Topic: WEather Underground Support, Features and Reliability

[Breezy Point]

WU continues to dumb down the product. The new app provides less information with more clicks to get to the lower amount of information. Now gone is the regional radar link. To see what is coming you can only get a tiny view in the map window. I have reached the final straw and will be withdrawing my station from weather underground. I know I am only one person out of thousands, but I am unwilling to participate in this mediocrity.

[rrwcf]

WIN-X MS updated OS this morning and the PC rebooted... (I don't use a script to start WeatherLink... So, I get the Message from WU:

Oh no, your station stopped sending us data on September 25 at 6:15 AM

.

I replied with this:

Just so I understand…

You want ME to get my PWS back online so YOU can make money and pay employees to WORK at making more money for you…

AND…

YOU WON’T REPLY TO MY CONSTANT REQUESTS TO DO YOUR JOB??!

Is that how it is?

How about getting my WebCam registered?
How about getting Rapid Fire up and running?
How about making WunderMap work correctly?
How about getting Doppler storm detection back?
How about keeping your servers up and not letting events like last week happen again?

WHY DO YOU THINK IT IS THAT I WANT TO INVEST IN EXCELLENT GEAR, INSTALLATION, AND TIME TO PROVIDE EXCELLENT GOLD-STAR SERVICE WHILE
YOU WON’T EVEN RESPOND TO HELP REQUESTS??

TELL ME!

I’LL BE TAKING MY DATA ELSEWHERE – AND SOON – IF THIS DOESN’T CHANGE.

In case you forgot, PWS is the backbone of your system.

Keep that in mind.

[Jáchym]

"My mom always said life was like Weather Underground. You never know what you're gonna get."

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Well, this community, at least salvaged about half of the WU NOAA Weather Radio streams... + about that many new ones.... it's amazing how many sites, big and small, WU messed up with that drop... and that fiasco began just about the same way this Cam issue started... we overloaded servers with those links during IRMA... too bad WU.
http://noaaweatherradio.org/about/



Cheers!

[Soweather]

Is it just me or have they forgotten the people they make their money on?

Getting a bit upset here to, with five weatherstations invested in over the years.  My paragliding club depends on these things functioning, and also have set one up for a very popular surfing site.  These cams look at places no one else has coverage for.  If WU doesn't fix this soon, I will be obliged to move their hosting, and won't be coming back.

[SLOweather]

I'm no apologist for WU, but let's look at some numbers.

https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/overview.asp claims >250,000 PWSes uploading to them.

https://www.wunderground.com/webcams/ says 4,342,482 images uploaded today, 452,220 videos created today. It's a little after noon Central Time so double those numbers to get a 24 hour estimate. Almost 9 million images and 900,000 videos a day.

It's a wonder that any of  it works at all.

Now then, if just 0.1% of their claimed PWS owners send an email on a given day, that's 250 emails to sort through and answer, every day.

Finally, according to http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?action=mlist;sort=registered;start=0 wxforum has 12,226 members registered today. IF every every registered member was sending data to WU, AND we all decided to stop sending data today, they would lose 4.9% of their PWSes. I doubt they'd even notice.

We all know WU was bought by IBM. (The Weather Channel is apparently  NOT owned by IBM.) https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/weather-underground-bought-by-ibm.html October 28, 2015

So, IBM gets all of the live and historical WU data to play with. I doubt they care a lot about the crap data that some stations send. It's free to them, and they can filter that out easily enough, and then mash the rest, crunch it, and resell it. All they have to do is keep the masses happy enough to keep sending data. And, they cut back on what they perceive to be non-essential services, features and expenses.

(A couple of weeks ago, I had a request from a WeatherElement user to send his data to WU. It's easy enough, we do it from the server, so it's just an entry in a database table. But I asked why. It turns out the a bunch of his friends work for IBM and were hassling him about it. Peer pressure... Sheesh. So I set him up to send to PWSweather too.)

I'll throw out one more thought... As near as I can tell, the infamous "gold stars" started appearing sometime around early August 2016. This MIGHT be something some IBM programmer cooked up as a first, albeit ineffective, cut at data quality analysis, less than a year after the purchase.

[Jáchym]

On the other hand, it is almost unbeliavable.... if you look at posts on this forum over the last week or two, about half of them are about something not working at WU...

[Bashy]

WU is free is it not? you do not pay anything of the usage, in fact, dont we get the ad free version for sending data?

If you rely on a free third party source to view your data, then you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Failing that, get yourself your own website, hosting is as little as free nowadays (limited) a domain is a few quid
and a free template such as Jachym's.

Want to go even better? you can have your own dedicated server for as little as $6pm you need to know what ya
doing mind but its all out there, cheap as chips, then you can moan at yourself for being offline lol

[Jáchym]

I will have to disagree with you about this. Fact you provide something for free doesnt mean it doesnt have to work. If they want to make more money, they should monetize it, if not leave it as it is. But either way, if they want to do it in the first place, it should work.

[Bashy]

It's free, use it or don't, you do have a choice.

[rrwcf]

UPDATE !

Good News!  I got a response from WU - and an explanation. 

The employee who was responsible for taking and answering questions (and complaints) from PWS owners left the job.  WU is advertising the position now... they hope to hire from within.

I hope that happens soon.

I did get my question(s) answered and I am satisfied. 

Honestly, I am surprised how EASY it was to change my mind.

