WXforum.net
Weather Related Organizations => WeatherUnderground => Topic started by: Stratocaster on November 12, 2017, 11:36:18 AM
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What many of us feared is apparently coming true. Leaves me with a bad taste since I bought my cam from a link on WU's own site. So they got a % of that sale :roll:
So, my question:
As someone who is not really a computer geek, how does one go about setting up the Ambient Weather (aka Foscam) IP camera to upload to a site where it can be displayed?
Can it be done on AmbientWeather.org's own site?
Or do we need to purchase a website domain and somehow make our cam appear there?
Any and all suggestions welcomed! Thanks....
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Wow I didn't know that.
They are certainly opening up or getting rid of bandwidth with discontinuing Wunder Photos, Weather Radio, and Webcams.
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There are other sites that do display webcams like
https://www.webcams.travel/webcam/1325004000-Weather-Komoka%2C-ON-Canada-Komoka
http://www.webcamgalore.com/EN/webcam/Canada/Komoka/24859.html
The image is uploaded to my site and Webcams.travel uses the URL to my image www.komokaweather.com/weather/wu/image_wu.jpg. And, if I recall correctly, it can use the external IP address through your router instead of a website URL i.e. http://99.239.0.131:8888
Those aren't geared to weather and have a lot of advertising.
Enjoy,
Paul
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No loss AFAIAC. There are lots of weather-oriented webcam sites out there. Like weatherusa.com or weather-webcam.com
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Yes but I have an IP cam, which is a little more complicated (ironically!).
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Well that will sure cut down on complaints about WU dramatically. =D>
I've know for long time they were overextended on bandwidth and stopped sending images.
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I switched from FTP to WU-get-the-image today. I noticed that ImageSalsa was showing FTP upload errors and it was due to concurrent connections -- over 200 were trying and only 50 were allowed. I think they squeezed back the FTP server's connection limit and that is what is causing so many upload failures.
It is genuinely sad that they're discontinuing the webcam service in December. Oh well, one less thing to upload.
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Personally I am glad it is going, they never had it running consistently. WU have only themselves to blame.
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Personally I am glad it is going, they never had it running consistently. WU have only themselves to blame.
Ditto
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Yes but I have an IP cam
Me too. No problems sending my webcam image to MetOffice WoW and WeatherCloud. The MetOffice also combine your images for a timelapse for each day, at 15 minute intervals. I use a tiny php script to get my CGIProxy.fcgi image from my Foscam, then just supply those networks with a link to the page.
I also do the same as Paul, provide the link to webcams.travel
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Any link or statement from WU confirming this is true? Weather Underground is discontinuing webcams Dec 15
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Is there a link to this news somewhere? I can't seem to find any evidence that webcams are going away... Thanks
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Is there a link to this news somewhere? I can't seem to find any evidence that webcams are going away... Thanks
Post #127 in this thread: http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=32830.msg336184#new
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It seems to me that there is an easy solution that WU could try before simply cutting the cord.
Over 1,000,000 images are uploaded from webcams every day.
This overloads their servers. So, bandwidth and storage are the issue.
Why not do two things:
1. Every webcam can only upload one image every 15 minutes. That would cut traffic by 75%.
2. DON'T store videos of all the day's (or month's, or year's) images.
This would (speaking as a layman) make sense to try before simply abandoning such an important feature.
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Here is the email dated November 11, 2017 to one of the members saying announcement will be Wednesday November 15, 2017 .
"Hi David, thanks for all your reporting of issues with webcams over the past few months. Due to the difficulty we've had maintaining this feature, its negative ROI, and the downsizing of our staff, it has been decided to drop the webcam feature from WU on December 15. An announcement will go up on our webcam page on Wednesday. I'm sorry to see this feature go."
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"Negative ROI " says it all.
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I say F*** them never had any intentions of keeping it the way it was when they bought it. Oh but they sure like your data.
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I suspect more changes at WU to come yet
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If their goal is to shut down all services which are buggy and unreliable I think they could call it a day altogether
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No, no it's all about ..........well: R O I
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I agree with Jachym. I'm trying to figure out exactly what WU is trying to accomplish now besides generating advertising revenue. Today I changed my Foscam cameras so they now upload to my own host server rather than to WU. Foscam offers limited control to the directory to which the images upload, and less control of the file name. With Jachym's help I'm using a php script to rename the newest upload file to something I can use, and then the script deletes the Foscam generated images from the directory leaving just the current image. I did change my cameras from ftp to URL on WU, and after several hours they approved the change and put them back up active for the first time in days. The difference is now I control the images instead of depending on WU ftp to get them. For now I'm still sending data, but for how long? I haven't decided yet.
