Did Traeger just got hacked in time for Memorial Weekend?

[cwietholt]

Hi guys,

Weird issue today! I turned on my Ironwood 885 to smoke some sausages for dinner while mowing the lawn. When I got to the backyard with my mower, I noticed the grill was off. I tried to turn it back on, the menu showed up, and the grill immediately turned off again. I tried several things, but the grill kept turning off at different times during the boot up process. One of my first thoughts was the crappy android Traeger app had a bug, and I ended up sending my phone on airplane mode. Nothing was helping.

Thus, I called Traeger support, and was informed that the wait time was 2 - 3 hours. Thus, I concluded I wasn't the only one. My thought was that Traeger servers must have gotten hacked. To test this theory, I turned off my home Wifi, and voila, the grill booted up again. I went into the Traeger settings, and made the grill forget the Wifi under Wifi Information. This way I was able to turn on my home Wifi again without the grill shutting down.

I hope this helps save Memorial Weekend for some of you.

 

[MikeyR]

Check out this thread:

Loss of power

Yep and if the answer is to replace the controller, then what about the next upgrade & the next? My grill won't even go to 350 degrees so I can't use it. I have the ear of the CEO & he turned me over to the VP of Customer Support who doesn't know when these issues will be fixed. What do we do...

www.traegerforum.com

And this thread:

Grill cuts off in one minute

My grill shuts down one minute after I start it up and see menu. Any ideas? Bad control unit?

www.traegerforum.com

 

[dunawayfamily]

Hi guys,

Weird issue today! I turned on my Ironwood 885 to smoke some sausages for dinner while mowing the lawn. When I got to the backyard with my mower, I noticed the grill was off. I tried to turn it back on, the menu showed up, and the grill immediately turned off again. I tried several things, but the grill kept turning off at different times during the boot up process. One of my first thoughts was the crappy android Traeger app had a bug, and I ended up sending my phone on airplane mode. Nothing was helping.

Thus, I called Traeger support, and was informed that the wait time was 2 - 3 hours. Thus, I concluded I wasn't the only one. My thought was that Traeger servers must have gotten hacked. To test this theory, I turned off my home Wifi, and voila, the grill booted up again. I went into the Traeger settings, and made the grill forget the Wifi under Wifi Information. This way I was able to turn on my home Wifi again without the grill shutting down.

I hope this helps save Memorial Weekend for some of you.

No hack ... the May Update has "bricked" your WiFIRE Controller ... that is their Memorial Day gift to you ...

 

[RustyJake]

Sure be nice if they gave people the choice on upgrading or not.
This can't be cheap for them to fix either. Surprised that they haven't pulled the update for that model.

 

[dunawayfamily]

Sure be nice if they gave people the choice on upgrading or not.
This can't be cheap for them to fix either. Surprised that they haven't pulled the update for that model.

PULL updates for IoT-devices should be the standard ... hoping Traeger shifts to PULL updates via the App in the near future ...

 

[GrillMeister]

I'm glad I unplug my Ironwood 885 when not in use. I might have to filter the MAC address of the grill from the internet to prevent unwanted untimely updates if they do not give us the option.

 

[MikeyR]

I'm glad I unplug my Ironwood 885 when not in use. I might have to filter the MAC address of the grill from the internet to prevent unwanted untimely updates if they do not give us the option.

But it needs to be connected to the internet to use in the App, so might as well just shut the WiFi off?

 

[Larry]

No hack ... the May Update has "bricked" your WiFIRE Controller ... that is their Memorial Day gift to you ...

Hi guys,

Weird issue today! I turned on my Ironwood 885 to smoke some sausages for dinner while mowing the lawn. When I got to the backyard with my mower, I noticed the grill was off. I tried to turn it back on, the menu showed up, and the grill immediately turned off again. I tried several things, but the grill kept turning off at different times during the boot up process. One of my first thoughts was the crappy android Traeger app had a bug, and I ended up sending my phone on airplane mode. Nothing was helping.

Thus, I called Traeger support, and was informed that the wait time was 2 - 3 hours. Thus, I concluded I wasn't the only one. My thought was that Traeger servers must have gotten hacked. To test this theory, I turned off my home Wifi, and voila, the grill booted up again. I went into the Traeger settings, and made the grill forget the Wifi under Wifi Information. This way I was able to turn on my home Wifi again without the grill shutting down.

I hope this helps save Memorial Weekend for some of you.

cwietholt.2353

Thanks for sharing and getting me running again!

 

[cwietholt]

With my hack theory I gave Traeger's software department the benefit of the doubt that they can still manage to update the firmware without bricking the hardware. But apparently this isn't even possible. I have never been a great fan of their software. The Android app is buggy, although the latest update has improved a bit. But then they introduced this weird search function, that doesn't seem intuitive at all.

 

[cwietholt]

Sure be nice if they gave people the choice on upgrading or not.
This can't be cheap for them to fix either. Surprised that they haven't pulled the update for that model.

That was for sure a pricey mistake, and maybe makes them invest more in a proper QA process. In any case, still haven't received a call back from them. I hope that happens tomorrow, so I can put in my order for the new controller.

 

[miadams713]

Same Issue today - Got support - they got me back working in Manual Mode. Had a bad Software update - Had to remove Application from my Phone, then Forget network on the Grill Unit - Unplug for 30 Seconds, then was able to operate manually. Said they would contact when they had the software update fixed. My grill updated code Saturday night 5/23, then was able to get support today. This did get me back in business until they get wifi fixed.

 

[cwietholt]

Same Issue today - Got support - they got me back working in Manual Mode. Had a bad Software update - Had to remove Application from my Phone, then Forget network on the Grill Unit - Unplug for 30 Seconds, then was able to operate manually. Said they would contact when they had the software update fixed. My grill updated code Saturday night 5/23, then was able to get support today. This did get me back in business until they get wifi fixed.

Lucky you, I now called the 3rd time and always had a wait period of 45 min and requested a callback, which never happened. I guess I will keep trying.

 

[cwietholt]

Looks like the grill is back online just through software. After talking to the technical support I performed the following procedure:

1. Follow what I did in my initial post.
2. "Clear Data" & "Clear Cache" of the Traeger app on my phone.
3. Uninstall the Traeger app from my phone.
4. Reinstall the Traeger app on my phone.
5. Make sure the grill is removed from the Traeger app, if not, remove it manually.
6. Go through the "Add Grill" procedure, during which a software update is performed.
7. Check grill to phone app connectivity.

I hope that will help others.

 

[dunawayfamily]

Looks like the grill is back online just through software. After talking to the technical support I performed the following procedure:

1. Follow what I did in my initial post.
2. "Clear Data" & "Clear Cache" of the Traeger app on my phone.
3. Uninstall the Traeger app from my phone.
4. Reinstall the Traeger app on my phone.
5. Make sure the grill is removed from the Traeger app, if not, remove it manually.
6. Go through the "Add Grill" procedure, during which a software update is performed.
7. Check grill to phone app connectivity.

I hope that will help others.

Did you receive the May Updates after getting the WiFIRE Controller back online?

 

[cwietholt]

Did you receive the May Updates after getting the WiFIRE Controller back online?

No idea when I received the updates. Do you know if there is some history or log file to find out? All I know is that the grill kept turning off when connected to WiFi, and after going through the procedure it seems to be working again.