Something is not right and you want it working again. This page is organised by symptom. Find the heading that matches what you see, then work through its steps in order.

Start with two safe checks:

My trips are not being logged, even though monitoring works

What it looks like. The monitoring page shows live readings and your boat's position, but new logs do not appear in your logbook.

Why it happens. A live page can show some instrument readings while the position data needed for trip logging is missing or out of date. Check the position and its timestamp separately.

Work through these in order:

  1. Wait about an hour after you arrive, with the device powered on and connected to the Internet the whole time. A finished trip does not appear the moment you tie up. If the device was off, no log will appear until it is back online.
  2. Restart the Signal K server. This is a safe check before changing source settings.
  3. Clear the GPS source in the plugin unless support asked you to set it. A wrong source prevents position data from being used. Save, then restart Signal K.
  4. Read your boat's health panel. Open Settings > Boat and compare Status with Last Contact. Check that it is working explains each status.
  5. Check your Collector ID character by character against the Collector ID row in Settings > Boat, including any leading or trailing spaces.
  6. Confirm that navigation.position is current in the Signal K Data Browser. If its timestamp is not changing, check the GPS, antenna, boat network and instrument power.

If those checks do not resolve it, contact us with the details listed under When to ask for help. We will help decide which device-side information is useful before you change advanced settings.

My last trip or arrival has not appeared

What it looks like. You arrived yesterday. Everything else works, but the passage you just made is not in your logbook, or your boat still shows as underway.

Why it happens. Reporting may have stopped soon after arrival. Saillogger needs current positions from the stopped boat to finish the trip promptly.

When reporting resumes from the same place, Saillogger can confirm the arrival. A trip may remain open through a connectivity gap when the latest positions still show the boat moving, which avoids splitting a passage solely because its connection dropped.

What to do:

  1. Power the monitoring device back on at the same place and leave it, the Internet connection and the GPS source running.
  2. Allow about an hour for the trip to finish.
  3. If nothing has appeared after that, check Last Contact in Settings > Boat to confirm the device really is reporting again.

For prompt finalisation, leave the monitoring device and instruments on for about an hour after you tie up or set the anchor. On most boats the chartplotter or AIS transceiver supplies the GPS position, so reporting stops when those instruments are switched off.

Zigzag tracks, my boat shown miles away, or 0-mile and duplicate trips at the dock

What it looks like. Tracks zigzag, the boat appears far from its reported location, or short false trips appear while you are tied up.

Why it happens. An unreliable GPS source, or more than one GPS source on the network. When two sources report slightly different positions, the interleaved reports can look like movement, which is enough to start a trip while you are docked. A single wildly wrong fix is enough to bend a track.

Fix the cause

  1. Check the antenna first. It needs an unobstructed view of the sky, and the GPS timestamp should update consistently. Confirm that before changing source configuration.
  2. Find out how many GPS sources you have. In the Signal K Data Browser, look at navigation.position and see how many devices are reporting it.
  3. Prefer the reliable source in Signal K. Under Server > Data Connections, use source priorities for navigation.position, then restart Signal K.
  4. If the priorities do not resolve it, contact support before setting the plugin's advanced GPS source field. We can help identify the correct source without interrupting trip logging.

Correct the affected logbook entries

A reading is missing, zero or wrong on the monitoring page

What it looks like. A gauge you expect is not there at all, or it is showing zero, or it shows a value you know is wrong.

Why it happens. Saillogger shows readings from the selected boat-network sources while they are current. A missing or old reading can therefore leave a gauge blank rather than showing the last value as if it were current.

Work through these in order:

  1. Check the value in the Signal K Data Browser, including its timestamp. A displayed value may be an older reading. If the timestamp is not updating, check the sensor, its power and the boat network first.
  2. Check the source you have chosen. Open Settings > Monitoring & Tracking: saillogger.com/settings/?tab=monitoring. Each reading has its own dropdown: Depth Source, Wind Speed Source, Wind Direction Source, Inside Temperature Source, Outside Temperature Source, Water Temperature Source, Battery Voltage Source, Battery Charge Source and the rest. Pick the Signal K path you confirmed in step 1.
  3. If the path is not in the dropdown, restart Signal K and check again after the boat has reconnected. A newly reported source may take a little while to appear.
  4. If the sensor reports only occasionally, the gauge may go blank between readings. Check whether the sensor can report more frequently, or choose another available source.
  5. If every monitoring value vanished at once, confirm that the correct MMSI is configured in Signal K's vessel settings, then restart Signal K.

Three source choices that fix specific complaints:

Engine hours are in seconds, or RPM reads in Hz

What it looks like. An engine gauge shows 0.30 instead of an RPM figure, or engine hours show as a huge number of seconds.

Why it happens. Signal K stores these in its own units: revolutions arrive in Hz, runtime arrives in seconds. If the field has no type set, the raw value is displayed.