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I switched from FTP to WU-get-the-image today.
I did the same this weekend. After validation, my webcam is displayed again on their website.
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I switched from FTP to WU-get-the-image today.
I did the same this weekend. After validation, my webcam is displayed again on their website.
Wish I could figure out how to get my images to my own website (I do have a godaddy domain but as yet, don't know what to do with it!)
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If you havea GoDaddy domain name, you merely have to point the domain name to a web storage location - GoDaddy's or the one from your own ISP. IT is a simple redirect. I use the subdomain to get webcam.MYSITEATGODADDY.com to point to where my camera uploads.
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I'm of the opinion, no webcams, no wx data either. My data from 5 very rural and unique stations will start being directed at Weathercloud, exclusive of WU.
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Just FYI, Im co-operating with the Weathercloud guys and very soon there will be a mobile app, which will make the service even more attractive
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Interesting timing. Just before I read Jachym's post I moved my webcam image references on Weathercloud from WU to the new image locations on my host server.
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I see they made a public statement now
https://apicommunity.wunderground.com/weatherapi/topics/important-news-regarding-wu-api-services
http://help.wunderground.com/knowledgebase/articles/1821811
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So, it's official, and the WU webcam option is being removed. I'm glad I got a jump on moving them to my own host server. And, thanks to Jachym and Meteotemplate for the webcam plugin so we can store images if we want to.
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Can you share a link to the Meteotemplate?
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Can you share a link to the Meteotemplate?
http://www.meteotemplate.com/web/index.php
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At least the "gold stars" are safe. :lol:
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At least the "gold stars" are safe. :lol:
Shhhhh, don't speak to loudly ;)
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so what's next to be cut from WU?
personal weather station data ?
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Emails are going out to individual webcam owners right now. This evening after owners read the email, I forecast a S*** storm delux.
Grab the popcorn and get ready.
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I just spent over three hours trying to link my station to Weathercloud without success, so I guess I will continue uploading weather data to WU even without webcams.
Mark
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I just spent over three hours trying to link my station to Weathercloud without success, so I guess I will continue uploading weather data to WU even without webcams.
Mark
May be that their servers are loaded with all the blow back from WU webcam migration
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If I can't get my camera up on weather cloud, I may retask it as a critter camera, if I can figure out how to record video.
Also, I have noticed that a great percentage of wu cameras in my area are really used as security cameras. Views of houses, driveways, lawns etc
There a plenty security cams that let you view home from remote devices. They cost money. No free lunches. We rode that horse too long.
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Also, I have noticed that a great percentage of wu cameras in my area are really used as security cameras. Views of houses, driveways, lawns etc
There a plenty security cams that let you view home from remote devices. They cost money. No free lunches. We rode that horse too long.
The question is, how many of those actually have a weather station :shock:
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http://help.wunderground.com/knowledgebase/articles/1821811-wu-says-goodbye-to-webcams (http://help.wunderground.com/knowledgebase/articles/1821811-wu-says-goodbye-to-webcams)
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Also, I have noticed that a great percentage of wu cameras in my area are really used as security cameras. Views of houses, driveways, lawns etc
There a plenty security cams that let you view home from remote devices. They cost money. No free lunches. We rode that horse too long.
The question is, how many of those actually have a weather station :shock:
ALL the ones I looked at with sketchy webcam shots have weather stations associated with them.
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Does WeatherCloud have an option to ftp webcams?
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Does WeatherCloud have an option to ftp webcams?
Looks like they are URL only https://weathercloud.net/site/faq#faq-webcam
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I have of course seen services being discontinued in the past, however...
it was either that it was only no new users - existing content was maintained
or
they gave you some period during which you could download your data before it gets removed.
In their post, WU says they will remove everything and not provide any means for you to be able to download stuff. This is a big warning to anyone sending data to them! Unbelievable. It is hard to tell if they are forced to behave like this or if they are just *. From my perspective this is unacceptable, although in case of WU I would be very surprised if it was not like this.
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I've got over 5 years of weather data on WU for one of my stations that I really should import into Meteotemplate. I'm about half afraid to try it. I did a little over a year of it when I first changed to MT. I would think they want to keep our weather data flowing in as they use it to generate revenue. Who knows.
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Having personal website is always an option. This can be problematic however in the web is huge and having visitors with interest even find your site isn't easy.
Even when I knew where to find webcams on WU I personally rarely referenced other webcams or even weather data unless I was looking at my own and occasionally nearby mainly winter snow to see what was coming.
http://www.weatherusa.net/skycamnet may take your camera if you have an existing website.
