Centralus will try for several minutes to establish communications with a controller if it does not respond immediately. The spinner will show that it is still trying.
If the controller fails after multiple retry attempts, the controller status will be shown in red.
Generally, this means the controller has lost its Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection. Sometimes outages are temporary, but in a prolonged outage, someone must inspect the controller installation to determine the cause.
Possible Causes
- Controller AC power is interrupted: If the controller has no display, the AC power is probably off. Since the controller also supplies power to the Wi-Fi or Ethernet modules, they cannot function until power is restored. If this is the case, the communication module will also have no status lights visible.
- Customer router is offline: It is possible for any network or router to lose its internet connection for a variety of reasons, and this makes communications with the controller impossible. If the communication module lights are green, the controller is still connected to the router, but cannot access the internet.
- Wi-Fi signal has dropped: If the controller had a weak signal to begin with, it’s possible that small changes (e.g., vegetation growth, router antenna orientation, truck parked in front of antenna) have caused the signal to drop below useful levels. It is best to check the signal level with a smartphone from the controller location to see if the host connection has a useful signal. Heavy vegetation or leaves directly in front of the controller can block Wi-Fi signals.
- Wi-Fi module stuck in connection mode: If the red light on the left of the module is blinking continuously, the module has lost its connection and is waiting for new instructions. This is very rare, but it requires a smartphone to access the communication module and re-establish the connection to the router.
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