  1. Open Settings > Monitoring & Tracking: saillogger.com/settings/?tab=monitoring.
  2. Find the monitoring section holding that field.
  3. Set its Monitoring Type to RPM for an engine revolutions reading, or Duration for a runtime reading in seconds, which is then shown in hours.
  4. Save, and confirm that the section's Data Fields entry contains the intended source.

Two related points:

Wind direction is missing, or the arrow looks backwards

What it looks like. The wind panel has no direction arrow, or the arrow points the opposite way from what you expect.

The arrow convention. The arrow points the way the wind is blowing toward, so an arrow pointing south means a northerly. Weather barbs commonly point toward where the wind comes from, so the two displays can look opposite even when both use the same reading.

Missing entirely. Wind direction comes from environment.wind.directionTrue in Signal K, which most NMEA 2000 networks do not carry. The Signal K derived-data plugin calculates it:

  1. Check the Data Browser first: your instruments may already publish environment.wind.directionTrue.
  2. If not, install the derived-data plugin and enable True Wind Angle, Direction and Speed in its configuration. On a Victron GX, while on the boat network, that page is at http://venus.local:3000/admin/#/serverConfiguration/plugins/derived-data.
  3. Give it the four inputs it needs: navigation.headingTrue, navigation.speedThroughWater, environment.wind.speedApparent and environment.wind.angleApparent.
  4. navigation.headingTrue normally comes from the heading sensor or autopilot. Derived-data can also calculate it from navigation.headingMagnetic plus navigation.magneticVariation.
  5. Then set Wind Direction Source in Settings > Monitoring & Tracking to the resulting path.

A navigation.speedThroughWater reading of zero at anchor is expected and does not prevent the calculation.

The plugin will not install, will not start, or stopped after an upgrade

Start with the safe recovery path:

  1. Install the latest Saillogger plugin from the Signal K app store.
  2. Let the install finish without restarting the device. Slower hardware can take longer than expected.
  3. Restart Signal K, then restart the monitoring device if the plugin still does not start.
  4. Check available storage using the device maker's instructions if other plugins are also failing to install or update.
  5. Copy the exact error message and note the Signal K, device firmware and Saillogger plugin versions.

If the app store cannot install or remove plugins after those steps, stop there and contact us. Do not remove stored device data or the full Signal K configuration using an old forum recipe; that can remove unuploaded records or unrelated boat settings. We will help choose the least disruptive next step for the reported device and version.

My boat shows as offline, or "No GPS positions"

What it looks like. The Status row in Settings > Boat reads Offline, or reads No GPS positions in red.

Why it matters. A current GPS position is required for both monitoring and trip logging. Internet access by itself cannot provide the route or current boat location.

The two statuses mean different things:

Check, in this order:

  1. The boat electronics and the GPS are powered on. On most boats the position comes from the chartplotter or the AIS transceiver, so it disappears when you switch the instruments off.
  2. The monitoring device is on the boat network, or has a GPS receiver of its own.
  3. The monitoring device is on the Internet.
  4. The GPS antenna has an unobstructed view of the sky and a valid fix.
  5. Read the Status row again in Settings > Boat after each check to see whether it has changed. Check that it is working lists every status and what each one means.

If your GPS regularly disappears with the instruments, a dedicated USB GPS puck on the monitoring device keeps a position available. Give the NMEA sources higher priority than the puck so it is only ever a fallback.

My journal is blank, or my live page shows no track

What it looks like. The journal at saillogger.com/monitor/journal/ shows its heading and nothing else, or your live tracking page draws no track at all.

Why it happens. Both are built from your logs starting at a chosen point, and that point is not set. Saillogger normally sets it after your first logged trip, so this usually affects new accounts and accounts where it was cleared.

  1. Open Settings > Monitoring & Tracking: saillogger.com/settings/?tab=monitoring.
  2. Set Initial Tracking Position to the trip you want the journal and the tracking page to start from. Choose your oldest log to show your entire history.
  3. Save.
  4. Reopen the journal. Your notes, stay notes and photos are there, newest first.

To clear the setting again, choose the blank option at the very top of that dropdown. The blank option is part of the list and may be just above the first trip.

Monitoring is not working, though trips are logged

What it looks like. Trips appear in your logbook and Settings > Boat shows a recent position, but the monitoring page does not work, or shows a position or a time that is plainly wrong.

Why it happens. One possible cause is a clock or timezone mismatch between the monitoring device and chartplotter, which can make current readings appear out of date.

  1. Check that your chartplotter and your monitoring device have accurate clocks.
  2. Check that both are set to the same timezone, daylight saving included.
  3. Restart both after changing anything.

If the page still shows a future time after both clocks are correct, write to [email protected] with a screenshot and the time shown. We can inspect the account with you.

When to ask for help

If the safe checks above do not resolve the problem, we are glad to help. The community forum is useful for general setup questions and experience with the same hardware. For account-specific details, write to [email protected] instead of posting them publicly.

When you contact us, include whichever of these details are available: