Topic: Weather Underground update problem

[Whitbyweather]

Hello, I hope someone can help, I have been uploading to weather Underground with no problem for a year, but since yesterday the station panel on the history page above the map, and its associated weather sticker are not updating. The graphs and data entries are updating fine and I can sometimes force an update by hitting the test button in Weatherlink. I have filed a support request with Weather Underground but have had no reply. Don't know what else to do and would welcome any advice.
Many thanks,
Chris

[Bunty]

That can happen with me after I close weatherlink and soon later open it back up.  Give it about an hour and it will return to updating.

[Whitbyweather]

Thank you for your reply Bunty, I will see how it goes. I was disappointed not to receive a response from Weather Underground but maybe they are just  very busy.
Kind regards,
Chris

[DanS]

Chris, I was seeing the same thing here and I don't use weatherlink. I believe it is/was something internal to Weather Underground. First time I've seen that though.

edit: oh, as far as getting a response to your ticket in WU, don't hold your breath waiting for it. It's a hit or miss type of thing. I've had a ticket with them for over a month, with many update queries since, and still no reply.

Dan

[Whitbyweather]

Many thanks for the information Dan, I agree, it must be a server problem at Weather Underground. I am very puzzled that their support organisation is so weak but I will just have to wait! On a positive note, the problem has cured itself for the moment, but it did this yesterday too.
Kind regards and thanks for your help,
Chris

[Whitbyweather]

Well, I just got a reply from Weather Underground as follows:

"Everything seems fine right now, but it sounds like your station may be getting flagged by our quality control program periodically for bad temperature readings. If it happens again, please look through your data to see if you may have had a bad reading.  Let us know how it goes."

I have looked at all my data and can see no erroneous readings so I will just keep my fingers crossed. Thanks for your help guys.
Chris
 

[DanS]

Huh? If that's the case then they've got their quality control parameters set a little to tight? Doesn't sound like the right answer. But at least you got an answer to yours.

[Whitbyweather]

Well here we go again, for no apparent reason the data has stopped updating. I can force an update by re-uploading the past couple of hours of archive data and I have checked all my uploads for errors and all is ok. Have fired another email to WU but  I don't have any other ideas. The station is INORTHYO14 if anyone would like to take a look.

[DaculaWeather]

They will definitely kick you off if your data is bad. Do you transmit to CWOP?

[Whitbyweather]

No, I do not send data to CWOP but I have checked all aspects of my data and everything seems fine. The data is updating in the current weather page, the graphs and the history but it stops updating in the station data at the top right and in the station sticker.

[rrwcf]

Well here we go again, for no apparent reason the data has stopped updating. I can force an update by re-uploading the past couple of hours of archive data and I have checked all my uploads for errors and all is ok. Have fired another email to WU but  I don't have any other ideas. The station is INORTHYO14 if anyone would like to take a look.

I'm new - so forgive my ignorance.

Are you using the 5.9.1 beta version?  I was having similar problems with 5.9.0, upgraded to 5.9.1 and the comms problems went away.

God Bless you.  I hope this helps.

Russ

[Whitbyweather]

Hi Russ, I am new too! Many thanks for your suggestion, I also had problems with 5.9.0 and cured them with the later version but this is very strange, everything has been going fine and suddenly the sticker is not updating. Other types of sticker on the site are fine but the big one on the top right of the page just stops! Everything was ok this morning but after about 4 hours it packed up. Certainly seems to beaten Weather Underground.
Thanks again,
Chris

[DaculaWeather]

No, I do not send data to CWOP but I have checked all aspects of my data and everything seems fine. The data is updating in the current weather page, the graphs and the history but it stops updating in the station data at the top right and in the station sticker.

It doesn't take much of an error for them to kick you. I would start sending data to CWOP and see how it compares to the reference station(s) around you. And of course, that may not have anything to do with it.

