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Weather Software => GRLevel X Software => Topic started by: saratogaWX on May 16, 2016, 02:29:36 PM

Title: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: saratogaWX on May 16, 2016, 02:29:36 PM
On the GRLevelX forum (http://www.grlevelx.com/owners/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9742) Mike says
Quote
The current public NWS server is changing to a different URL. Here's a link to the SCN:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/notification/scn16-16wng.htm

According to that SCN, the current public NWS server URL will stop working on June 15, 2016. Unless NOAA implements some sort of redirect on the current URL then the results will be catastrophic for GRLevel3 1.xx users and GRLevel3 2.40 or earlier users.

Impact on specific GR programs:

1. GRLevel3 1.xx
Complete loss of radar data. There is no recourse except to upgrade to GRLevel3 2.50 or higher. See the FAQ: For GRlevel3 1.xx Users post for information on upgrading to GR3 2.xx: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=7160

2. GRLevel3 2.40 and earlier
Complete loss of radar and live LSR data. Must update installations to GRLevel3 2.50 or higher.

3. GR2Analyst 2.41 and earlier
Loss of live LSR data. Must update to GR2Analyst 2.50 or higher.

NOTE: people using a private L3 server, like AllisonHouse.com, will continue to receive live L3 data.

Mike

So.. if you're running one of the older versions AND using public NWS feeds, you'll need to update your software.  I just did to GRLevel3 2.50
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: gwwilk on May 17, 2016, 09:39:41 AM
Thanks, Ken!  I'm running GRLevel3 2.12, so I need to upgrade.
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: MegaMax on May 17, 2016, 09:04:14 PM
We had to download and reinstall grlevel3 yesterday and it wasn't 2.5. Any idea when it will be available?
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: Forever on May 17, 2016, 09:14:09 PM
If it was 2.50 then your good to go.
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: MegaMax on May 17, 2016, 10:11:31 PM
We got 2.41 or something like that.
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: LFWX on May 17, 2016, 10:14:50 PM
Thanks Ken!

I'm one of those using AllisonHouse for radar and lightning data, but not for LSRs (I prefer the default look).

...so I'll need to update.

Hopefully http://warnings.cod.edu continues to work for warnings.
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: saratogaWX on May 17, 2016, 11:18:06 PM
We had to download and reinstall grlevel3 yesterday and it wasn't 2.5. Any idea when it will be available?

It's available now... see http://www.grlevelx.com/owners/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9751 for the link.
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: WeatherHost on May 21, 2016, 03:37:33 PM
I'm really hoping somebody comes up with an option for this URL issue.  Dr. Mike is up to his usual bedside manner and his laboratory assistant Irrick  is right there lapping at his master's heels.  I really am not anxious to send any more money that way.

I guess I could use NWS radar, or maybe go back to Intellicast now that it's been released from the dungeon.

I like(d) GR3 since it was configurable and I really have no interest in 'upgrading'.

Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: ocala on May 21, 2016, 08:03:23 PM
Luckily for me there is a guy in Florida who is nice enough to give away a free feed for the Florida and surrounding states.
But to be honest I rarely use GR3 anymore. With the advent of the smartphone weather apps I just don't need it. Now if I had a website that would be different.
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: Farmtalk on May 26, 2016, 10:54:14 AM
Not going to lie, that's gonna hurt for me. I use both GRLevel 3 1.9 and GRLevel 3 2.5. I use 1.9 strictly to post online, just to reduce bandwidth usage. Doesn't look like I'm going to have much choice but to use 2.5 now. Not Mike's fault, but it still sucks nonetheless.  :-( :roll:
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: WeatherHost on August 14, 2016, 03:35:01 PM
Still working as of now.  Word is that may change tomorrow, so I guess we'll see.

Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: mackbig on August 24, 2016, 04:37:14 PM
Hey All
I have been absent for quite a while.  Of course site problems get me back online.
I can say I lost my GR3 feed at 10:32:49 EDT, Aug 23rd 2016.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Andrew
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: PaulMy on August 24, 2016, 05:13:01 PM
Nice to hear from you Andrew and hope that you too are doing well.  I know your site had been running well...

