New app "GreenCharge" from the makers of PlugShare

[JohnnySebring]

I don't think it's the GreenCharge app. I'm having issues with the iphone app and I am not running GreenCharge. I went to the Nissan website and cannot get an update on my car either. CarWings itself seems fine.

Everything worked fine for months and months and today minutes before trying Green Charge. About an hour later it's broke? Not hearing of other outages around here. Coincidence of CarWings failure is possible, but....

 

[ericinor]

I can't get connectivity either from my car or my phone this evening... and I haven't touched GreenCharge, so it's not likely related.

 

[amtoro]

I'm unable to communicate with CARWINGS too. Could it be that this app has overloaded the servers with the ridiculous amount of requests it does?

 

[DurkaDurka]

I'm unable to communicate with CARWINGS too. Could it be that this app has overloaded the servers with the ridiculous amount of requests it does?

I sure hope not. Only 10,000 LEAFs sold - I would hope they designed it to work with at LEAST 10x more cars.

 

[JohnnySebring]

I see another thread about CarWings outages, who knows. I'm getting a "No Service" error message trying to sign in from the car. Multiple failures confusing the whole thing. :roll:

 

[coolfilmaker]

I'm unable to communicate with CARWINGS too. Could it be that this app has overloaded the servers with the ridiculous amount of requests it does?

Or they went over the terms of the contract with their cell service provider.

I'm unable to communicate with CARWINGS too. Could it be that this app has overloaded the servers with the ridiculous amount of requests it does?

That's not how IT stuff is buit. You don't install 10 times as many servers as you need. The real problem here is bad Nissan software designers who didn't do anything to prevent someone or something like greencharge from taking down their service.

 

[amtoro]

I'm unable to communicate with CARWINGS too. Could it be that this app has overloaded the servers with the ridiculous amount of requests it does?

I sure hope not. Only 10,000 LEAFs sold - I would hope they designed it to work with at LEAST 10x more cars.

One thing is 100,000 cars sending updates a couple of times a day, but that is the same as just 700 cars sending updates every 5 minutes (288 times a day).

I'm not sure I need this app

 

[walterbays]

I'm unable to communicate with CARWINGS too. Could it be that this app has overloaded the servers with the ridiculous amount of requests it does?

Or they went over the terms of the contract with their cell service provider.

I'm unable to communicate with CARWINGS too. Could it be that this app has overloaded the servers with the ridiculous amount of requests it does?

That's not how IT stuff is buit. You don't install 10 times as many servers as you need. The real problem here is bad Nissan software designers who didn't do anything to prevent someone or something like greencharge from taking down their service.

I'd say the first problem was Nissan's design to send updates by polling only, compounded by a Carwings web site with a ridiculously short time-out period requiring you in normal use to log in again for every operation. So Plugshare worked around Nissan's design deficiencies, but in a bad way that made the situation even worse.

Assuming that Nissan isn't going to fix their design errors, the next best solution would be for Plugshare to not poll the car but only hit the web site and change their polling interval to the longest possible while keeping the session from timing out. And doing that only while the app was active. In that way they wouldn't put a huge load on Carwings, and status updates wouldn't incur the login delay on top of the polling delay.

Otherwise I fear that Nissan's solution will be to implement anti-DOS measures that may make normal use of Carwings and the smartphone apps even less convenient.

 

[Stanton]

I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this (besides the fact it's ridiculously expensive). If they released the App this week, they had to be running "full bore" (hitting the CarWings server) last week; we've all had trouble getting updates from our Leafs for the last couple of weeks. I don't think it's a coincidence: not good.

 

[thankyouOB]

Nice, but I don't pay for apps, period. Make it free & I'd be glad to download it.

true dat

 

[gbarry42]

Seems to me, I would have to give my username and password to these guys so that they can log into my account to get the charge information. Then my LEAF would be beeping every 10 minutes as it answered each poll. Also I'd have to buy an i-phone

 

[walterbays]

I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this (besides the fact it's ridiculously expensive). If they released the App this week, they had to be running "full bore" (hitting the CarWings server) last week; we've all had trouble getting updates from our Leafs for the last couple of weeks. I don't think it's a coincidence: not good.

From the quality of the Plugshare app and web site, I think these guys are good. When they release the Android version I won't mind paying for it to get their functionality, and to support good work.

And I think they are much more likely to be listening to their customers than is Nissan. (Press OK on your NAV screen if you don't believe that Nissan is rather deaf. So I expect that they will fix the design error in GreenCharge rather quickly. I just hope they fix it soon enough, before Carwings starts doing something horrible like using Captchas to keep out robots.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

looks like this app may have crashed Carwings... not good! my car was cold this morning ;~(

 

[JustinC]

I'm not sure there is a connection between the Carwings trouble and this application, but even if there is, I wouldn't blame the app so much as Carwings for not having the server capacity to handle a few thousand requests an hour.

I would assume there was communication between Xatori and Carwings during the development of GreenCharge and probably Carwings even supplied some sort of API, and if so, they must have considered the ramifications and probably even tested it heavily.

But these are assumptions, and as a software producer, I know sometimes these things are not tested as they should be, and server loads can be underestimated in the interest of cost saving.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

I just want to be able to preheat my car and now I can't. I'm thinking it would be very coincidental.

I'm not sure there is a connection between the Carwings trouble and this application, but even if there is, I wouldn't blame the app so much as Carwings for not having the server capacity to handle a few thousand requests an hour.

I would assume there was communication between Xatori and Carwings during the development of GreenCharge and probably Carwings even supplied some sort of API, and if so, they must have considered the ramifications and probably even tested it heavily.

But these are assumptions, and as a software producer, I know sometimes these things are not tested as they should be, and server loads can be underestimated in the interest of cost saving.

 

[JustinC]

There have been reports of Carwings problems since I joined this forum last year, and more recently, last week (before the app was released). It is possible the problems last week are related to GreenCharge testing, but I wouldn't jump to any conclusions yet.

My point is that even if the issue is related to GreenCharge, it's still a Carwings bug, because they should prevent unauthorized access if it is capable of taking down their servers, and they need to do something to get their servers working again.

I am sorry, however, that you cannot preheat your car. That is annoying.

 

[LeafFanatic]

Hello everyone,

We are aware of the issue with CarWings and are doing what we can to fix it. Automatic syncing for Leafs has been turned off for now. I'm really sorry for any inconvenience this is causing to Leaf owners. I will post updates here as we get them.

- Armen

 

[ebill3]

Hello everyone,

We are aware of the issue with CarWings and are doing what we can to fix it. I'm really sorry for any inconvenience this is causing to Leaf owners. I will post updates here as we get them.

- Armen

Does that mean GreenCharge caused the outage? Sounds like it. Please do something, as we had an imperfect system that worked, and now we have nothing.

Bill

 

[LeafFanatic]

Does that mean GreenCharge caused the outage? Sounds like it. Please do something, as we had an imperfect system that worked, and now we have nothing.

Bill

At the moment we don't believe so. As JustinC pointed out, Carwings has experienced outages in the past and we are working with a small number of vehicles. I can't speculate further until we have more information.

- Armen

 

[Harv]

I downloaded this app yesterday. Today morning, my LEAF couldn't connect to Carwings. I tried getting the "charging status" by using Nissan Leaf iPhone app today but it couldn't connect to Carwings.
Yes, Carwings did have problems in the past but not of this magnitude. At this stage, I would certainly think that "GreenCharge" app has a major role in causing this problem.
I hope this is resolved soon.