[WeatherGoose]

Steve is right...Wunderground DOES have some automated QC stuff in place, so if you are running without the proper Radiation Shield on your temp sensor and are spitting out BAD data for your area compared to surrounding stations, they could theoretically KICK YOU off the site, albeit a very rare thing to have happen. You will continue to see your data on your actual PWS page, but the section on the right will have Nh in the data fields instead of data.  Also, your little map circle thingy with your temp on it will be missing on the map.  If that is happening, then your station has been removed for data accuracy issues.

Far more likely is just issues with Wunderground.   They have them daily with one part of the site or another.  I have learned to just ignore them until I see a problem lasting longer than 24 hours, then I email them.  It can take up to 3 days to hear back from them, IF they reply at all.  I suspect that they are very short staffed, and often have people manning the support section that know absolutely NOTHING about this stuff.  I can tell from the relevance of the replies I often get back, that I am dealing with a TEMP worker or a Secretary who is filling in.  

Not good, but that is the way it is over there right now.

[Whitbyweather]

Thank you so much for your wise words WeatherGoose, I do live in a micro-climate area close to the sea so that may be a problem but I do monitor my results with a number of different thermometers and barometers. I think you are quite right, it sounds like a Weather Underground glitch. Certainly the responses I have had from them do not inspire confidence! Thank you for your wisdom, I guess I must learn a little patience.
Kind regards,
chris

[MarkWX]

Starting this past weekend I noticed the rapid fire updates became slow. I'm on a 3 sec. update interval but it goes all over the place to as much as 40 seconds or even more some times. I looked at some other stations and they were doing similar things (no way to know what their update interval is though). I restarted all my networking hardware as well as VWS and that didn't help a thing. I'm pretty sure they must have something going on there. My rapid fire updates have always been snappy fast before this weekend. This morning my webcam was 8+ hours over due for an update and the main page showed black so it would appear that there are some issues right now. My cam is doing okay now but the rapid fire is still sluggish.

[WeatherGoose]

Same here.   I have been seeing this problem with Rapid Fire on and off now for about two weeks.  The image update system is also slow in responding to uploads.  I am seeing that more obviously now that I have my EVOcam webcam software send a static OFFLINE image to my site and Wunderground each night when it shuts down at dark.  75% of the time, that static image never makes it up and onto my Wunderground page.  I know that EVOcam successfully uploads it to them because I see it in the log, but Wunderground NEVER adds it to my image page.  It managed to update tonight, but that is the first time in four days it has actually shown up on there.

I am starting to have some concerns that Wunderground is in some kind of financial trouble.  Their tech support staff has all but vanished, we keep seeing all these problems, and it seems to never get fixed, or if it gets fixed, the problem returns a few days later.

Life for us Station owners would definitely not be the same without Weather Underground.  Thats for sure!  I hope I am wrong.  

[MarkWX]

Yeah, it took quite some time to get a response from them on another matter recently. I sure hope they don't fail since all my stuff is so tied into their system as are many of us.

[SlowModem]

My cam is doing okay now but the rapid fire is still sluggish.

Me, too.  I thought it was just because I'm on dialup and my modem was about dead.   

[Chris H.]

Same here.   I have been seeing this problem with Rapid Fire on and off now for about two weeks.  The image update system is also slow in responding to uploads.  I am seeing that more obviously now that I have my EVOcam webcam software send a static OFFLINE image to my site and Wunderground each night when it shuts down at dark.  75% of the time, that static image never makes it up and onto my Wunderground page.  I know that EVOcam successfully uploads it to them because I see it in the log, but Wunderground NEVER adds it to my image page.  It managed to update tonight, but that is the first time in four days it has actually shown up on there.

I am starting to have some concerns that Wunderground is in some kind of financial trouble.  Their tech support staff has all but vanished, we keep seeing all these problems, and it seems to never get fixed, or if it gets fixed, the problem returns a few days later.

Life for us Station owners would definitely not be the same without Weather Underground.  Thats for sure!  I hope I am wrong.  

I think this is my problem with trying to upload to Wunderground.

Evo Cam will say it's uploading, but my web image shows otherwise (105 days ago).

