Topic: New Member with software questions

[Swede]

Hello,

I have been visiting this forum for a while, but just joined today.  Lots of really great information here.  Let me tell you that I am in Northwestern New Mexico USA and have been uploading weather data to the web since June 2000 using a RainWise WS-2000.  Started out prior to that with a RainWise WX1000 then updated to the solar powered unit.  No problems in 10 years, except had to change the battery out at 8 years.  RainWise actually sent me a new battery free of charge.  Nice folks and great support.

Here's where it gets interesting.  Since 2000 I have been using WeatherView 32 software, with the most recent upgrade to version 7.  I am uploading every 5 minutes to CWOP, Anything Weather, Weather For You, and Weather Underground.  I am now using the Rapid Fire feature, attempting to upload every 2.5 seconds.  After about an hour or so, Rapid Fire stops uploading.  I go into the Task Manager and note that Rapid Fire is locked in the Connected Setting and not disconnecting, thus not allowing any Rapid Fire uploads.

I have had to set the computer to reboot every three hours just to keep the Rapid Fire up and running.  WeatherView 32 say I should set the priority level to high for Rapid Fire, which I have done.  So far I can keep Rapid Fire going about 1.5 to 2.5 hours, then it stops.

Any ideas on how this can be fixed?  WV32 has great graphics, but the Rapid Fire feature is not great under that program.

Regards,
Swede

[Swede]

Scalphunter,

Thanks for the reply.  Unfortunately, WeatherView 32's Rapid Fire upload to Weather Underground has 2.5 seconds as the only option.  It's either checked or unchecked.  Any other possible
fixes I could try?  I have been reading about the usage of StartWatch software, but the Rapid Fire.exe program is contained within WeatherView32.  When WeatherView32 starts, so does the Rapid Fire program.  There is a separate file in the WV32 folder for Rapid Fire.   I just don't know what to try to make this work.  As I mentioned I am using an auto reboot program to reboot the computer every 3 hours, 24 hours a day, just to keep Rapid Fire going.

Regards,
Swede

[ELDoradoWx]

You might want to consider giving Weather Display software a test spin. You can try it free for 30 days.. I think you might really like it. I think it's the most full featured weather software out there with literally countless options.

http://www.weather-display.com/index.php

[Swede]

I have certainly been looking hard at Weather Display, in particular Weather Display Live.  Really interesting looking graphics on the WD Live page.  By the way, how do I get my Weather Underground banner to show up on my posts?

Thanks,
Swede

[ELDoradoWx]

I have certainly been looking hard at Weather Display, in particular Weather Display Live.  Really interesting looking graphics on the WD Live page.  By the way, how do I get my Weather Underground banner to show up on my posts?

Thanks,
Swede

I see you got the WU banner working, good...

I agree, Weather Display Live is a slick little application. It should also be easy for you to set up "Rapid Fire" on Weather Display if you ever wanted to give it a shot. Rapid Fire can be set from 3 second updates on up to whatever you want.

It might be helpful to see a list of all the weather data tags you can upload in near real time to your web site from Weather Display:
http://www.tokaanuskihire.co.nz/wdhelp/custom.shtml

[CNYWeather]

You might want to consider giving Weather Display software a test spin. You can try it free for 30 days.. I think you might really like it. I think it's the most full featured weather software out there with literally countless options.

http://www.weather-display.com/index.php

I'll 2nd that. A little scary to start but what you can do with it is awesome!

[Swede]

I guess I've gotten into a comfort level with WeatherView32.  Great graphics, fabulous database with 1 minute resolution and easy to install and maintain.  As a ten year user of the software I can say there have been some issues.  On an old Windows 2000 computer, if left on for a day or so with memory bleed, I would get wind gusts on WV32 at 90 mph.
Now even on a new Windows 7 computer, 64 bit with 4 gigs of ram, the WV32 stops responding after a few days with no reboot.  The Rapid Fire feature is even worse; stopping uploads after an hour or so of operating.

