[RE-wrenches] Outback Programming Ghost

[William Miller]

Colleagues:

I maintain an off-grid, 8 stack FX Outback system with 3 charge
controllers.  The system has been on line for about 6 years.  It got
upgraded about 7 months ago with 2 Mate3s.

About a week ago the system shutdown, leaving the customer without power.
A maintenance worker started a generator and power was restored.  I did not
hear about the situation for several days.

A maintenance supervisor was dispatched yesterday to work with me over the
telephone to see if we could restart the system.  The system would only run
if the inverter output breakers were all off.

I examined the system via Optics.  I was very surprised to see that the
system programming was absolutely scrambled.  This was so much so that even
the stacking settings were wrong.  For example, inverter 2 was set as a
Master, which we all know will crash any system.  Other settings were also
found with very random values.

This system was running prior to last Friday, so the stacking at least must
have been right prior to the outage.  I am completely mystified as to how
this could have happened.

I am in conversation with Outback who is taking this seriously.  I have not
heard back from them yet but I am curious if anyone else has experienced
this or anything similar.  I'd like to broaden my knowledge on this
situation to enhance my understanding and to share any findings with the
group.

Thank you in advance for any input.

William Miller
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