Topic: Notification emails

[sho23]

Hello,

I've been receiving  the usual notification email "Oh no, your station stopped sending us data on "
It's an amazing feature and I love it! Finally got to test my email forwarding (it forwards the WU email to my boss)

1 - 4/29 3:00PM - 4/29 5:33PM
2 - 4/29 8:45PM - 4/29 11:42PM
3 - 5/1 10:00PM - 5/2 00:34AM
4 - 5/2 8:30PM - 5/2 11:02PM

Questions:
1. On the first email, they included the timestamp on when the station stopped sending data, but on the 2nd email, it only said that it's back up. Is it safe to assume that the timestamp of this 2nd email is when the connection was re-established?
2. I logged in and looked around the WU site and can't find where those alarming email setup and preferences are.
3. Anything obvious to you guys? I checked in with our IT folks, but so far it's root cause is not yet found. I looked at our Virtual machine that's running weatherlink, and there has been no issue there. The data on weatherlink.com is also good (but then again, WL does backfill).

[WunderTodd (PWS PM)]

Hi there -
Thanks for bringing this up.

Email notifications for a PWS not reporting is not an active feature right now.  But...

Something got resurrected via our 3rd party sending the emails -- and they're most likely sending out a queue of stale emails from when this feature was actually active.

We're working to shut that off via the 3rd party vendor.

Sorry for the confusion.  And yes, alerting for a downed PWS is something that's on our radar for the future.

Thanks
--WuT

[sho23]

Gotcha,

Thanks for the update. We'll be waiting for when the feature is back online. 


p.s. Woo I was first to brought it up here.. pretty rare!

[hazyarc]

Hi there -
Thanks for bringing this up.

Email notifications for a PWS not reporting is not an active feature right now.  But...

Something got resurrected via our 3rd party sending the emails -- and they're most likely sending out a queue of stale emails from when this feature was actually active.

We're working to shut that off via the 3rd party vendor.

Sorry for the confusion.  And yes, alerting for a downed PWS is something that's on our radar for the future.

Thanks
--WuT

Interestingly, I received the first outage email for months that my station was down last night (it was).  The timestamp was correct on when it went down, so I doubt your provider is sending stale emails.  As soon as I got it back going, I got a follow up email stating it was back online.

[galfert]

Knowing that my station is down is important to me. I currently use two different weather services to be notified if my station is down plus my weather software in case of bad data also sends alerts. I don't believe in just reporting to one service anyway. This is not a bash on WU, had WU email alerts worked I would still recommend setting up other alerts because you can never trust just one.

Alerts that I use:

• Weather Underground: Back when it worked, it would send out a nice email alert. I can't remember the time frame. Maybe it was 20 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour. I just can't remember now.
• AWEKAS: When you report to AWEKAS they have a 2 hour notification alert that you can turn on. You can't modify the time frame but it works pretty reliably. It really is a shame more people don't use AWEKAS as it is free and has a helpful neighbor station comparison.
• Ambientweather.net: 20 Minute alerts and automatic alert when it resumes. I know what you might be thinking, that you don't have an Ambient station so you can't use it. Not true. If you have a Meteobridge and you get the extra Ambientweather.net license (one time $150) then your station can report to Ambientweather.net. You get a great service and it gives you Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integration plus they have an API that is starting to be used by some 3rd party developers for some other uses. So no I wouldn't pay $150 just for an email alert, but there is much more to gain. If you have a WeatherBridge or Nano purchased form Ambient then you already have this benefit as the license is already included to publish to Ambientweather.net.
  * UPDATE - March 2020 - Ambientweather.net license for Meteobridge has new lower price, now just $100
• Meteobridge: The Meteobridge has some advanced email alerting capabilities that may not be obvious how to use at first glance. But if you follow my guide you'll have it set up in no time. This notifies you if your station is putting out what the Meteobridge considers bad data. This is a different type of alert like if a sensor goes bad or your console is down. This obviously will not work if your Internet is down...which is why the other methods are still required. This method just covers things from a different perspective.
  Follow these instructions to set this up which even through written with the ObserverIP in mind it still applies to other consoles:
  https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=34948.msg357305#msg357305
  

Other Alerts you can use:

• If you have your own hosted website you can set up alerts if it ever stops receiving data. I don't know the particulars for doing this as I'm not yet publishing to my own website, but look into this I'm sure that there must be a solution.
• I'm sure that there are other similar tips that users of other systems/services can recommend for alerts. So ask for users that have your brand station or the 3rd party software that you may be using.
• Lastly if there is an online service that is important to you and they don't provide alerts reach out to them and recommend they add this feature.
  

Remember don't rely on just one. Lastly test it and be sure that it doesn't end up in your Spam junk email folder and make email filters so that this does not occur.