To be specific, Rapid Fire under WV32 connects and disconnects in it's normal operation.  What happens is that after an hour or so, it just remains connected (but no uploads of data).   It would be nice to have some software to monitor that, and kick Rapid Fire to restart.  I have read about StartWatch software, but not sure if it could just monitor the Rapid Fire feature under WV32, without restarting WV32.

I am hearing that Weather Display (and WD Live) is the way to go.  A little scary thinking about making a change, but I need a stable weather station software program that can be left for days without constant intervention on my part, or reboots every few hours.  

Regards,
Swede

[HopeMaineWx]

Not to change directions on Swedes thread here, but a quick question for you weather Display users, is WD easier to use with weatherlink or WLIP, or doesnt't it really matter which version you use?

[CNYWeather]

I've used mine for over 5 years with WD and a USB connection from the VP2

[HopeMaineWx]

used what, WLIP?

[CNYWeather]

A VP2 usb with Weather Display. Sorry 

[Swede]

That's some expensive software you have there, I have to ask what WeatherView32 support is doing to solve this problem for you?

Advised I needed to go into Task Manager and set the Priority Level on the Rapid Fire to high and save that setting.  Didn't seem to help.  Right now I am trying an experiment with StartWatch monitoring the Rapid Fire.exe program in WeatherView32.  Trying to see if the program stops uploading, will StartWatch restart the Rapid Fire function.

WeatherView32 has been a good program with nice graphics and a great database.  For years I uploaded to the web every 10 minutes, but have increased that to 5 minutes.  Earlier versions would be a real drain on memory with my old Windows 2000 computer.  There were issues with strange 90mph gusts of wind the program would generate when the memory resources were getting low. That old computer gave up the ghost this past March and invested in a Windows 7 64 bit machine with 4 gigs of ram.

The best part of my whole weather set up is the RainWise WS-2000 station.  It has been a very reliable piece of equipment for the past 10+ years.  I would buy another RainWise station with no hesitation.

Regards,
Swede

[njcanuck]

Hi Swede,

I am in a similar situation as you.  My Texas Weather Instruments station has been operating flawlessly on Weatherview32 Version 5 since about 2000  .  I recently upgraded to WV32 Version 7 with the intention of publishing my weather data on the Web.

I started up the Rapid-Fire updates to Weather Underground and like you, found that it works for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours and then gets hung.  After a little experimentation, I believe I have found a work-around.  If I run two instances of rapid-fire concurrently, it seems to keep running indefinitely.  My rapid-fire has been up for many days, now.

There are two ways to accomplish this: disconnect / reconnect ‘Monitor Weather’ and a second instance of rapid-fire will start without terminating the first; or, find wu_rapid_fire.exe in the Weatherview program directory and execute it as many times as you wish (I’ve found that two seems to be enough to do the job).

My current theory, after monitoring Weather Underground rapid-fire updates for a while, is that Weather Underground doesn’t always keep up with the 2.5 sec update frequency and sometimes ignores a few.  I suspect this might leave the rapid-fire program waiting for some type of communications acknowledgement that never comes.  Running two rapid-fires concurrently maybe allows one to reset the comm. protocol that the other is hung on? (Disclaimer: this theory could very likely be 100% wrong!)

Lastly, I think that the program wu_rapid_fire.exe might be compatible with StartWatch but I haven’t tried it yet.  Have you?

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Rich

[ocala]

Interesting solution there Rich. Hope it keeps working.
Swede you may also want to give Virtual VP a try. It's software that lets you run different weather station software at the same time using virtual ports. That way you can keep using WeatherView32 and experiment with Weather Display at the same time. It's authored by the same person who made StartWatch software.
Its nice  to compare each software  side by side.