I've been on weatherusa.net since they about started and do get occasional visitors linked from them.
My personal website averages 150 unique visitors daily after being established almost 4 years. It will all depend on the area you live in, this being one of the most rural and isolated areas in USA with very low population, will never exceed what it is now.
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Any link or statement from WU confirming this is true? Weather Underground is discontinuing webcams Dec 15
From their site:
<quote>
WU says goodbye to Webcams
← Webcams
At Weather Underground, our mission has always been to provide “weather for all” – for anyone, any location, across any medium, and through any lens. We know it’s an incredible experience to witness colorful sunrises and sunsets, various cloud formations, and other awe-inspiring weather events, which is why we’ve always encouraged you to capture them with your cameras, phones, and webcams.
After 10 years of proudly displaying your webcam footage across our website and apps, we sadly have to remove this functionality as we no longer have the necessary resources to maintain it. On December 15, 2017, we’ll remove the webcam feeds from our website, mobile apps, and within our API – meaning uploading and accessing webcam footage will no longer be available.
This wasn’t an easy decision for us and while we can no longer host your webcam feeds on our servers, we hope you’ll continue to keep your webcams running and an eye on the sky.
We’ve created this FAQ page to help address any questions you might have.
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Please see the text I added to my WEBCAM shot this morning. (Assuming that WU ever gets around to posting the pic...) It's not much, but I feel better.
I STRONGLY believe that the WebCam feature is a vital compliment to the Personal Weather Station (PWS). "Luke Outta Window" is the staff meteorologist on NPR's (yuck!) weekly Tappet Bros. program. Seeing the sky gives an important perspective on the WX. I look for webcam shots especially during approaching snow and hurricane events.
I have invested a lot of time, energy, and money to provide excellent met data to the PWS network. The same is true of my webcam. It's not a shot of my driveway or the kid's playground. It's mostly sky - just as WU recommends. Ironically, I am expecting delivery of a new, higher resolution IP camera this week. I planned to set it up as a WU/webcam.
I've used three software packages (one was free), and the two up upload methods offered by WU. I knew that the update and consistency problems were on their end, however. I was hoping that with their corporate acquisition(s) that they would find the money to upgrade their servers, storage, processes, and thus their reliability.
WU DEPENDS on PWSs. The Personal Weather Station is the BACKBONE of their entire system. Some of you have threatened to leave them and go to another WX service site. That's fine! I'd like to leave, too. I'm making the sacrifices and WU is making the money on sometimes cheap and tawdry ad revenue. (NOT TO MENTION WU's position on Man-made Global Climate Change - a bucket of swill - but it's California, right?)
But even if ALL OF US leave WU - will it lead to any corporate change? There's not enough of us to make a difference, is there?
I'd like to do something significant here. Leaving WU is kinda anti-climatic.
I'm very frustrated.
Question: Is there any Weather site that comes close to the size and significance of WeatherUnderground for their use of PWSs?
Thanks for reading my rant.
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Something else to keep in mind. In addition to their ad revenue, they make money on your and everyone else's data that it sent to them by selling to whoever they want to, for a profit, and we PWS owners have no say about it, nor are compensated for it, despite our substantial investment. If all 200,000+ PWS Owners pulled their stations and subsequent data, it would get their attention, I would assure you.
John
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Something else to keep in mind. In addition to their ad revenue, they make money on your and everyone else's data that it sent to them by selling to whoever they want to, for a profit, and we PWS owners have no say about it, nor are compensated for it, despite our substantial investment. If all 200,000+ PWS Owners pulled their stations and subsequent data, it would get their attention, I would assure you.
John
John, I know you are right but I seriously doubt that a significant number of PWS owners will pull out.
I have been operating for a pretty long time - and I have urged people to visit and subscribe to WU. I have said that it is the BEST WX site around and feature rich. Although features have slowly been removed, it is still the best site I know. (I'd love to hear any suggestions that challenge this view.)
Someone recommended that WU could limit upload intervals to 15 minutes and stop offering the videos. I like the videos, though. Also, someone suggested that WU could limit the number of cameras by not allowing "mostly sky" scenes. There are a lot of useless Webcams that have no real weather value.
Maybe -- WU could revisit this decision and salvage the Webcams by making a couple of technical and policy changes.
I'd like to do something to help them reverse their decision.
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Will WU end? There is hope....
Remember that many users are users of WU because their PWS manufacturer simply has WU built in, in some cases even as the only option to publish data. Once WU becomes even less attractive, buggy etc. these will stop supporting it and that will be the beginning of the end. I hope it will be soon.
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My two wishes regarding PWS business:
- end of WU -> this would save time and problems to many people
- decent competition for Davis -> this would force both companies to invest in R&D and innovate things, how many yrs/decades have they been promising VP3? The console looks like from the 80s
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WU didn't start out with webcams. From memory that was something that came much later. Possibly after 2012 Weather Channel purchase, It was the beginning of the end and everyone knew it.
Originally WU was great being ran by a bunch of weather fanatics very techy cutting edge with cool features dealing with real time data. Still today ahead of most others with slow data uploads every few minutes.
In 2016 Weather Company AKA Weather Channel was
purchased by IBM except for TV broadcast portion 'The Weather Channel'.
Doesn't appear IBM has taken much interest in WU side with personal weather stations and has allowed Weather Company to continue its downward spiral. The end is most likely closer than many realize. I doubt it stops with just webcam removal, eventually it will include all PWS data.
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From what we can see now, it is quite obvious that when the time comes and they say they will delete all your PWS data, they will not give you any means of being able to download it.
I would therefore highly recommend you download all your data and save them locally using their XML feed (before they discontinue it or delete it)
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Some of the other weather station manufacturers should jump on this opportunity. Both Davis and Rainwise already offer 'Nets' to upload your data. Adding a area for webcams would be a nice addition.
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having cheap weather stations able to update data straight to wunderground has meant lots of ill paced temperature readings on wunderground, that is for sure
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From what we can see now, it is quite obvious that when the time comes and they say they will delete all your PWS data, they will not give you any means of being able to download it.
I would therefore highly recommend you download all your data and save them locally using their XML feed (before they discontinue it or delete it)
Jachym, great idea however how much data does WU store? Is it everything we've ever uploaded to them or just the recent past few months or so? Also, is there a direct link for us to look at our historical data on WU?
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Looks like WU wants you to drop your webcam and buy a air quality monitor:
https://www.wunderground.com/sensors/purpleair#more
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I agree. And, I think WU is a victim of their own success. Anytime you allow people and devices to push data or images to your servers outside of your control you are asking for trouble. I can't imagine what their incoming bandwidth need is like.
Oh, and Brian, I would make that "poorly designed cheap weather stations". :)
having cheap weather stations able to update data straight to wunderground has meant lots of ill paced temperature readings on wunderground, that is for sure
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From what we can see now, it is quite obvious that when the time comes and they say they will delete all your PWS data, they will not give you any means of being able to download it.
I would therefore highly recommend you download all your data and save them locally using their XML feed (before they discontinue it or delete it)
Jachym, great idea however how much data does WU store? Is it everything we've ever uploaded to them or just the recent past few months or so? Also, is there a direct link for us to look at our historical data on WU?
Yes, all data should be there in 5min intervals
https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=XXXXXXXX&format=XML
Replace XXXXXXX with your WU ID
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And for history data, eg:
https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=XXXXXX&month=11&year=2017&day=10&format=1
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Something else to keep in mind. In addition to their ad revenue, they make money on your and everyone else's data that it sent to them by selling to whoever they want to, for a profit, and we PWS owners have no say about it, nor are compensated for it, despite our substantial investment. If all 200,000+ PWS Owners pulled their stations and subsequent data, it would get their attention, I would assure you.
John
We are compensated for it John. My self I don't have a website but I get to view my data online and via an app.
I understand everyone's frustration with WU but it's only WU in name. It's all coming from the parent company.
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Something else to keep in mind. In addition to their ad revenue, they make money on your and everyone else's data that it sent to them by selling to whoever they want to, for a profit, and we PWS owners have no say about it, nor are compensated for it, despite our substantial investment. If all 200,000+ PWS Owners pulled their stations and subsequent data, it would get their attention, I would assure you.
John
We are compensated for it John. My self I don't have a website but I get to view my data online and via an app.
I understand everyone's frustration with WU but it's only WU in name. It's all coming from the parent company.
SOME are still "compensated". And I respect folks who are. However, those who invested in Blogs, Photos, Cameras, Radio Feeds, e.g. . have been ripped off, fingered, raped, and basically told to 'shove it'. Sadly, I suspect those still "compensated" will be in a similar category sometime soon..
but the PWS pages will be next... it's cheaper for them to scrape Mesowest, etc ... Just a matter of time...
Now, some folks didn't really believe some of us when we were strongly suggesting that Radio and Webcams were going to be dropped,
and I truly hope I'm wrong, but with all respect, folks need to look for something else ... It may be awhile, but they're going to utilize as
little overhead as possible, and that 'convenience' is massive overhead.
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I don't think they'll get rid PWS data. At least I hope not. They will probably get rid of rapid fire and limit uploads to every 15 minutes and most likely will do away with archived PWS data.
If they did get rid of PWS data they would become completely irrelevant. However as the saying goes when one door closes another one opens so I'm sure there would be new options available.
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Hey guys, I did a blog about this with links to alternate ways of getting your webcam online.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/weather-underground-kills-webcam-upload-service-there-are-alternatives/70003305?
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Good blog Jesse. Hope it helps those looking for answers.
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Thankfully I’ve been doing as many here have suggested, and that is to get away from WU as soon as possible. It was a great resource for me starting out but with the help of this forum and many here I’ve learned a lot about how to do things on my own site. There’s a few more things left to change on my site, but the transition away from WU is nearly complete. It’s sad to see them have to drop services such as this though.
I agree, great info Jesse! Thanks for the heads up as I know these webcam site alternatives will be useful to many.
- Matt
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Regarding webcam data on WU. Do they currently store a history of that?
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I more upset at the fact that many times a day they say the radar is "down for maintenance"
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Boy if this isn't pouring salt on the wound, my web cam just showed up on WU. It's getting kinda comical with whats going on at WU.
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Looks like the killed the Sunrise/sunset/moon info too.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
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T-25 Earth days to webcam day
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I signed up with webcam.io (http://webcam.io) in Germany. Dead easy to set up the FTP on my Ambient IP cam, much easier than it was on WU. I'm back online and the free service is pretty good. The costs escalate for more storage, live feed etc, but not outrageous.
Here is my cam:
https://assets1.webcam.io/w/0zgAw9/latest.jpg
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I signed up with webcam.io (http://webcam.io) in Germany. Dead easy to set up the FTP on my Ambient IP cam, much easier than it was on WU. I'm back online and the free service is pretty good. The costs escalate for more storage, live feed etc, but not outrageous.
Here is my cam:
https://assets1.webcam.io/w/0zgAw9/latest.jpg
I did also but my webcam has been waiting for approval for about 3 weeks now. I am going to wait a bit longer and if they don't approve it I will close the account.
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Good to know!
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I signed up with webcam.io (http://webcam.io) in Germany. Dead easy to set up the FTP on my Ambient IP cam, much easier than it was on WU. I'm back online and the free service is pretty good. The costs escalate for more storage, live feed etc, but not outrageous.
Here is my cam:
https://assets1.webcam.io/w/0zgAw9/latest.jpg
I did also but my webcam has been waiting for approval for about 3 weeks now. I am going to wait a bit longer and if they don't approve it I will close the account.
1 week wait for me so far.
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Just had mine approved.
I sent a polite email to contact@webcam.io, maybe that helped?
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I'll miss the webcams but considering recent reliability I've already missed them many times :roll: Too bad they couldn't scale back rather than drop them completely. Before the videos are gone I've copied a few "stormy ones" using the Chrome browser extension Flash Video Downloader. The only one that was of some value though was the day of the 2017 eclipse but even then my cam was just outside the edge of totality - not real dramatic.
Thanks to an earlier suggestion in this thread I added my station to weathercloud.net. Their webcam URL works well but you do need to host your jpg image somewhere. I have it locally hosted on the old cell phone that also takes and captions the picture. weathercloud.net grabs that image every 5 seconds when your station page is active. That's fairly heavy bandwidth so not as nice as the WU hosted solution but it's better than nothing! Maybe WU could at least do something similar. Cam on weathercloud.net: https://app.weathercloud.net/d0448152449#profile
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So the webcam interval is hard-set to 5s?
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The only weathercloud.net webcam entry/setting I can find is for URL so yes, it looks like the update rate is fixed.
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OK, I will email the devs, we co-operate with each other,I can ask them if it could be added as an option
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OK, they will look into the possibility of adding the option to choose this
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WeatherTogether.net, a weather community I recently joined as an admin team and folded my weather community blog under, also has a webcams section on the site. We don't have the ability to accept webcams over FTP at the moment, plus we don't have an "official" webcam registration process yet. We are discussing this as a future option and are open to feedback concerning it.
In the meantime, if you're interested in being a regular contributor to WeatherTogether.net and join and create a blog on WeatherTogether.net and also want a link to your webcam featured on the webcams page, let us know. We'd want to do this gradually since we don't have a way to automate the process yet, and we'd be manually doing all the linking.
I'm also going to ask Earth Networks if we have any plans to either roll a personal webcams feature or team up with a site that allows us to ingest in personal webcams. Now that we've sold WeatherBug to GroundTruth and overhauled our executive leadership and tech teams with new personnel, we're in a better position to tackle some new projects, and one is (finally) getting the new PWS system out the door (plus WeatherBug's new owners will have access to the data). We're doing some other stuff with cameras, so I can find out what the interest is there.
