L3/Energy/Forward:
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/L3/Energy/Reverse:
    description: "kWh"
    format: "{} kWh"
  Ac/L3/Power:
    description: "W"
    format: "{} W"
  Ac/L3/Voltage:
    description: "V AC"
    format: "{} V"

[freakent]

Looking at Mr Manual's code, he has set the DeviceTyoe as follows. I don't understand why we don't see this in dbus-spy.

; Device type
; grid = Grid
; genset = Generator
; acload = AC Load (does not impact calculations, shows only under devices)
device_type = grid

So maybe grid is the correct value for DeviceType.

The definition of DeviceType is services.yml would look like this:

  DeviceType: 
    description: "grid, genset or acload "
    persist: true
    default: grid

[Candymirror]

AC/Voltage and AC/Current weren't provided by me previous. I've added these values to check if these would make a difference.
Using:

DeviceType: 
    description: "grid, genset or acload "
    persist: true
    default: grid

Doesn't change the behavior.

BTW running both instances together (yours and mr-manuel) will display empty (--) value for grid as soon as the "birth" message is sent:
{"clientId": "dsmr1", "connected": 1, "version": "v1.0.0", "services": {"meter1": "grid"} } to topic: device/dsmr1/Status

Things actually take a turn for worse as soon as soon as the first value is published in the topic. Then the dashboard stops for grid, pv and battery

[Candymirror]

hmm, this has something to do with the json messages that I'm sending to the topic. I'm using node-red. entering the value trough dbus-spy is working. Sending it over trough mqtt seems to be working, but will only show up as values under devices and not on the dash. Probably something to do with values send over mqtt as string.

[freakent]

Oh, if you are sending numbers as strings that will definitely cause problems. Can you show example of your payloads you are sending to W topics?

[Candymirror]

Yeah, Stupid me. Just checked again with a debug block in node red. It sends the values as string: {"value": "1006"}.The code in my copied from an other node-red function literally contains a .toString() function after the value variable. Stupid enough I didn't notice because the values are accepted by the dbus and are showing up as the values in devices/device (and dbus-spy). But seem to break the presentation of all values in the dashboard. Probably, because the dash code does some calculation (and calculation on strings wont work) with the values from this devices before it's getting represented on the dash.

[freakent]

I'm just glad you got it fixed.

I think I'll put a note in the troubleshooting section. You'd be surprised how many people have made the same mistake!

[freakent]

Can I also make a suggestion to take a look at the new-ish proxy functionality I built in. I've been working on quite a complex project last few weeks and the proxy makes sending a lot of values in node-red much easier.
Documentation is in the readme.

[Candymirror]

Thanx, I will have a look.