Author Topic: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)  (Read 10083 times)

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Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #25 on: December 12, 2017, 08:51:31 AM »
I would think that would be a good start.

OK, interesting. So, taken all the different statistics and weather data currently available on WU, is there something that could be left out for the moment (to make it easier and faster to setup)?

Offline captgadget

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #26 on: December 12, 2017, 08:58:26 AM »
I guess one of things for me that makes WU nice is I'm able to tell my friends about WU and they can go check our weather compared to what is in their neck of the woods. Now I tried your webcams but there's no way I could find to find a particular webcam. You're just posting everyone's photo or stream with no way to find one. So I can't tell my friends to go to webcam.io and find my photo showing a swimming pool in South Texas when they are in 12° weather in Nebraska.

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #27 on: December 12, 2017, 09:47:33 AM »
I would think that would be a good start. But if wu continues their program as stated why would you want to offer this service? There has to be a cost associated with this service.

Sure, it all depends on whether WU can walk their talk...

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #28 on: December 12, 2017, 10:44:12 AM »
One other thing, though - in case we actually would also include all (important) weather data. Since we probably will not reuse or resell any weather data, we would need to make it profitable as it is - mainly by using advertising.
Would this be a problem for the majority of the weather station owners? Because if we would make it ad free for 10 USD per year, we most probably could not finance the service.

Offline captgadget

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #29 on: December 12, 2017, 11:20:38 AM »
I'd be glad to pay the $10. I already pay WU to be ad free.

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #30 on: December 12, 2017, 11:43:12 AM »
I'd be glad to pay the $10. I already pay WU to be ad free.

You do? I have never paid and was grandfathered in. Maybe that's why some can no longer send images. Non payers.
Randy

Offline zackdog

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #31 on: December 12, 2017, 01:07:06 PM »
I paid $10 in order to upload my data and have ad-free access when I first joined WU in 2006.  Have never had to pay since then and am still ad-free.  But, as Randy says, I also am unable to upload my webcams any more.  I have had one webcam linked to Lookr for a number of years now, but they pull the image from my website, not FTP.

Mark
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Dylan

Vantage Pro2 Plus w/ 24 hr FARS and (2) VantageVues

VP2 uploading via Vue console to CWOP, WU, PWS, and Weathercloud.


Offline captgadget

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #32 on: December 12, 2017, 01:24:59 PM »
Yes I paid until I put up a personal weather station and then I would no longer was assessed that fee.

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #33 on: December 12, 2017, 01:25:19 PM »
I started sending them data from Arizona station, Oct. 21 2003.
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Randy

Offline mikemm

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #34 on: December 13, 2017, 01:23:18 AM »
My weather webcam is now re-displaying on WU via the FTP method.

I did re-edit my webcam settings yesterday, which triggered their "review the webcam" process, which may have re-activated my FTP login credentials.

Of course the other problem is dealing with Firefox 57's termination of support for Foscam's plugin.  I have other means to control the camera, but it is just another irritation.

Re to Webcams.Travel ... I can push my weather webcam image to multiple sites, so if you or other sites did choose to host weather webcams it is not a WU or Webcams.Travel but not both kind of thing.

But as perhaps many have pointed out ... there are some essential features ... such as an obvious link button that would take viewers of the webcam to the weather site (be it WU or some other 3rd party weather site or even a personal site).
« Last Edit: December 13, 2017, 01:24:56 AM by mikemm »
CWOP ID: EW8360, WU/PWS: KCASANDI503
Ambient 2902C Sensors | WS2000 Console | Dahua 5MP Low-lux WeatherCam | MeteoBridge & Raspberry Pi | APC UPS
Web sites: WU, Ambient+Cam, PWS, Windy+Cam

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #35 on: December 13, 2017, 03:04:08 AM »
I would think that would be a good start. But if wu continues their program as stated why would you want to offer this service? There has to be a cost associated with this service.

You are absolutely right about that. And from what I hear, WU magically fixed (all) their webcam issues and the cams are up and running again on WU - can anyone confirm that as well?

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #36 on: December 13, 2017, 04:32:12 AM »
FTP server is running again. Don't know if it has anything to do with it but I sent email asking for some answers for the Forum and like magic it's back up. Never got any response to email.
Randy

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #37 on: January 03, 2018, 03:47:52 AM »
FTP server is running again. Don't know if it has anything to do with it but I sent email asking for some answers for the Forum and like magic it's back up. Never got any response to email.


Is your WU cam still working? I just heard that WU has some webcam problems currently.

Offline captgadget

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #38 on: January 03, 2018, 07:01:33 AM »
Mine is not working. In fact, I don't even have a webcam listed on WU anymore.

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #39 on: January 03, 2018, 07:03:20 AM »
What about the others? Is your WU webcam working? And if not - are you still patient with WU or would you be willing to switch to another, reliable service?

Offline zackdog

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #40 on: January 03, 2018, 08:04:19 AM »
I am in the same boat as all these people.  WU says I no longer have any webcams.  Pretty much fed up with WU.

http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=33510.0

Mark
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Dylan

Vantage Pro2 Plus w/ 24 hr FARS and (2) VantageVues

VP2 uploading via Vue console to CWOP, WU, PWS, and Weathercloud.


Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #41 on: January 03, 2018, 09:23:01 AM »
I am in the same boat as all these people.  WU says I no longer have any webcams.  Pretty much fed up with WU.

http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=33510.0

Mark

We will soon start a second survey, in order to re-evaluate the current need for a free webcam FTP upload. And whether you will also need to upload your weather data with it (or not).
If you want to get an invitation to the upcoming survey, just leave your email address in the current survey:
https://goo.gl/qYecdc

Thank you.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 12:36:02 PM by webcams.travel »

Offline radilly

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #42 on: January 09, 2018, 01:39:43 PM »
I've not tried the FTP option - partly because I'm FTP-ing to my own site already.   (I could kluge up something of course.)   The URL approach has been working with WU for years but has stopped of late.  That option is still available, though the maintenance page has been very flaky for me  - sometimes only the header renders in Chrome when I try to load it.
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

The image I upload is unchanged from a process perspective, and still uploading reliably to http://www.dillys.org/WX/NW_05.jpg (which is 50% of the native camera image for WU's benefit).  I create my own, rather large videos as gifs, so I am quite sure the images have been there.  I just added some additional logging to further verify the reduced image is updated every 5 minutes.  It has been.

I'm also having issues with the WX data which have gotten way worse over the past week or so.  A report about the camera has gone unanswered for several days.  Certainly leaves me with the strong impression that Weather Underground is running on auto-pilot at best...

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #43 on: January 10, 2018, 01:22:28 AM »
I've not tried the FTP option - partly because I'm FTP-ing to my own site already.   (I could kluge up something of course.)   The URL approach has been working with WU for years but has stopped of late.  That option is still available, though the maintenance page has been very flaky for me  - sometimes only the header renders in Chrome when I try to load it.
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

The image I upload is unchanged from a process perspective, and still uploading reliably to http://www.dillys.org/WX/NW_05.jpg (which is 50% of the native camera image for WU's benefit).  I create my own, rather large videos as gifs, so I am quite sure the images have been there.  I just added some additional logging to further verify the reduced image is updated every 5 minutes.  It has been.

I'm also having issues with the WX data which have gotten way worse over the past week or so.  A report about the camera has gone unanswered for several days.  Certainly leaves me with the strong impression that Weather Underground is running on auto-pilot at best...

Thanks for this interesting info. So, if you have your webcam running on an URL already, you could also use https://weathercloud.net/ instead of WU to upload your weather data and add your webcam image by URL there. Would this be an option for you? And if not, why?
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 01:25:16 AM by webcams.travel »

Offline radilly

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #44 on: January 10, 2018, 09:44:17 AM »
Thanks!   I took a quick look around the site and I'll dig further.  I note there are not many stations from my area reporting.

I'm running Cumulus MX on a Pi and it supports Weathercloud directly.  I admit I have rather uncritically stuck with Weather Underground because that's where I started (when there were less options).  I hadn't even thought about posting to any other site until the start of 2018 - but since Cumulus makes it easy, I may post to several sites going forward.  If time allows I may try out Weathercloud later today.

Since I'm running a Pi 3 headless, with an SSD for data I could make that the home for images.  There should be more than enough capacity, and that would offer a lot of flexibility.

Thanks for the suggestion,
Bob

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #45 on: January 10, 2018, 10:02:08 AM »
Thanks!   I took a quick look around the site and I'll dig further.  I note there are not many stations from my area reporting.

I'm running Cumulus MX on a Pi and it supports Weathercloud directly.  I admit I have rather uncritically stuck with Weather Underground because that's where I started (when there were less options).  I hadn't even thought about posting to any other site until the start of 2018 - but since Cumulus makes it easy, I may post to several sites going forward.  If time allows I may try out Weathercloud later today.

Since I'm running a Pi 3 headless, with an SSD for data I could make that the home for images.  There should be more than enough capacity, and that would offer a lot of flexibility.

Thanks for the suggestion,
Bob

Hi Bob

You are very welcome. I understand, once you have a service, you don't just switch for no reason. However, we would be really interested in what you think about https://weathercloud.net after you tried it out yourself.

Offline zackdog

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #46 on: January 10, 2018, 10:42:23 AM »
I finally got Cumulous 1 set up to upload to Weathercloud after struggling for a couple days.  It worked pretty well for a while, but now it is pretty much worthless.  I don't have the time or patience to figure out what is going on.

Here are two graphs for the same time frame.  One is from CWOP, which was set up almost fifteen years ago and have never had to trouble shoot a thing.  It is hard to see, but there are no gaps in data to CWOP.  The other is from Weathercloud which was set up in December.  The data gaps are all too obvious.

I realize WU is having some problems right now, which is why I did not attach a graph from them,  but Weathercloud is not a replacement for me.

Mark

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Offline radilly

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #47 on: January 10, 2018, 10:50:22 AM »
Out of curiosity, how often are you uploading?

I think I read a recommendation of hourly, or every 15 minutes (not sure because I've been reading up on a number of sites).  I had been uploading to WU every minute.  Once I moved to a Pi, Cumulus seemed to handle it well (WU issues notwithstanding).  15X the data rate might be a factor?

Still tinkering with options...    :roll:

Bob

Offline zackdog

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #48 on: January 10, 2018, 12:15:28 PM »
CWOP and Weathercloud uploads every 15 minutes, WU Rapid Fire.    Last couple of days on WU have been dismal.

Mark
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Dylan

Vantage Pro2 Plus w/ 24 hr FARS and (2) VantageVues

VP2 uploading via Vue console to CWOP, WU, PWS, and Weathercloud.


Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Free Webcam FTP Upload (after WeatherUnderground shuts down)
« Reply #49 on: January 10, 2018, 01:55:13 PM »
I've stopped Weather Underground uploads until they pull their heads out which may be never. 
Even rapid fire has turned into a joke. 
I don't want hour old or even 15 minute old data out there. If not current within few minutes I see no reason to send. 
Randy

 

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