Paul
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: mackbig on August 29, 2016, 05:08:02 PM
Hey Paul
Good to hear from you as well.  I assume you had a hot dry summer like the rest of southern Ontario?  It was dry till baseball playoffs the last few weeks, then of course we started getting some rain.
 
I quickly installed and configured GR3-2 Thursday night because I was heading up north for the weekend.  What a pain.  Oh well I guess all software becomes outdated.  I have to redo the Autoit and figure out if there is a way to change the map.  Big ugly line near my area on the included automatic map. Version 1 was better for our sites, but the author said many times he didnt design it for PWS owners.

I am going to peruse some threads and see what I have been missing the last few years.

Andrew
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: PaulMy on August 29, 2016, 05:17:31 PM
Hi Andrew,
Yes, extremely dry until the day we returned from our cottage in Eastern Ontario, then rain 12 if the next 15 days.

I received a message from a Windsor user last week about his GRLevel3, and while I couldn't help him as I don't use it, he was able to get it working again.

Well one of the things you may have missed is that Ann-Marie and I got our Blitzortubng stations working with the great help of this forum but most especially Don Froula http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=en (http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=en)

Enjoy,
Paul
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: WeatherHost on August 31, 2016, 05:32:12 PM
If you're running Version 1.92, try this:

Stop Polling

File  >>  Configure Polling

Check the 'Use FTP' box.

Start Polling

See what happens.

Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: longbow12 on September 01, 2016, 04:30:05 PM
Thanks Ken

I was wondering why I was not getting any radar available, all fixed now  :grin:
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: radar27 on September 22, 2016, 08:05:11 PM
Hi All, I had been using GRLevel3 version 1.41 for some time and recently discovered the radar feed was no longer working. Though a Google search, I found this thread which helped explain what was wrong.  I decided to dive into the issue to see if there was something that could be done to restore the radar feed without the need to upgrade.  Fortunately, all the needed data is still there, we just needed a URL translation to get to it.  The following has been tested on Windows 10 64 bit, but should work on Windows 7, 8/8.1 and probably Server 2008/2012/2016.

After running GRLevel3 through a local proxy server, it was discovered that it is trying to pull radar data from http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/, which is now decommissioned.  Following the notice posted took me to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/notification/scn16-16wngccb.htm that included the URLs which superseded the http://weather.noaa.gov site.  It turns out that the feed we need is now available at http://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/.  This means all we have to do is translate what is destined to http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/ to http://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/.  Fortunately, this capability is well within range when using the open source Apache webserver (http://httpd.apache.org).  This, coupled with a local hosts file edit can restore the maps.  Here are the steps to do so.

1)   Download a compiled version of Apache version 2.4 for Windows from http://www.apachelounge.com/download/.  Be sure to select the correct version for your Operating system (32bit versus 64bit). 
2)   Download the Visual Studio Redistributable from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53840.
3)   Unpack the Apache zip file to some convenient location, this can use native Windows unzip or other utilities like 7-zip.  Enter the unpacked folder (httpd-2.4.23-win64-VC14 for the 64 bit version at the time of this writing).  Within that folder there will be a folder labeled Apache24. 
4)   Move the Apache24 folder to the root of the C:\ drive.  You may be prompted if you have UAC enabled on your system.
5)   Navigate to C:\Apache24\conf folder and open up httpd.conf, if prompted, you will probably want to use Notepad.  Clear out all of it’s contents and paste in the following:

ServerRoot "c:/Apache24"
Listen 127.0.0.1:80
LoadModule access_compat_module modules/mod_access_compat.so
LoadModule actions_module modules/mod_actions.so
LoadModule authz_core_module modules/mod_authz_core.so
LoadModule autoindex_module modules/mod_autoindex.so
LoadModule env_module modules/mod_env.so
LoadModule include_module modules/mod_include.so
LoadModule isapi_module modules/mod_isapi.so
LoadModule negotiation_module modules/mod_negotiation.so
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
<Directory />
    AllowOverride none
    Require all denied
</Directory>
DocumentRoot "c:/Apache24/htdocs"
<Directory "c:/Apache24/htdocs">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>
<Files ".ht*">
    Require all denied
</Files>