[Garth Bock]

I started with WeatherView 32 V5 years ago because it was the most advanced software out. The only thing was it did a screen shot and posted the .jpg on the web server. Any screen opened ended up on the web too. Years went by and V6 came out. Lots of improvements. After 3 years V7 came out with minor tweaks and support for the Davis VPro2. I was a bit bent out of shape for paying the upgrade and seeing minor differences between V6 and V7. Then the problems began with the USB DataLogger. After 2 months of emailing Dave and screwing with it, I switched the logger to the serial model and that solved all the problems. I found out I wasnt alone, other WV32 V7 owners had lots of problems. I decided to re-study the software packages available and found WD and VWS. I went with VWS and WeatherFlash at work. It was cool but had to authenticate against the authors' servers. Not too cool on that. The nice thing about VWS is that its databases are Excel files. WV32 has one big database that is not compatible with anything. After 5 years my WV32 hit 500mb and I think was the reason the computer slowed down. At home I am running a mix Virtual Vantage Pro (for multiple programs) connecting to WD, WL, Cumulus, VWS. I am playing with the WDL and I like it better than WF from VWS. While WV32 is good I am liking WD and VWS much better because of the flexibility and cost. However, it just comes down to each to his own.

[Swede]

Rich, thanks for your Rapid Fire observations.  I have been looking at this closely.  Rapid Fire uses a series of connecting, data upload then disconnecting actions.  Where it goes bad is that it stays connected and hung up, with no disconnect to obtain new data and upload again.  Rapid Fire in WeatherView 32 is a separate .exe file that can be turned on or off in the main program.  I bought StartWatch software and have been using it for WeatherView32.  Works great for that main program.  Have tried loading Rapid Fire as a separate program to monitor under StartWatch.  It does monitor it, but not sensitive enough to know that Rapid Fire is hung up, even with the highest sensitivity settings.  When Rapid Fire is hung up, no CPU activity is showing, but there must be enough still going  on to fool StartWatch.

I may try Rich's idea and perhaps go into the Rapid Fire.exe file and turn on several instances of it.  I have noticed that Rapid Fire under Weather View 32 does exibit memory leak over a period of just a few hours.  I have Rapid Fire presently turned off.

Regarding the Virtual VP, I have come to the conclusion it will only work with Davis Equipment.  I am using a RainWise WS-2000 which uses it's own data logger.
I am considering buying a separate data logger and running into another serial-USB connector. This way I will have one com port for WeatherView32 and another com port for Weather Display (when I buy the program).  It's not an inexpensive option, but one that could be very reliable.

Regards,
Swede

[njcanuck]

Swede,  I've observed the same rapid-fire sequence and mine gets hung the same way.  When two rapid-fires are running, one or the other may hang but then seems to clear when the other executes.  That is what makes me wonder if it is waiting for some sort of response or acknowledgement before it will disconnect.  If WU is experiencing delays and and not sending the ack, it hangs.  Then it possibly picks up the ack sent to the other executable, clears and resumes on its merry way?  Gives it two chances to read a disconnect ack? Who knows? But it seems to work!

Thanks for the info on StartWatch.  I suspected as much.

Rich

[Swede]

Rich, something else I have tried with StartWatch and Rapid Fire is to monitor the port for no activity.  Didn't work for Rapid Fire.  Even though it shows no CPU activity, there must be some very small activity that is not registered to make StartWatch think all is well.

Something else I have tried.  With Rapid Fire loaded as a program to monitor in StartWatch, I select the memory leak limit at say 4 or 5 mb.  Rapid Fire starts out at around 2-3 mb and in an hour or so it hits the leak limit.  This triggers a restart and Rapid Fire begins again.  I have seen instances where StartWatch can't get Rapid Fire to restart so the whole computer reboots.  Problem with this is the computer will be rebooting every few hours.  A lot of rebooting to make Rapid Fire run with WeatherView 32.  You can see this issue has bugged me and I've been trying all sorts of things.

Dave Heider says you need to set the Priority level under Task Manager for Rapid Fire as High.  Did that but it doesn't make any difference.