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Good day everyone. :grin: Since Weather Underground is leaving us weather station/webcam operators out in the wilderness, I've been researching other options. I Happened across this link on Ambient Weather where they had posted alternatives to WU cams. https://www.ambientweather.com/wundercam.html I decided to give a couple options a try and found that Lookr https://www.lookr.com/ offered a free solution as long as you could post to a URL. This is a world wide web cam posting operation. They do have small ads that can easily be closed when viewing but I guess thats how they can provide the free service. I used the URL to my camera and bam! I'm up and running. I posted the link in the status section of my WU weather station so my followers know where to go. The good news is I've been communication with the IT folks at Lookr. I asked if they could offer up FTP in addition to URL cam uploads. The answer is YES, if they get enough request. They sent me 30 second survey. If enough of you fill this out we will have free FTP uploads! Here is the link: https://goo.gl/qYecdc Now its up to us to make it happen. Here is a link to my Cam. https://www.lookr.com/lookout/1511274536-Whispering-Pines#action-play-day. I also created a quick free blog where you can embed your camera with the quick and easy to use Embed tool located at the bottom of the image. It also offers time lapse for 24 hrs, 30 days 12 months, lifetime. Really cool. Hope this helps you all get back up and running.
Thanks,
John Hartlove
https://mycoolcams.blogspot.com/
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KNCWHISP3#history
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UPDATE \:D/
I started running the test bed yesterday for Lookr.com. It looks great! I currently have it updating every 10 seconds. Lookr IT folks have been a pleasure to work with.
We have a good thing here guys and gals. PLEASE fill out the two question survey if you want to FTP. https://goo.gl/qYecdc
John
Good day everyone. :grin: Since Weather Underground is leaving us weather station/webcam operators out in the wilderness, I've been researching other options. I Happened across this link on Ambient Weather where they had posted alternatives to WU cams. https://www.ambientweather.com/wundercam.html I decided to give a couple options a try and found that Lookr https://www.lookr.com/ offered a free solution as long as you could post to a URL. This is a world wide web cam posting operation. They do have small ads that can easily be closed when viewing but I guess thats how they can provide the free service. I used the URL to my camera and bam! I'm up and running. I posted the link in the status section of my WU weather station so my followers know where to go. The good news is I've been communication with the IT folks at Lookr. I asked if they could offer up FTP in addition to URL cam uploads. The answer is YES, if they get enough request. They sent me 30 second survey. If enough of you fill this out we will have free FTP uploads! Here is the link: https://goo.gl/qYecdc Now its up to us to make it happen. Here is a link to my Cam. https://www.lookr.com/lookout/1511274536-Whispering-Pines#action-play-day. I also created a quick free blog where you can embed your camera with the quick and easy to use Embed tool located at the bottom of the image. It also offers time lapse for 24 hrs, 30 days 12 months, lifetime. Really cool. Hope this helps you all get back up and running.
Thanks,
John Hartlove
https://mycoolcams.blogspot.com/
https://www.lookr.com/lookout/1511274536-Whispering-Pines
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KNCWHISP3#history
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Thanks for doing all this work/research WeatherNC...I just completed/submitted my 'survey' (yes, it only takes about 10 seconds unless you want to comment)
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Ok, so WU isn't going to discontinue the webcams now. I wonder if their going to fix the ftp servers, or let them continue to work poorly.
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I posted in other thread nothing has changed. They allow 50 connections at once into FTP server so it's luck of the draw if you get a few images posted daily.
This is what I'm getting over and over.... 421 error for 2 hours straight. Same as before and reason I stopped sending images months ago.
Connecting to webcam.wunderground.com
FTP: 421 50 users (the maximum) are already logged in, sorry
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This is great news!
I have updated the text message on my webcam and I thank WU for making the right decision.
:grin:
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I hear via WXQC that weather underground is putting web cams back online. due to the pressure that was given them. Way to go!!!! :-P
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After my Webcam.io trial ended, I reactivated the camera and my FTP functionality remained (on free account). I like the widget/link capabilities for the current image, and using that address changed my WU camera from FTP to URL, referencing the Webcam.io image.
Seems to be working now, as long as WU admins approve the updated camera.
https://webcam.io/webcams/m9kyqz
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=INOVASCO174
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After my Webcam.io trial ended, I reactivated the camera and my FTP functionality remained (on free account). I like the widget/link capabilities for the current image, and using that address changed my WU camera from FTP to URL, referencing the Webcam.io image.