ProxyPass "/pub" "http://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/"
ProxyPassReverse "/pub" "http://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/"
ProxyRequests On
ProxyVia On

6)   Save the http.conf, if UAC is enabled, you may need to save this to a Documents folder and copy (and overwrite) the contents in C:\Apache24\conf\httpd.conf
7)   Run the Visual Studio Redistributable (vc_redist.exe) and accept all defaults
8)   Open up notepad as an administrator
9)   Go to File -> Open
In the file name box, paste in:
C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
10)   Hit Open
11)   This will present you with the systems hosts file, we want to add the following in one line, at the bottom:

127.0.0.1   weather.noaa.gov

12)   Go to File -> Exit, when asked to save, say yes.
13)   Open up a command prompt as an administrator
14)   Type:

cd \Apache24\bin

httpd.exe

15)   At this point the proxy should be active, open up GRLevel3 and go to your home site (or navigate around to a site that may have activity).   You should see radar imaging populate.
16)   If everything works ok, you can install Apache to execute as a system service automatically.  At the command prompt (run as administrator), hit CTRL+C to stop the httpd.exe process.  Once it exits and you get the C:\ prompt, type the following:

httpd.exe -k install

17)   Lastly, you can start the apache service by typing:

sc start Apache2.4

18)   The apache service is now started and will automatically start with the system and GRLevel3 version 1.41 should work as it had previously.

Enjoy!  :-)
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: zeppline on January 05, 2017, 12:56:44 PM
I am running ken's template and trying to setup GR3radar but can not get the images to work. I am new to php and learning. Do I have to get a license for the feed? Is there a step by step for setup, have tried to follow Ken's information and I am lost. I tried to register at the grlevel3 forum but no reply.  Thanks Joe

    http://lasvegaswx.com/wxgr3radar.php   (http://lasvegaswx.com/wxgr3radar.php)
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: BigOkie on January 05, 2017, 01:23:36 PM
I am running ken's template and trying to setup GR3radar but can not get the images to work. I am new to php and learning. Do I have to get a license for the feed? Is there a step by step for setup, have tried to follow Ken's information and I am lost. I tried to register at the grlevel3 forum but no reply.  Thanks Joe

    http://lasvegaswx.com/wxgr3radar.php   (http://lasvegaswx.com/wxgr3radar.php)

Do you have a copy of GRLevel3 running?
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: zeppline on January 05, 2017, 02:25:46 PM
I have Ken's wxgr3radar and GR3 directory, and GR3-radar-inc.php  on Hostgator and configured for my radar site   kesx . What am I missing?   
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: tbrasel on January 05, 2017, 03:01:50 PM
Might start here, if you have not previously been to this site?

http://www.grlevelx.com/

Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: zeppline on January 05, 2017, 03:39:01 PM
 I registered on  Owner Forum but have not got a password  has been several days.  Thanks
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: Maumelle Weather on January 05, 2017, 04:02:00 PM
Have you purchased the program or are you using the trial version?
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: zeppline on January 05, 2017, 05:40:30 PM
I'm on the trial for know.  Thank to Bigokie, tbasel for the help. I have it running, need to play for a while a lot of thing to look at.  Thanks Joe
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: APXwxMan on March 01, 2017, 06:24:32 AM
Apologies if this is not where to ask a particular question. I chose the closest thing I could find. My GRlevel3 data no longer shows up when I start the program. Any thoughts or suggestions? Was there some sort of update that I need? Did something change?

Thank you for any assistance.

APXwxMan
Title: Re: NWS changing radar URLs.. GRLevel3/GR2Analyst users may need updates...
Post by: WeatherHost on March 01, 2017, 07:40:10 AM
Start reading from the beginning of the thread you posted to.  There are a few options.