[sho23]

Knowing that my station is down is important to me. I currently use two different weather services to be notified if my station is down plus my weather software in case of bad data also sends alerts. I don't believe in just reporting to one service anyway. This is not a bash on WU, had WU email alerts worked I would still recommend setting up other alerts because you can never trust just one.

...

Remember don't rely on just one. Lastly test it and be sure that it doesn't end up in your Spam junk email folder and make email filters so that this does not occur.

Thanks for the comprehensive response!

I will look into AWEKAS for sure.

As far as the other options, I did consider Meteobridge (and for that matter, also the belfrey(?) data logger upgrade). Still, unfortunately it's not a priority for us. Perhaps once we have a few more up in our other facilities. For actual stand-alone weather station, we go the GOES route with very industrial and scientific sensors/enclosures.

[sho23]

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It appears that the email notification does work.
I've checked that there is data in Weatherlink, and that there's no error log.

Ideas on next troubleshooting steps? I've hard reset it just now and hopefully that'll help.

[CarlosLSev]

Hello, I am interested in receiving a notification if the sending of data to my personal website stops. I do not know that Awekas had this option, I activated it.

Someone create something in php that sends an alert if the web does not update?

[ConligWX]

Hello, I am interested in receiving a notification if the sending of data to my personal website stops. I do not know that Awekas had this option, I activated it.

Someone create something in php that sends an alert if the web does not update?

not sure if the PWS notifications work, but there is a "tick box" in the PWS Settings on WU.

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does it work?

[CarlosLSev]

Thank you, I activated it but it does not indicate time to send notification.
I realized that ecowitt has a 10 minute notice by email if they do not send data. Tested and it works.
Someone made a script or plugin in php that warns if realtime.txt is not up to date (I use CumulusMx)

[TraderGary]

Ambientweather.net: 20 Minute alerts and automatic alert when it resumes. I know what you might be thinking, that you don't have an Ambient station so you can't use it. Not true. If you have a Meteobridge and you get the extra Ambientweather.net license (one time $150) then your station can report to Ambientweather.net. You get a great service and it gives you Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integration plus they have an API that is starting to be used by some 3rd party developers for some other uses. So no I wouldn't pay $150 just for an email alert, but there is much more to gain. If you have a WeatherBridge or Nano purchased form Ambient then you already have this benefit as the license is already included to publish to Ambientweather.net.

I purchased a Meteobridge Pro from ambient sales August of 2020 and took advantage of the one-time included license. It works as advertised. It has notified me of power outages and I also have it set up to notify me whenever the temperature drops below freezing.

[plunet]

Doesn't weathercloud.net also send out emails?
My ISP had a genuine outage last night and I got an alert

On Mon, Mar 1, 2021 at 3:06 AM Weathercloud <notifications@weathercloud.net> wrote:

Your device is offline

Hello plunet,

Your device stopped sending data on March 1, 2021 at 12:38 AM.

A device goes offline after 2 hours without having sent any data. To resume sending data to Weathercloud, please follow the linking instructions for the software you use. You can also check out our FAQ for more information.

[TraderGary]

Doesn't weathercloud.net also send out emails?
My ISP had a genuine outage last night and I got an alert

When you set up an alert, you have a choice of either email or text message.

[galfert]

You all are talking about two different things at the same time.

Yes WeatherCloud sends out email alerts when you station stops sending data if you turn that on under your profile settings called Status Notifications.

Gary is talking about sending alerts from his Meteobridge. This is useful if your station logger stops sending data. But if you have Internet loss then no alert is going to be sent out. It is therefore a good plan to have notifications from many sides....in and outside of your network.

There are also numerous other online services that can also be used to send notifications if data stops. Some of these are AWEKAS, Ambientweather.net, Ecowitt.net, WeatherCloud as mentioned and there likely exist others. I don't have comprehensive list. I'd say turn on as many as you can. I don't know if the WU alert works...it used to work but I'm not sure I would trust it today. If you put the notification on as many other services as you can then you increase your chance of being notified.

Also just because an alert is sent there also exists the possibility that you will not see it if it goes to your spam folder. For this reason I would like to see online service provide a means to test the alerts. Unfortunately that is not possible. I suppose you can manually disable data upload and then stop the upload to trigger the alert...but then you are missing out on data for historical purposes. One solution is to set up test accounts with the corresponding online services and then upload to them via a test software installation. Using Cumulus MX or WeeWX would be good choices to test uploading with a second software install (if your logger allows multiple connections).

[CarlosLSev]

Hello there a script that warns if the file is not updated. Valid for CumulusMX I understand that it would serve more clients.

Flatline-check.php
https://jcweather.us/scripts.php

[WSWeather]

The WU alert hasn't worked for years.