Ready/Status LED blinking continually

[Sam]

Meteohub from Ambient Wx online approx a month. Cloned original stick onto a 4GB using web interface and after 2 wks meteohub began shutting down. Would run a few hours on reboot, then shutdown. Cloned another 4GB using cloned 4GB. Now, ready/status LED blinks continually after recomp has completed. Everything else seems normal from interface and WUnderground standpoints. Not sure what logs might be telling me. Appreciate any help. Thanks for this great forum.

[d_l]

Any time problems like yours come up, I always suspect a thumb drive failure or corrupted bits on the flash. You might have duplicated the corruption when you cloned the drive. Plus the cloning feature doesn't work perfectly. Boris doesn't recommend using it and I think he even has plans plans to revise it.

Thumb drives come with two different types of flash. The cheaper drives use MLC (multi-level cell) flash chips which seem to fail more easily. The drives with SLC (single level cell) flash are much more expensive, but seem to be more reliable.

So SLC drives are recommended, even over MLC drives from very reputable manufacturers. Unfortunately you can't usually tell for certain before you buy if a drive has SLC flash.

I'm sure Boris will correct me if I'm wrong, but you may have to start over on a new drive with a copy of code downloaded from here, a new SLC-type drive, and your existing activation code.

What drive brands have you used?

[Sam]

Thanks d_ for ur reply. So far, relatively cheap 4GB Lexar and Sandisk. Everything seems to be working; only led continues to blink. Can I clone another more expensive stick (SLC) from original stick that came with meteohub?

[d_l]

I can't say if cloning will work properly. All I know is that Boris wasn't recommending using that feature at one time.

I started with a 4GB OCZ Rally2 drive and it began failing after a month and a half. For several weeks it more or less did web site and WU uploads fine, but would have frequent spontaneous reboots. Not all of them would reboot properly and would get "stuck" midway into the reboot and I'd have to power the NSLU2 off and on to restore operation. Even that wasn't working well at the end.

I eventually switched to a 4GB OCZ Rally2 Turbo that has been in operation for seven months now without any of those corruption problems. I made the new drive from scratch with a copy of the firmware from here and the activation code. I was able to extract my old data to the new drive using a free ext3 reader program.

I tried formating the old OCZ drive to FAT32. It worked for a while and then failed totally. I tore it apart, looked up the chip numbers, and they indeed were MLC chips!

Edit: BTW, I just checked mine and the ready/status is blinking continually. I don't think that activity is a problem in itself. Some of the other activities you mentioned in your original post might indicate problems though.

[admin]

With most recent updates of Meteohub I try to further reduce flash wear. However, when you can get SLC storage, I recommend to go with it.

SLC on USB sticks is seldom used. SLC on CF cards and SD cards can be found at Transcend.

[Sam]

Admin,can you speak directly to the continual blinking of the ready/status led? Everything else seems fine... guess the old saying what ain't broke applies. Just a worry wart; especiall since this was supposed to be the worry free way to go... lol.
Based on your last statement Admin and also what I previously read on the forum about using other type drives with Meteohub, is using a SLC SD or other card in a USB card reader on disk2 port feasible?

[d_l]

A compliation of various flash chip vendors, flash part numbers, chip sizes, chip cell types, and read/write speeds: USB Flash Drive read and write speeds.

[sevenless]

The ready/status LED is supposed to blink continuously in a green color during normal operation (or at least mine does when it is receiving data from the weather station.)

If you are seeing a different color, or it is not a very rapid flickering blink pattern, then there might be a problem.

[Sam]

thanks everyone for your help.