0 probes connected Meater Block

No matter how many times I go through the setup process exactly as instructed, I can’t get this thing to work at all. I have the block connected to the same 2.4Ghz Wifi my phone is on. I have the app installed and logged into cloud. The block screen shows 4 probes with Bluetooth symbol, so I think the probes are connected to the block. When I go to “cooks” in the app there is a message “you currently have no paired probes”. When I click on “My Connections” it shows I’m connected to cloud. Under “My paired extender devices” it shows Meater Block and says “connected to 0 probes” on it. If I click that it goes to connection details and shows a topology of my phone to a meater block and both are white. Then there’s another meater block picture that is blue. Sometimes the meater cloud connection shows connected and sometimes it says “sign into meater cloud” even when it shows I am signed in on the period joys screen. I also get an error that “there is a problem with meater cloud. Please try again later.”

So no matter what I do I never see any probes connected in the app. I tried factory reset and setting it all up 5 times now. I tried taking all probes out of the block. I charged the probes for well over 8 hours. I haven’t even been able to use this thing. It simply doesn’t work.

Is there anything else I can do? I got this for my birthday a year ago and never set it up till now. I have a turkey and ham to smoke for thanksgiving and didn’t think it would be this difficult to get a freaking $300 meat thermometer to work.. Is there a way I can update the firmware manually if the app isn’t prompting me? I have had this thing long enough I’d think there would be firmware updates, but I’m not being prompted at all.

I’ve seen several reviews of people saying this thing just doesn’t work at all. Surely the company must be aware of this. I’ve set up literal thousands of devices as an IT professional and never encountered something this expensive that literally just doesn’t work..