I unplugged my Rachio 3 over the winter. Yesterday, I plugged it in to open up the system. Currently the soil moisture displayed for 9 of the 11 zones is 0% and the other 2 zones is 2%. All settings are still configured the same as last year. It has been over 24 hours since I powered on the system yet the calendar shows no future runs at all. What’s wrong?
I can’t answer your question, but you could try running a manual empty on each zone, and see if the watering then begins on the next day.
Let us know if that works.
Thanks for the reply. Not sure what you mean by " a manual empty." If it means manually running each zone for a few minutes, I did already did do that when priming the system yesterday. As mentioned in the primary post, the calendar/schedule did not fill in with any runs whatsoever, as well as not running today either.
Do you have any schedules enabled? And if you put the controller in standby mode did you disable standby mode?
Yes. I have 2 schedules enabled and standby has been disabled… putting the system back to the exact same setup/configuration as last year.
Under Soil Moisture, click on Empty:
When you click on Empty, it will NOT immediately run, but will run the next day. Of course, this will work only if you don’t have some other problem causing your issue.
Thanks. Manually emptied all zones just now. If I remember correctly, when I have done this in the past, a scheduled run for the next day would appear in the calendar—> & in this case nothing has yet. Since I have no other ideas, I’ll wait until tomorrow to see if anything changes.
I think you need to reload the calendar page in order for the change to show. If you are using the android app go to the calendar page and swipe down. If you are using the web version reload the calendar page in whatever way it is done on your browser. Sorry, I don’t know anythi g about the iPhone app. Or you can wait and rachio will eventually update the display.
Thanks for the feedback. I have reloaded the calendar page on my Mac (Safari & Chrome), iPad and iPhone several times now over the past few days.
Problem found and fixed. Everything stated prior was accurate, but what I didn’t notice was the schedules End Date was set for Nov 1, 2021. Once reset to Never, the Calendar Schedules filled in just fine.
This is a really stupid setting. I can see having month and day, so that it shuts off for the winter. But what purpose is year? Is someone really going to set that and never change it → therefore never running the sprinklers ever again? Add this one to the “End by Sunrise” setting that does not work at all like anyone expects it to (as can be seen by the hundreds of posts on that subject).
Actually, I appreciate having the option of a true end date (with an end year). I use the end date for various supplemental schedules that I run from time to time, such as for new sod, new plantings, extra watering, etc. I want those schedules to run for one period of time and then never again until needed, at which time I go in and change the start and end dates.
However, I understand your particular issue and frustration. Maybe there could be some clear indication in the user interface when you have your schedule set to an end date that has passed.
I’m glad you were able to discover why your system wasn’t watering. Thanks for posting the “fix” so others can be aware to check for inadvertent end dates.