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This morning about 10:30 the MB Pro shut itself down for no known reason. When WU noticed I restarted it, and it went back to normal working.
Actually, it has so far it its short life not managed to run for more than a few days (3 days?) without something stopping it working. Is this a typical MTBF?
I have some familiarity with radio receivers, WiFi Access points and data loggers, and for all of these one gets MTBFs of years rather than days. Do I have a faulty device, or wrong settings, or is this the experience of other users? If so, I hope all efforts of Meteohub are directed at stability, before implementing any new features, however desirable!

I changed to an MB Pro in May. Previously I was using a Davis VP Plus console and USB data logger with a standard MB setup on Asus hardware. It was cheap and worked reasonably reliably. Sometimes it would have a bit of a tantrum following a power failure or Internet outage but was generally ok.

When I heard about the MB Pro, the ability to do away with the Davis console and data logger, with the locally stored database on USB, all using wireless, I thought this would be a worthwhile upgrade. Less wires and less devices to go wrong.

My MB Pro has not been as unreliable as yours appears to have been, but it has also had its moments. I found it sometimes stalled after a power failure brought down the wifi and would need a reboot to get going again. I then discovered it was having database problems as there was no historical data. It was sending to WU and to MeteoPlug but not saving to itself. Finally it froze up entirely and would not reboot. Replacing the internal USB was the only way to get it to boot and finally create a new database.

I live in Crete, Greece, where it's not uncommon to lose power for several hours or longer, and sometimes the Internet is inaccessible for several days. My hope was that, having an internal USB data store, the MB Pro would continue to record during an outage, then catch up with WU and MeteoPlug when service resumed. This does not appear to have been the case except to a limited degree.

The failure of the internal storage was disappointing after such a comparatively short time, however understandable due to the nature of Flash memory. The latest version of the MB software goes some way to address the problem.

At present, my MB Pro is out of its case due to the fact that I do not have a USB small enough to fit into the case. It is working, albeit inelegantly, however I don't consider it to be a worthwhile upgrade, especially considering the price.

The biggest hit in reliabilty was by the storage failures caused by unreliable USB sticks used internally.
This has been addressed by a more cautious storage schema and changing stick manufacturer.
I am experimenting with smaller 1GB SLC USB sticks and this really looks promising. So I guess
this will stop being a pain with next bunch of units.

Apart from that operation is very reliable. I have my test units running for months without problems.
I have to omit that I did not test with frequent power outages and WLAN shut-downs.

I am happy to look at any MB PRO that shuts down without known reason.

I don't know whether or not this is related, but I have now at least four occurrences of this message:
Error: Meteobridge PRO is not powered correctly! Please insert power plug into the LEFT micro USB socket on the back panel!
Note that this is with the MBPro still running, and still reporting data to WOW and WU. However the rolling display has frozen, and the 4 little lights are all dark except for occasional brief flashes. Fixed by a reboot. Average frequency of occurrence - every 2-3 days. Experienced with two different power supplies.

admin wrote:Apart from that operation is very reliable. I have my test units running for months without problems.
I have to omit that I did not test with frequent power outages and WLAN shut-downs.

I am happy to look at any MB PRO that shuts down without known reason.

For me, collecting and storing data during a power/WLAN/WAN outage is one of the major reasons for upgrading to the MB Pro. There have been occasions when my MB Pro has frozen whilst reconnecting to the WLAN following a power/WLAN/WAN outage. This has resulted in more data being lost until I realised that the device was frozen.

I run my MB Pro from a stable, uninterruptible power supply so that it can continue to collect data from my Vantage Pro Wireless, regardless of the main power/WLAN/WAN situation.

My hope was that the MB Pro, on its own power supply, would continue to collect and store data during any outage. The MB Pro would then upload all missing data once service resumed. The fact that historical data, collected during the outage, is not uploaded to WU once service resumes, is extremely disappointing.

Unfortunately, upgrading to the MB Pro, a premium product at a premium price, has only created more problems than it has solved. The loss of data and shutting down when the internal storage began to fail, together with its inability to perform basic functions like uploading historical data, has not made it a worthwhile investment.

This morning, around 10:30, I decided to move my MB Pro from one wireless LAN to another as I felt it might be more reliable. I selected the new WLAN on the known SSIDs list and set DHCP for addressing: I felt it better to do one thing at a time. After pressing Save and Apply and Reboot, the MB Pro restarted and was connected to the new WLAN. I could see it in the connected devices list on the router. I tried to access the MB Pro using the local IP but was unable to do so. I tried to ping the MB Pro on the WLAN but without success. I could however access it via the Internet link, so went in to assign a static IP. Again, I pressed Save and Apply and Reboot. Still I was unable to Ping or view the MB Pro over the local WLAN, only via the Web. A while later, there was a power outage which meant no WAN or WLAN availability. The MB Pro has its own power on a battery backup so can keep going.

Following approximately thirty minutes of power outage, service resumed and up came the WAN and WLAN connections. I checked WU but could not see any recent data upload. I tried to connect to the MB Pro via the Web link, but was unable to do so. Checking the MB Pro screen I could see REBOOT as the only information displayed. I power cycled the MB Pro and watched whilst it booted. I was then able to access the MB Pro over the WLAN and ping it. I checked the data history and it appears that no data was recorded by the MB Pro since the first reboot following the WLAN change.

It would seem that it is unwise to rely on the software reboot option, but to reboot the MB Pro with a power cycle.

To summarise:

In less than twenty-four hours, I have two new data holes. One for around two hours yesterday afternoon until I received the warning notification from WU. The MB Pro was not sending data to WU despite showing a nice green tick on the Live Data page. Data was still going to my weather website, WindFinder and Meteoplug, just not WU. A warm boot resumed uploads of new data but not the missing two hours.

And now this morning, only a thirty minute data hole as I was here to check it and to take remedial action. Fortunately I had not just left for a two week vacation!

Reliability?

AlVista wrote:I don't know whether or not this is related, but I have now at least four occurrences of this message:
Error: Meteobridge PRO is not powered correctly! Please insert power plug into the LEFT micro USB socket on the back panel!
Note that this is with the MBPro still running, and still reporting data to WOW and WU. However the rolling display has frozen, and the 4 little lights are all dark except for occasional brief flashes. Fixed by a reboot. Average frequency of occurrence - every 2-3 days. Experienced with two different power supplies.

Just to keep up to date, it has done this again twice in the last two days. Basically, it won't run reliably for any significant length of time. It is on a UPS, though recently the power has been good anyway. I think I may have a defective unit (my second - the first was replaced within days of receiving it) - Is there a way to tell definitively whether this is a hardware or a software problem?

My MB Pro is still utterly unreliable. I have just had to restart it for the second time this week. I have been away for five days but was fortunately able to successfully restart it using the Web interface when I discovered it was no longer sending data reliably.

I have put it in a location where I can check the display to see if it is still working, but even this is not foolproof. It was only when I received a message from WU that I realised it had not sent data to either WU or Meteoplug for over three hours.

Perhaps I should look at installing a timer to force it to do a cold reboot every day. Hopefully it can at least run for 24 hours without falling over...

Am I alone in this level of unreliability?

AlVistas problem was related to a faulty USB storage and has been fixed by replacing that.

I can't say from here, what is giving you trouble. Can be external things or something in the MB PRO.
When you give me remote access I can have a look, if I find something suspicious.
Please mail to "info(at)meteobridge.com".