Author Topic: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates  (Read 3081 times)

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Offline Flessan

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"Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« on: June 04, 2018, 10:44:33 AM »
Hi fellow PWS enthusiasts.
 
Recent issues with our PWS pages seem to be fixed, but I noticed the Rapid Fire pages, like these: http://www.wunderground.com/swf/Rapid_Fire.swf?units=english&station=KFLRIVER11
appear to now only update once per minute. That's hardly "rapid".
 
I have sent 3 emails to help@wunderground.com but haven't received any replies.
 
Does anyone have their rapid fire page updating more frequently than one minute?  All of the ones near my location are now useless.

Offline Felix1

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2018, 12:22:23 PM »
I just took a look at Lake Fantasia and it appears to be Rapid Fire updating OK...wind speed is changing every few seconds and I didn't see a "Station Reported" interval longer than four seconds over a (roughly) 30 second sample.

Offline Flessan

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2018, 01:38:36 PM »
Did you use the link I included?  I'm talking about the flash version that has a nifty graph of wind speed.  I'm attaching an image capture.
 

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2018, 03:21:35 PM »
Did you use the link I included?  I'm talking about the flash version that has a nifty graph of wind speed.  I'm attaching an image capture.

FYI most browers will no longer allow flash.
Randy

Offline Felix1

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2018, 04:29:48 PM »
Did you use the link I included? 


Your link wouldn't open since I don't allow Flash. So I just looked your station up.

Offline Flessan

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2018, 10:00:47 PM »
But...since they refuse to convert to html5 (suggested eons ago), they agreed to continue the flash version.  Both Chrome and Edge still support flash.  Either replace it with html5, or fix it.
 

Offline wunderground-PWS

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2018, 06:07:18 PM »
"Supporting" the old rapidfire flash app is maybe an overstatement. No one is actively killing it.

You can continue to find most rapidfire features on the PWS dashboard. 

Offline Flessan

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2018, 07:09:26 PM »
"Supporting" the old rapidfire flash app is maybe an overstatement. No one is actively killing it.

You can continue to find most rapidfire features on the PWS dashboard. 

Hi Tim!
 
So, you are saying it's not being killed, yet it has changed.  Can you perhaps look into why the flash app is only updating every minute now?  It used to update every couple of seconds.
 
Thanks!

Offline wunderground-PWS

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2018, 07:38:27 PM »
I can promise you it hasn't been changed we no longer have the source code :)

Since we don't have the source code, I can't tell exactly whats happening inside there, but what it looks like to me is that the browser is limiting the number of calls flash can make.   If anyone has an ancient browser, I'd love to test this theory.



Offline Flessan

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #9 on: June 05, 2018, 07:59:38 PM »
I can promise you it hasn't been changed we no longer have the source code :)

Since we don't have the source code, I can't tell exactly whats happening inside there, but what it looks like to me is that the browser is limiting the number of calls flash can make.   If anyone has an ancient browser, I'd love to test this theory.

Seems unlikely.  It changed on Chrome, Edge, and IE at the same time. Pretty much when all the other issues started with missing data.  It updates at exactly one minute interval now.  You guys should try to find the version you had a couple of years ago. That one never stalled (this one stops updating after about 15 minutes), and you could click it to go to your data page.
 

Offline Flessan

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2018, 08:36:42 PM »
I can promise you it hasn't been changed we no longer have the source code :)

Since we don't have the source code, I can't tell exactly whats happening inside there, but what it looks like to me is that the browser is limiting the number of calls flash can make.   If anyone has an ancient browser, I'd love to test this theory.

Ok.  I completely uninstalled flash and loaded a previous version from February. I verified that I was running the older version (28.0.0.161 vs 29.0.0.171).  The updates continued to come at exactly 1 minute intervals.  Is it possible that the data feeding the flash app is only arriving every minute?  If you didn't change the flash app, then perhaps it's not getting the rapid updates.  It's definitely not flash causing the issue.
 

Offline wunderground-PWS

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2018, 08:50:22 PM »
Well you got me digging...
today i learned that there are flash decompilers!

Took a look through the decompiled rapidfire code, and found the issue, it relies on a deprecated feature to process its updates

I'm going to stress again that this flash product is End of Life and unsupported.  I'll let the designers know that there are folks who love the wind display, and would like it to be present in the new dashboard. 


Offline Flessan

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #12 on: June 05, 2018, 10:05:10 PM »
Tim, That would rock!
 
It'd be great if we could move away from flash but still keep the wind graph!
 

Offline DoctorKnow

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2018, 12:35:04 PM »
The previous background image that used google had the live wind icons. When Wunderground changed to "mapbox" the icons only update all at once about once every minute or so. Not having the rapid updates really defeats the purpose of having a weather station that updates any less than about 1 minute IMO. Users buy high dollar stations to push fast updates so that during heavy weather, those who need to see the information are getting it instantly. Making the updates slower, is like going back to doppler radars that used to only update every 10 to 15 minutes during severe storms.

Here is the old map... It is just blank now. https://maps.wunderground.com/wundermap/
I would really enjoy having the old functionality with all the radar beam tilts and storm tracking agian.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 12:39:56 PM by DoctorKnow »

Offline searay43

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Offline gopher

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Offline Mtnviper

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #16 on: June 07, 2018, 02:47:16 PM »
I see it as the site being down from 5/29/18 to now.

Offline gopher

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #17 on: June 07, 2018, 03:20:33 PM »
I see it as the site being down from 5/29/18 to now.

Can you please be more specific?  What function of weatherstation.wunderground.com do you believe is down or not working?

Offline Mtnviper

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2018, 03:23:02 PM »
Weather Underground RapidFire (weatherstation.wunderground.com)

I'm not a techy but it says "Weather Underground RapidFire (weatherstation.wunderground.com)".  So I guess it is referring to Rapidfire.  Weatherstation.wunderground.com is being pinged every minute and has not had a response since 5/29/18.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2018, 03:28:26 PM by Mtnviper »

Offline WSWeather

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Re: "Not so" Rapid Fire updates
« Reply #19 on: June 07, 2018, 06:12:39 PM »
Weather Underground RapidFire (weatherstation.wunderground.com)

I'm not a techy but it says "Weather Underground RapidFire (weatherstation.wunderground.com)".  So I guess it is referring to Rapidfire.  Weatherstation.wunderground.com is being pinged every minute and has not had a response since 5/29/18.

All that means is the server does not respond to pings.  It's an Amazon AWS cloud server, and that's not unusual.  If you try to pull a webpage from that URL it comes back 404 which means there *is* something running there.

 

anything