meteohub.de

Hi,

I have a strange problem. My WLL-MR3020 system has been stable. It is running the latest 5.2 10 oct build. I think the issues started with a recent reboot but I can't be sure. It had previously been up and running untouched for 60+ days so would have been running a previous version.

The MR3020 FTP's out a templated datafile to a local raspi ftp server each minute. The date and time is embedded in the filename so they can queue for processing on the raspi. The template includes a bunch of meteobridge weather variables and a time stamp.

The first issue I noticed is that despite the filenames coming out with unique times (as expected) I've started getting duplicate timestamp values, to the second, in the datafile. And they are not coming out regularly at 1 minute intervals. Datafiles will arrive with different filenames but the same internal timestamp.

Looking at the upload status page all is well except for the "Weather Underground Cam upload" which is failing with a connection timeout - could not connect to webcam.wunderground.com. Try again later etc.

Thinking I'd remove this item from the Weather Network config I then find the Network Config page is inaccessible. No response except - "The CGI process did not produce any response". All the other tabs work. On one attempt to access the Weather Network it did respond, not with the config page, but with the Weather Underground error message as displayed on the upload status page.

I've tried rebooting. What to do next?

I'm guessing that the failure to connect to the weather underground is not helping here. But is this the root cause????

I'm locked out of Network Config, What to do?

Regards Steve

A little more detail...

Looking at the ftp log on the raspi the datafiles are coming in bunches of 3 spaced 10 seconds apart. And then nothing for almost 3 minutes. They should be regular at 1 minute, and were.

Also, the live data all looks good and current.

I've tried going back to 5.1 with the same outcome.

This is the response to accessing the Weather Network tab sometimes...

Steve

The plot thickens...

Logged into my Weather Underground account!

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Webcam hosting service is discontinued effective October 21, 2021
Weather Underground will discontinue the webcam hosting service effective October 21, 2021 in order to better focus on the core products that make Weather Underground one of the best destinations for weather enthusiasts. Only the webcam service is being removed. Our network of weather stations, as well as the web site and mobile apps will continue to provide you with the information you love. Webcam data will be deleted from our servers on or after this date.

We have spent significant time and energy to update our forecasts and Personal Weather Station (PWS) Network over the past several years. When we looked at taking a similar path forward for the webcams, it became clear that an upgrade to modern technologies would be incompatible with many of the cameras currently using our platform. We decided that the investment required to start the network over from scratch would not be viable. Our efforts will instead focus on the performance, stability, and vitality of our core offerings. Please rest assured that the PWS Network remains a core piece of Weather Underground.
***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Too much of a coincidence for me.

I think we need a new Meteobridge version that drops support for wunderground webcams and ignores any config data. It's going to keep trying for a long time.

Steve

Thanks for the heads-up. I didn't know that but it was to expect, WU constantly going southwards...
I will remove the service from next version on.

When I took the first steps on Meteobridge I did team with WU in 2012/2013 to make Meteobridge a minimal upload solution on cheap router platforms and very easy to configure. WU supported this approach by advertising it on their pages and Ambientweather did the selling of ready-made Meteobridges in the US. That way this all started and WU was essential to give it a jump start. WU was the undisputed weather network market leader. How times have changed...

I don't agree with the "modern technologies" argument of WU. I know that WU did run very dedicated services and HW that exactly fitted the purpose in the past. What the new owners of WU mask as "modern technology" is mainly standard cloud technology that by nature does not fit as good as the specific stuff which the WU former tech guys did tailor made for the purpose of storing and handling weather data most efficiently. The new owners had to throw tons of their inappropriate generic cloud stuff to WU and did not make anything better IMHO, just sinking tons of dollars and disappointing the user base. I call this incompetence. It is stubborn sticking to generic cloud paradigms without really understanding the challenges of the domain. But who cares, there are alternatives and they simply ruined their own services. Everyone is allowed to doom his/her company by sticking to false assumptions and a simplified, cloud-preminded view onto the world. We can watch them fading away...

Thanks,

Is this likely to be causing MB to stall on a timeout and exhibit the issues I am seeing, or do I have some other issue?

Steve

Did you define repeats on the WUCAM upload service? If so failed uploads will stack up.

Hi,

Not sure what you mean by “repeats”. There is only one WUC entry.

I’ve deleted the camera entry from the weather station tab and rebooted. Now the upload status page says “no weather network traffic” against the WUC entry. I.e. no errors.

But I still can’t access the Weather Network tab to delete the entry or modify anything else. All I get back is “the cgi process did not produce any response”.

Regards Steve

That looks like a bug to me. Can you please give me remote access? I don't see another way to solve your very specific issue.
Please send credentials (remote login URL and password) to "info(at)meteobridge.com".

Sure. In minutes. Rgs Steve

I would also recall that when WU has been acquired by IBM to empower their Watson ecosystem,
they brutally decided to remove the decimal place to reduce accuracy on the WU webpage.


After a big complain they shift back and added the decimal place

Good news !!!

Rebooted to the just released 4 Nov version 5.2 build 14623 and the problem has gone, and the WU Cam entry is nowhere to be seen.

All good.

Many thanks

Steve