Seems to be working now, as long as WU admins approve the updated camera.
https://webcam.io/webcams/m9kyqz
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=INOVASCO174
i am doing a one year membership. I can't get WU to reactivate my accounts or even with the new one, nada.
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I sent email to WU asking them what they were doing? Explaining FTP server only 50 users full all the time and now authentication failure. I even added I wanted to fill the WXFORUM members in on what was going on. Probably guaranteed I won't receive any response.
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I sent email to WU asking them what they were doing? Explaining FTP server only 50 users full all the time and now authentication failure. I even added I wanted to fill the WXFORUM members in on what was going on. Probably guaranteed I won't receive an response.
Where I am, I can send them weatherdata from my Davis unit which is where I was to begin with. The Boomsky will send data but no pictures. So I took the suggestion of webcam.io for my site and will go that route with my North and South cameras. I have essentially decided that to FTP images to WU isn't going to happen for a while and I am comfortable with that,now , for me, I have an alternate solution for my situation.
Sometimes the old saying in these parts, "You can't get something for nothing," applies here. so I have ahead of me to deal with Weatherlink2.0 sometime and WU now.
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I'm just trying to get answers for others. I have my own website ao no biggy personally.
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I'm just trying to get answers for others. I have my own website ao no biggy personally.
must a done some good bada bork bada wham, got me webcam pictures and others in my area have cam pics. I just know I will never
again have to worry about wu webcam working now that they are fixed.
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I'm just trying to get answers for others. I have my own website ao no biggy personally.
must a done some good bada bork bada wham, got me webcam pictures and others in my area have cam pics. I just know I will never
again have to worry about wu webcam working now that they are fixed.
Yep just checked FTP is working again....Maybe it will start working
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WU Webcams are up! =D> Just got an Email from support (William) that the login was messed up. wrote me an hour later and asked me to try again. Image is posting!
FTP test reads the following..
Reply: 220-You are user number 372 of 10000 allowed.
Reply: 220-Local time is now 22:09. Server port: 21.
Reply: 220-This is a private system - No anonymous login
Reply: 220 You will be disconnected after 60 seconds of inactivity.
Command: CLNT https://ftptest.net on behalf of 47.35.232.241
Reply: 530 You aren't logged in
Command: USER jhartloveCAM1
Reply: 331 User jhartloveCAM1 OK. Password required
Command: PASS ********
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Well yesterday my WU camera activity updated from "Awaiting approval" to "no", so it seems the admins rejected the webcam.io link? I update to webcam.io every 300s so possibly a software issue with WU set to 300s also? Updated WU to 310s to eliminate possible duplicate images and am now again "awaiting approval".
This may be the last straw with WU cameras......
After my Webcam.io trial ended, I reactivated the camera and my FTP functionality remained (on free account). I like the widget/link capabilities for the current image, and using that address changed my WU camera from FTP to URL, referencing the Webcam.io image.
Seems to be working now, as long as WU admins approve the updated camera.
https://webcam.io/webcams/m9kyqz
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=INOVASCO174
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Same here. I read that it will say "rejected" if in fact your image is rejected. I got a "no" also so naturally I blamed myself because WU is perfect in all ways. So I made a change to my homepage URL and am back to "awaiting approval". When will I learn that WU is a complete mess and to not react every time there is an issue?
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I have given up on WU for now, as far as webcams. I took advice and went with webcam.io. yeah it costs, but it works for now. I am going to try to get both of my Bloomsky cameras back on line, but right now neither is active on my page. I am in no big rush.
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Hey Guys, I'm using FTP. Its working great. As a matter of fact I'm sending two cameras. I asked WU tech William about sending via URL. Here is the reply.
So, give it a day or two.
John
To change to URL, go to https://www.wunderground.com/webcams/signup.html and click "edit" next to an existing cam.
Usually, approval is within a day or so.
Thank you,
William
Wunderground Support
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Web cams are still working here.
KD8DWO
KOHBOWLI4 wunderground station.
Davis weather monitor II.
WHHU software.
Win 10 host.
12/17/2017
12/17/2017
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We Heard You and Webcams are Here to Stay! View in Browser
Weather Underground
I got this email from WU on December 11th :
To our webcam community members:
We heard from many of you about how much you like and rely on our webcam product. So we will not discontinue the product as we stated in November. We will continue to allow users to add webcams to the Weather Underground network and everyone can view images from connected webcams.
Thank you for your passionate support and apologies for any inconvenience we caused.