Swede

[Swede]

Rich,

As a follow-up at @ 2pm MST I restarted WeatherView32, let the program open it's Rapid Fire, then went into the WV32 folder and clicked on Rapid Fire twice to open two more copies.  We'll see how long that works.  If this works, then StartWatch could be helpful.  If you're away and want Rapid Fire to keep going, select to monitor the program in StartWatch and click the checkmark that allows you to open another copy even if one is already going.  This could allow two copies to keep running even after a reboot of the system due to a hang up or stall of WeatherView32 itself.   If you haven't purchased StartWatch yet, I'm really sold on the program.

Regards,
Swede

[njcanuck]

Hi Swede,

How is it working?  I've been watching your station and it appears that rapid-fire is up each time I've looked.

Still haven't tried StartWatch yet, but I like your thinking on it.  I'm a little surprised to read that WV32 itself has been unstable for you.  Both V5 and V7 have been rock solid for me but I'm running it on a much older platform.  I re-purposed an old Compaq M300 laptop as a dedicated weather machine: that's a PIII running at 600 MHZ (yup, MHZ not GHZ) maxed out with 320 meg of ram!  OS is Win XP SP3.  This setup is relatively unobtrusive in our family room and the custom display is easily visible from everywhere. It's also very low draw on the UPS, so stays up a long time when the power is out. Not even a hiccup in years - works better than the dual core, Win 7 64 bit monster that I'm typing this on!

Cheers, Rich

[Swede]

Rich,

Got Rapid Fire to work for about 3.5 hours with the multible versions running, then one stopped uploading, then the second after a while.  Since I was going out of town for Thanksgiving, I set StartWatch to monitor Rapid Fire and when it got to 6 mb of memory, it would restart the program, and or re-boot if it couldn't get it to restart.  This is what has been happening while you were monitoring.  Seems like it's been rebooting every 4-5 hours while away.

WeatherView32 is actually stable for the 5 minute upload frequency to a personal website, CWOP, Anything Weather, Weather For You and normal Weather Underground.  The Rapid Fire is the only part that's not working very well.

Regards,
Swede

[weather dog]

Weather View32....I had it running for a while, maybe a couple of days with rapid fire enabled when rapid fire would fall a sleep.  The counter on the status window would count although the verbage of "connected, sending data, done, disconnecting" would not appear.  I noticed that what I believe is called the "ftp/http server error log" would constantly have errors.  I then found myself having to constantly restart weather view32, some times with in minutes.

This got old.  I contacted David, from weather view.  He told me to send him an email to remind him to have rapid restart every hour in version 8.  He also told me version 8 would cost me an additional 50.00!

So I said to myself, hmmmm.  I started to launch rapid fire 25 times,(all sessions running at the same time) after shutting down the "http/ftp server" before doing so.  Sometime I would stay running for days, other times for hours!

Then it came to me.  I was going too be charged fifty bucks for a band aid that might stop running after it first relaunches rapid fire.

So I wrote a batch file to stop rapid fire and relaunch it every minute, (with the "ftp/http sever" shut down).  This was done by scheduling a task to run the batch file.  Its been four days now and still up and running!

The batch file is two lines as follows:
 taskkill /f /im WU_Rapid_fire.exe
 @start "" "C:\Program Files\Weather View 32 700\WU_Rapid_fire.exe"

Taskkill is only in XP Pro and Win 7 you can get it there and install where needed.

Have Fun! 

[Garth Bock]

Originally WV32 was around $300 for the pro version. Every upgrade was $150 !!! Patches were rare. Since then the price has come down but things have not changed. It is usually close to 3 years between versions and the new version usually doesnt have much of a change. It is a good program, somewhat of a resource hog, but VWS, Cumulus, and WD out perform it. The database for WV32 is proprietary while VWS puts out CSV's. There is no way to import it directly into any other program. Changing software can be scary but there are alot of folks here to help you out. The only problem with leaving WV32 is that unless you spend alot of time exporting your data and adjusting it by hand to be imported into your new weather software, you will have to leave it behind.