Russ

[Bashy]

That explains a lot   it's not a job I would want, I know what you lit are like, it would be a lynch mob ha ha ha

[rrwcf]

That explains a lot   it's not a job I would want, I know what you lit are like, it would be a lynch mob ha ha ha

I ACTUALLY DID apply for the job... (i.e. offered) - but they want someone to live and work in CALIFORNIA.

I think not.

[Jáchym]

Should I move to CA? 

[Breezy Point]

WU is free is it not? you do not pay anything of the usage, in fact, dont we get the ad free version for sending data?

If you rely on a free third party source to view your data, then you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Failing that, get yourself your own website, hosting is as little as free nowadays (limited) a domain is a few quid
and a free template such as Jachym's.

Want to go even better? you can have your own dedicated server for as little as $6pm you need to know what ya
doing mind but its all out there, cheap as chips, then you can moan at yourself for being offline lol

Sorry Bashy, it's not free. To obtain advertising free service we must provide data to them. They then take this data and sell it without royalty to us. We need to maintain the station and its quality. I do expect reliable and quality service from them in exchange for fueling their economic engine.

[Jáchym]

And I personally still think that free doesnt mean it can be completely buggy.

Price and functionality are two different things. If they decided to do what they do in the first place, it should work, just my 2 cents

[Bunty]

Should I move to CA? 

No, the weather there is usually too boringly good.

[Bashy]

WU is free is it not? you do not pay anything of the usage, in fact, dont we get the ad free version for sending data?

If you rely on a free third party source to view your data, then you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Failing that, get yourself your own website, hosting is as little as free nowadays (limited) a domain is a few quid
and a free template such as Jachym's.

Want to go even better? you can have your own dedicated server for as little as $6pm you need to know what ya
doing mind but its all out there, cheap as chips, then you can moan at yourself for being offline lol

Sorry Bashy, it's not free. To obtain advertising free service we must provide data to them. They then take this data and sell it without royalty to us. We need to maintain the station and its quality. I do expect reliable and quality service from them in exchange for fueling their economic engine.

Ya kidding right? thats exactly what i said......we get ad free for sending data,

I have deleted the rest of my post and edits, getting bored with it all now.

But i will reply this,

If they decided to do what they do in the first place, it should work, just my 2 cents

Does everything work as it should with your template?
Have you ever had bugs that needed fixing?
Are all the bugs now fixed?

Im not having a dig, im just saying......

[Jáchym]

Does everything work as it should with your template?
- mostly
Have you ever had bugs that needed fixing?
- yes and they were fixed, or at least I tried and responded to the bug reports I got ASAP

It becomes a problem when a major percentage of your pages dont work, you do not reply to any bug reports (at least my experience), you ignore users and you make unpopular changes.

[Bashy]

I will leave it there....

[ocala]

WU is free is it not? you do not pay anything of the usage, in fact, dont we get the ad free version for sending data?

If you rely on a free third party source to view your data, then you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Failing that, get yourself your own website, hosting is as little as free nowadays (limited) a domain is a few quid
and a free template such as Jachym's.

Want to go even better? you can have your own dedicated server for as little as $6pm you need to know what ya
doing mind but its all out there, cheap as chips, then you can moan at yourself for being offline lol

Sorry Bashy, it's not free. To obtain advertising free service we must provide data to them. They then take this data and sell it without royalty to us. We need to maintain the station and its quality. I do expect reliable and quality service from them in exchange for fueling their economic engine.

I don't understand this thinking. If you don't want them to sell your data then don't send it.
Nobody is forcing you to do this.
As for maintaining your station you knew that when you bought it. It's part of owning one.
Listen, all you guys bitchin about WU just stop sending sending your data.
Imagine how much better you'll sleep at night.

[Bashy]

WU is free is it not? you do not pay anything of the usage, in fact, dont we get the ad free version for sending data?

If you rely on a free third party source to view your data, then you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Failing that, get yourself your own website, hosting is as little as free nowadays (limited) a domain is a few quid
and a free template such as Jachym's.

Want to go even better? you can have your own dedicated server for as little as $6pm you need to know what ya
doing mind but its all out there, cheap as chips, then you can moan at yourself for being offline lol

Sorry Bashy, it's not free. To obtain advertising free service we must provide data to them. They then take this data and sell it without royalty to us. We need to maintain the station and its quality. I do expect reliable and quality service from them in exchange for fueling their economic engine.

I don't understand this thinking. If you don't want them to sell your data then don't send it.
Nobody is forcing you to do this.
As for maintaining your station you knew that when you bought it. It's part of owning one.
Listen, all you guys bitchin about WU just stop sending sending your data.
Imagine how much better you'll sleep at night.

 

[Glenn]

Both stations are reporting out; no problems there. But when I go to the "forecast" section, I can just get the next 36 hours. Nothing is showing up for the radar, local stations or other tiles. When I click on the 10 days, I get a mostly blank screen.

[Glenn]

Interesting. 10 day doesn't work in Chrome, but works in IE. 

[benay ra'am]

Interesting. 10 day doesn't work in Chrome, but works in IE. 

I had a few hiccups a week or so ago but both of my stations are running pretty good on WU even rapid fire is working. I don't use google chrome but Fire Fox and IE11 is working fine. I cannot comment on webcams, photos, noaa radio and what not as I'm a NFG on the weather scene and I cannot gripe on features I never had.