Combustion App: Troubleshooting GuideUpdated 2 days ago

Having trouble with the Combustion app itself? You are in the right place. This guide covers problems that live in the app: permissions, alarms, graphs, units, linked devices, and running the app on more than one device.

If your thermometer will not connect or charge at all, start with the Predictive Thermometer: Troubleshooting Guide instead. If it is brand new and has never connected, start with Brand-New Probe Won't Connect?

Start here

Four steps clear up most app problems:

Update the app. Open the App Store or Google Play and check that you are on the latest version. Several issues customers report have already been fixed in a newer release.
Force-close the app and reopen it. On iPhone, if it is still stuck, restart the phone. iPhones hold onto old Bluetooth connections, and a restart clears that.
Check Bluetooth is on in your phone's settings, not just in the app.
Take the thermometer out of its charger or Booster. It sleeps while it is in there, and powers on automatically when you remove it.

Still stuck? Find your symptom below.

The app will not install or update

Check that your device meets the minimum requirements. The app runs on iOS and Android phones and tablets, and on Apple Silicon Macs.
If the App Store or Play Store shows an error, restart the device and try again.
On Android, confirm you have enough free storage. Updates need room to unpack.
If you joined the beta and want to go back to the public release, leave the beta program first, then install the public version.

Permissions: Bluetooth, notifications, and Nearby Devices

Most "the app cannot see anything" reports come down to a permission that was never granted, or was granted and later reset by an operating system update.

Check all of these in your phone's settings, not inside the app:

Bluetooth: on, and allowed for the Combustion app.
Notifications: allowed for the Combustion app. On iPhone, also turn on Time Sensitive notifications.
Nearby Devices (Android): allowed. Android will not find your tools without it.
Battery saver and data saver (Android): off for the Combustion app. These can quietly stop the app working in the background.

I am not getting alarms or notifications

This is common enough to have its own article. See App Alarms and Notifications for the full walkthrough, including what to do if alarms only arrive when the app is already open.

Temperatures look wrong, or much lower than expected

Check your temperature units first. A Celsius and Fahrenheit mismatch between the app and a Display or Giant Grill Gauge is the most common cause of "these readings make no sense."

Set the same unit in the app and on the tool, then check the reading again.

If the units match and a reading is still clearly wrong, for example, a sensor stuck at one extreme value or two identical probes side by side reading very differently, see Understanding Your Temperature Readings: Normal vs. a Problem.

My target temperature did not take

If you set a target (predict) temperature and it clears after about ten seconds, set it a second time. It usually sticks on the retry.

The graph is missing lines, or does not look like I expected

The graph appears only while a thermometer is on and connected. If you do not see it, tap any temperature to reveal it.
To show or hide an individual sensor line, tap the colour-coded circle underneath that temperature.
Basic view graphs the virtual sensors (core, surface, ambient). Advanced mode graphs all eight sensors. If you are missing lines you expected, check which view you are in. You can switch from the three-dot menu or by double-tapping a probe temperature row.
Surface temperature appears only in cooking mode. Set a target temperature, and it shows up.
To hide the graph entirely, tap the three-dot menu and select "hide graph."

My devices show as offline, or appear only over the cloud

If a tool works on your home WiFi but shows offline on mobile data, its WiFi was most likely set up under a different Combustion account. Re-run WiFi setup while signed in to the account you actually use.
If a device appears over the cloud but not locally over Bluetooth, check that Bluetooth is on for that specific device and that you are close enough. Cloud and Bluetooth are separate paths, and one can work while the other does not.
A thermometer sitting in a powered charger or Booster is asleep and will not broadcast. Take it out.

The app shows a device as connected when it is switched off

The app can briefly hold a stale connection after a tool powers down. Force-close the app and reopen it to refresh the device list.

If a tool keeps showing as connected long after it is off, note which tool it is and what firmware it is on, then see "Still stuck?" at the end of this guide.

Probe names and IDs do not match between the app and the Display

If probe 1 and probe 2 swap places between the app and your Display or Giant Grill Gauge, you can rename and reorder them in the app:

Open the Edit and Identify screen from the device list.
Use "Identify" to flash a nearby probe so you can tell which physical probe you are looking at.
Rename each probe, and long-press and drag to reorder them.

Renaming in the app does not change the numbering the Display assigns on its own, so give each probe a name you will recognise rather than relying on the number.

Unlinking and relinking a device

Unlinking is worth trying when a tool connects but behaves oddly. It is not a fix for a tool that never appears at all.

Unlink from the device card menu in the app.
Make sure the tool is awake and nearby.
Link it again from the device list.

If it will not relink, the problem is more likely the tool than the app. Work through the Predictive Thermometer: Troubleshooting Guide.

Using the app on more than one device

You can run the Combustion app on several devices at once, for example, a phone in the kitchen and a tablet in the garden.

Sign in to the same Combustion account on every device. This is the single most common cause of "my Mac shows nothing." Watch out for signing in with Apple on one device (which can hide your real email address) and Google or email on another. Those create two separate accounts.
Bluetooth control needs to be within range of the tool. A device out of Bluetooth range can still view a cook over the cloud, but cannot change settings.
To monitor a cook from away, one device stays home in range to bridge data to the cloud, and the other views it from anywhere. See MeatNet™ Cloud: Setup and Remote Monitoring.

Exporting your cook data

You can export the current cook as a CSV from the app. If a cook is still running, the app will warn you that the export is incomplete before it saves.

The app keeps your current or most recent cook until you either close the app or start a new cook, so export before you do either if you want to keep the data.

Firmware updates started from the app

Update one tool at a time, and turn the others off.
A Booster will not update while it is holding a thermometer. Take the thermometer out first.
Keep the phone close to the tool during the update.
If an update stalls, force-close the app, reopen it, and check the status again. It may already say it is up to date.

For the full walkthrough, including how to recover a tool left stuck by a failed update, see Firmware Updates: Complete Guide.

Still stuck?

If you have worked through the section that matches your problem and it is still happening, we would like to see it.

Email [email protected] and include:

Your app version and phone or tablet model
Your operating system version
Which tools are involved, and their firmware versions
What you expected to happen and what actually happened
A screenshot if you have one

That detail lets us tell an app problem from a tool problem quickly, and gets you a useful answer on the first reply.

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