Author Topic: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken. [RESOLVED]  (Read 8661 times)

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Offline kray1000

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken.
« Reply #25 on: October 15, 2009, 10:02:39 PM »
I see that WU now supports fetching of images from a public URL (I see no reason why opening a port in our router wouldn't work), instead of having to FTP them.

Offline WeatherGoose

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken.
« Reply #26 on: October 15, 2009, 11:18:38 PM »

As far as the "unknown" data not appearing issues since April, have you thought about signing up as a new weather station, with a new WU Station Id?

All of the PWS up here have the same problem.  It stems from a BUG in some kind of algorithm that WU uses for fetching the current conditions.  It is under the false impression that there are NO stations within a 60 mile radius that is sending Current Condition data.  We have two regional airports, and close to a dozen PWS stations within our zip code, and more than a third of those are sending WU conditions data.  The airports are actually OBSERVED reports done by a human being, so there is no way that our area is devoid of the data.

I was pleased to receive another reply from the HUMAN I had been talking to at WU tonight!  :D  He told me that he was not able to work on this today, but another issue they have been resolving had some similarities to this problem.  He promised me that he would be seriously working on this tomorrow and will report back.

I will be keeping a close eye on my WU page tomorrow and looking for those QUESTION MARK icons to FINALLY go away!  It will be SO NICE to see a real condition report for our area on there after all these many months of NULL readings.  ;)


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Offline sam2004gp

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken. [Resolved]
« Reply #27 on: October 16, 2009, 10:45:20 AM »
Good News it's working this morning.  I got this email early (5:30am) this morning.
Quote
Sam,
The person who would easily know how to fix this is out of town until Monday, but I have sent out a plea to all staff, so I'm hoping it gets fixed before Monday.


Thank you for your support!

Weather Underground, Inc
http://www.wunderground.com/

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: LRD-XXXXXX
Category: Webcams


Also yesterday evening I reinstated my ftp uploads to them.  
I have also checked the other stations that had this problem this morning and they also appear to be working.

So I guess they got in touch with someone to jump onto the problem. =D> \:D/

SAM --->>> http://www.mountcrawfordweather.org
OS WMR-968 with a Dedicated PWS Weather Computer running VWS v13.01 p09


Offline Bruiser

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken. [RESOLVED]
« Reply #28 on: October 17, 2009, 03:57:33 PM »
Glad to see all is working now.  Sorry you had those issues with support Goose......

I have been lucky, I have had to contact WU 3 times and each time a 'human' support person emailed me back within 24 hours and corrected the issue.

Hopefully you were not in contact with a person in perpetual training mode :)

Offline WeatherGoose

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken. [RESOLVED]
« Reply #29 on: October 17, 2009, 07:46:00 PM »
Glad to see all is working now.  Sorry you had those issues with support Goose......

I have been lucky, I have had to contact WU 3 times and each time a 'human' support person emailed me back within 24 hours and corrected the issue.

Hopefully you were not in contact with a person in perpetual training mode :)

Thanks Bruiser,

I am now in contact with a service rep and they are working on the problem.  From what I have learned so far, the reason we don't have any current conditions is that the nearest airport is at a far lower elevation than we are up here at 3600 feet.  Well, DUH!   :lol:

I told him that I wouldn't want KFAT as our conditions report anyway because they are practically at sea level and being down there in the valley, they get FOG a good deal of the year, which rarely comes up here.  We have three other airports in the area including Mammoth Lakes, which although farther away mileage wise, are closer in altitude to us and actually in the Sierra foothills or in the Sierra National Forest as we are here.

Frankly, I was very surprised that they would be using such a funky method of getting current conditions for all the reasons I stated above.

In the end, it all boils down to whether or not they are going to be willing to change the way they currently handle all of this.  It would take a rewrite of their conditions algorithm most likely, so I am not holding my breath.

Still... If they are going to force PWS owners to use an airport in order to get their current conditions, it would make a lot more sense to allow the PWS station to CHOOSE the BEST airport in their area based on similarities to actual weather conditions rather than a basic DISTANCE argument.

The more I work with WU, the more I find a lot of what they are doing kind of dumb.  Not the way I would have set all this up.  I am sure there are a lot of PWS owners across the country who are dealing with this exact same problem.  What happens if there are NO airports in your area, but plenty of other HUMAN OBSERVED sources like RANGER STATIONS and services like that?  :roll:

Anyway... I will keep you guys posted on what finally happens.

When you see my weather sticker stop saying UNKNOWN and the never changing SUN icon switch to something else, you will know they actually fixed it!  ;)

Cheers.  :)
« Last Edit: October 17, 2009, 07:49:23 PM by WeatherGoose »


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Offline Weather Display

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken. [RESOLVED]
« Reply #30 on: October 17, 2009, 09:43:43 PM »
but you dont have to use a METAR to get current conditions sent to WU
you can use your stations data to that (if you have a solar sensor)
(might depend on the software being used)
Brian
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Offline WeatherGoose

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken. [RESOLVED]
« Reply #31 on: October 17, 2009, 10:27:16 PM »
but you dont have to use a METAR to get current conditions sent to WU
you can use your stations data to that (if you have a solar sensor)
(might depend on the software being used)

I have both solar and UV and I am sending this to WU.  They are not using it for current conditions.  Why, I don't know.  I have raised that question with them several times since I would much prefer to have my station supply our current conditions.  They have not as of yet addressed this point in any of their replies.

UPDATE:  Funny that I just now received a reply from WU on this very issue!  I am impressed that they would be responding on a weekend! :)

According to them, they ARE receiving all the data they require from my station in order to allow it to determine the current conditions.  The problem right now is that not all parts of their site are currently able to apply that data in determing our current conditions.  Apparently, a very small percentage of the PWS stations on the network currently send solar related data to WU, so there has not been that much of a demand for this added capability.  This could be changing based on their reply, and I have been assured that they WILL be making the required changes to their site in the future and that I just need to be patient while these changes are applied.  Whether that "future" is next week, next month or next year remains to be seen.  ;)

So... I guess I will just hang back and take them at their word that eventually, my PWS will be permitted to provide the current conditions for our area.  Can't wait for that day to arrive!  It would sure be a lot more accurate than the data from an airport 50 miles away!
« Last Edit: October 17, 2009, 11:35:57 PM by WeatherGoose »


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Offline Weather Display

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Re: Wunderground Webcam 24 Hour timelapse broken. [RESOLVED]
« Reply #32 on: October 18, 2009, 11:00:40 PM »
thats not what I was meaning
I am meaning that the software can use your solar data to set the current conditions to send to WU
Brian
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http://www.weather-display.com

 

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