The WU Team
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Well, I've been struggling all day trying to get my cams to upload on time. I was uploading two but one of them just stopped uploading. They are so inconsistent. I'm only uploading one right now via FTP. I have it set to every 5 mins. It could go from 10 mins to 45 mins. Driving me nuts. Anyone else having this problem? I;m wondering if I should delete my weather station and start over. Or, is it thier servers still screwing up. I'm looking at other cams and they are doing fine. a few are out 45 mins or so. Advice?! :shock:
John
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My cam is set to 5 min. I get upload times from 5 min to 45-50 minutes. Wu has left the cams on, they don't seem to do much more than that.
Maybe as time goes on, they will gear up to take care of the cams and software issues. In the meantime DHYB.
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Well, I've been struggling all day trying to get my cams to upload on time. I was uploading two but one of them just stopped uploading. They are so inconsistent. I'm only uploading one right now via FTP. I have it set to every 5 mins. It could go from 10 mins to 45 mins. Driving me nuts. Anyone else having this problem? I;m wondering if I should delete my weather station and start over. Or, is it thier servers still screwing up. I'm looking at other cams and they are doing fine. a few are out 45 mins or so. Advice?! :shock:
John
I wouldn't do anything yet. Give it a bit more time, although time may not make much of a difference either. I used to use the FTP method which seemed to be very reliable, and it updated pretty regularly at my set interval of every 5 minutes, but when WU had their major server issues late this past summer, I switched over the the URL upload method, which worked, but they are very inconsistent with their timing on grabbing the images. I have it set to once every 5 minutes, but rarely does it actually update every 5 minutes. Sometimes it's 10, sometimes 30, sometimes almost an hour.
So like I said, I wouldn't worry too much about it just yet. It is definitely annoying, but it's not an issue on your end. Still a WU server issue.
- Matt
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Whew! Thanks for the reply’s. Glad I’m not alone. I considered switcing to URL method but was not sure how to do it. Are you using the url directly from your camera or a web site?
Thanks again guys, I hope they get things fixed. Used to be nice when all worked as designed.
John
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Are you using the url directly from your camera or a web site?
John
I have my webcam software send an image to my website directly, and I have Weather Underground grab the image from that website page. At one point I did have WU grab the webcam image URL directly and that did work just fine too. Now it's just as easy (and more reliable) to send the image directly to my website, and just have Weather Underground grab that image when it's convenient for them. At least I know the image on my website is being updated reliably once every 30 seconds, because as we've learned, I can't say the same for the same webcam image on my WU page.
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Sounds like a great way to do it. Wish I knew how to set that up.
Thanks
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What webcam software do you use to send your webcam image to WU currently? It's usually as simple as going into that software program and getting your URL code, and then going into your webcams on your weather underground page and editing your current webcam from FTP to URL. For example, I use YAWCAM software, and in that software there is a tab that gives me my webcam URL, both a still image URL and a live streaming URL. Obviously for WU reasons you need to use the static image URL. Follow the setup directions on that WU page and then they will have to 're-approve' the image, and you should be good to go thereafter.
- Matt
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I use the software in the camera. It's pretty sweet. The camera is like a stand alone server. You can send FTP from it. I can grab the URL and use it from the cam, I'll give that a try. Yawcam is nice, but I don't want to leave my computer running.
Thanks for the advice and support.
Lets hope things get better with WU.
John
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Very cool, and I don’t blame you there! We sure can hope!
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Hey,
Question for you; Where did you find the rapid fire widget you have on your website. Cant seem to locate mine on the WU weather station. I know I've seen it before but I cant seem to locate it.
John
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I lost track of where I found it because it's been a few years since I've needed to edit that part, but I did end up saving the HTML Code...
<object width="600" height="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.wunderground.com/swf/Rapid_Fire.swf?units=english&station=KMELEEDS7"/><embed src="http://www.wunderground.com/swf/Rapid_Fire.swf?units=english&station=KMELEEDS7" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600" height="400"/></object>
Just change the couple places where it says KMELEEDS7 to your Weather Underground Station ID and you should be good to go. And if you want metric and English values displayed, just change the two places where it says "english" to either "metric" for just metric, or "both" for both english and metric values.
- Matt
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Great! :grin: Thank you..
John
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Absolutely!
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Guys Weather Underground has retracted there move to remove the support for webcams so some good news for you all
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Guys Weather Underground has retracted there move to remove the support for webcams so some good news for you all
We knew this was the case but thanks anyways for the heads up. What we're saying is that even though they've opted to continue allowing webcam images to be displayed on their site, their direct support to webcam issues will be minimal to almost non-existent, and the functionality of the servers they use to host the webcam images is poor at best. But, it does work from time to time, and I guess if we go into it expecting there to be issues, we can't get too disappointed. It is after all a pretty neat feature that was rather unique to WU for a while.
- Matt