[WeatherGoose]

Same here.   I have been seeing this problem with Rapid Fire on and off now for about two weeks.  The image update system is also slow in responding to uploads.  I am seeing that more obviously now that I have my EVOcam webcam software send a static OFFLINE image to my site and Wunderground each night when it shuts down at dark.  75% of the time, that static image never makes it up and onto my Wunderground page.  I know that EVOcam successfully uploads it to them because I see it in the log, but Wunderground NEVER adds it to my image page.  It managed to update tonight, but that is the first time in four days it has actually shown up on there.

I am starting to have some concerns that Wunderground is in some kind of financial trouble.  Their tech support staff has all but vanished, we keep seeing all these problems, and it seems to never get fixed, or if it gets fixed, the problem returns a few days later.

Life for us Station owners would definitely not be the same without Weather Underground.  Thats for sure!  I hope I am wrong.  

I think this is my problem with trying to upload to Wunderground.

Evo Cam will say it's uploading, but my web image shows otherwise (105 days ago).

Your problem is something else Chris.  I'm talking an extra 10-15 minutes instead of the usual 2. Not over 100 days!.  lol!

Check your EVOcam logs for what Wunderground is saying. Mine are always successful uploads even when Wunderground doesn't use the last image for whatever reason.  When Wunderground is acting normal with image upload processing, my image updates every 2 minutes using EVOcam as the sender.

[Whitbyweather]

I am really getting desperate, this problem is getting worse and I have tried everything to solve it. I have sent numerous emails to Weather Underground without a sensible reply. Small stickers update ok, only the main one does not. The data remains in place and the clock since last update also runs. Is it worth deleting my station and starting a new one? I am in a remote area and many folk rely on my data. If anyone can help I would be most grateful.
Chris

[WeatherGoose]

I am really getting desperate, this problem is getting worse and I have tried everything to solve it. I have sent numerous emails to Weather Underground without a sensible reply. Small stickers update ok, only the main one does not. The data remains in place and the clock since last update also runs. Is it worth deleting my station and starting a new one? I am in a remote area and many folk rely on my data. If anyone can help I would be most grateful.
Chris

Without a serious response from the Wunderground tech support staff, there isn't a heck of a lot anyone else can do to help you.  All I can suggest is all the usual stuff like checking to make sure that your station ID and password are being entered correctly, check your station software logs for any errors from Wunderground's server that may give you a clue as to the problem and continue to submit trouble tickets at the HIGHEST priority.

This brings up a very good point about the dangers of relying exclusively on a third party site for providing your weather data to your community.  I would strongly advise against that practice and suggest that you create your OWN website for your station and direct your community to that location and not rely so heavily on Wunderground.    Although I send data to Wunderground, I do not direct any of my traffic there.  I just offer it as an additional source of my data.  That way, the impact of these all too frequent issues with that site are minimized.  For the folks who really like the RAPID FIRE update speeds Wunderground can offer, I created my OWN Rapid Fire page that uses a piece of Wunderground's PWS page offering on my own site...

http://basslake-weather.com/rapid_fire.html

My own website at basslake-weather.com gets three times the traffic that my Wunderground page gets per month, and that is really how it should be.

Good luck.

[Whitbyweather]

Hello again Weathergoose and thank you again for your wise advice. I do have my own website but, like your rapid fire site, I use the wunderground sticker as an integral part of my current conditions page. I must congratulate you on your superb website, i am very new to all this and I have much to learn. If you would like to look at my site go to www.whitbyweather.com and the problem sticker is on the current conditions page. I will continue to hit the support team to get this problem resolved but it is very disheartening not to receive a sensible reply! Best wishes,
Chris

[WeatherGoose]

No problem Chris and thanks for the compliments. 

Why don't you just replace the STICKER data with your own data directly from your weather software?  You can always refer people to a secondary page, like what I have with my RAPID FIRE page if they like the Wunderground format (WHEN it works!), but don't make that your MAIN source of your data.  I am pleased to see that you already have a website in place, so the bulk of the work is already done!  All you need to do now is shift away from relying on Wunderground and start using the data directly from your station hardware and weather software to communicate your current conditions to your community.

Nice site by the way!