HELP! Flameout / Controller Screen Freeze

[HockeySlasher41]

Hello from Minnesota!

I bought my Gen2 EX6 directly from Weber at the start of their winter sale (late Nov). Since then, I’ve been able to get some good use out of it - pork shoulder with SB (with an outside temp in the teens, here in MN), whole chickens, brisket (overnight cooks), ribs and some salmon. I have been primarily been using the Weber pellets. I did use some cabela’s store brand pellets (I had heard that these worked well with the SF) for some chicken on NYE.

This past weekend, I decided to do another pork shoulder with some cabela’s pellets. Everything started fine. I set it at 250. Reached temp... threw the meat on. After about an hour, I went to spritz. Everything seemed fine. Another hour passed, I went out again... flame out. However, the controller was still reading/showing that the temp was 250. Basically frozen.

I wasn’t sure what to do, and just toggled the power switch to off. Then, I powered back on. Set it back to 250. Reached temp no problem. I put a probe into the shoulder and crossed my fingers. For another hour it seemed to be working. The temp of the meat was rising and everything was going well. Then I noticed that I couldn’t connect to the SF via the app. Went out to check again. No heat. Pulled the probe from the shoulder. Again, the screen was still showing a temp of 250 and the meat probe was displaying as if it was still in the shoulder. So the screen froze again.

No error messages at any point.

After that, I called it a day and threw everything in the oven. BTU=BTU=BTU.

I have been fairly good at cleaning the grill after each session to make sure I don’t have ash/grease build up. I looked at the fire pot, and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

I‘m up to date on the software/firmware.

 

[WillM]

Had a similar experience this weekend. Smoking a spatchcocked chicken. All going well until just about done (internal temp 164; target 165). At first it appeared just that the app on my iPhone lost connection. So I went out to the grill to work the controls, and they were unresponsive. Power cycled it, then tried to initiate shut down. Shut down aborted prematurely. Next day, went out and cleaned everything out, restarted, and ran shut down again. All worked well.

So was this just a brain fart. or is something more sinister happening? BTW, I had cleaned everything (even shopvaced) before starting the smoke, so don't think that was the issue. Like you, software was up to date. I have observed at times disconnection from wifi, but bluetooth seems to stay connected. This was the first time that all connections were dropped and could not be restored until the next day.

 

[HockeySlasher41]

Thanks. I did power it down and back up to do a proper shut down after the two freezes. Today, I ran it for about 3 hours at 250. No issues. So, I’m not sure what exactly is the cause.

 

[AHoneyman]

The controller does not like you flipping the switch off. That sends the PID to bonker land. Was the controller froze or did it show the temp followed by three dashes? If followed by dashes, it has simply lost its set point. You can re-enter the set point from the controller and everything takes off again. If you do not catch it, the temp slowly drops until you get an error message. It is hard to catch when the notifications are not working on a closed screen of the phone. Weber has really got some work to do on the software. Really having problems in the cold.

 

[HockeySlasher41]

The controller does not like you flipping the switch off. That sends the PID to bonker land. Was the controller froze or did it show the temp followed by three dashes? If followed by dashes, it has simply lost its set point. You can re-enter the set point from the controller and everything takes off again. If you do not catch it, the temp slowly drops until you get an error message. It is hard to catch when the notifications are not working on a closed screen of the phone. Weber has really got some work to do on the software. Really having problems in the cold.

Good to know. Thank you. I didn’t notice any dashes on the screen. It looked normal, but, there is a chance I might have missed it.