VWS

[Garth Bock]

Oh crap....I feel that I have opened a can of worms here. Not my intention and I do apologize to everyone. I was hoping to see what kind of things you would like to see in the next version. I didnt mean to start complaint box here, just a " it would great if the next version had this...or that" neat thing. Whether or not its possible, I was just hoping to spark a conversion of some brainstorming and some wishes. I think it would be best to drop this conversation and move on to other things. Once again I apologize to all.

[DaculaWeather]

 

I have one... more tags like WD.

[mackbig]

My only "wish" item would be a switch to turn off... "wait for all sensors"

I understand why it was put in there in the first place, but the way I use(d) VWS I had 3 extra temp/hygro sensors.  If the garage thermo/hygro just happened to run out of batteries while I was away, and VWS booted due to the memory leak and startwatch fired it back up, I would rather my station start monitoring and logging the working sensors and ignore the missing one, rather than sitting there waiting/probings till I got home and noticed.

Andrew

ps: speaking of the leak, I need to check tonight to see if its still there with my new pc and win7... I think the Fling NP memory leak might have disappeared in the new setup.

[DaculaWeather]

That use to be a problem when I had my OS200 station. Forgot about that problem.

I guess my problem now is that I use both VWS and WD for my data and combined, they both fill all my needs.

[gadget_guy]

My solution to the sensor issue was to uncheck everything but the indoor stuff.  VWS still reports everything, it just doesn't wait forever for a cranly sensor to report in.

[mackbig]

I thought that worked sometimes, but I wasnt 100% sure.

Andrew

My solution to the sensor issue was to uncheck everything but the indoor stuff.  VWS still reports everything, it just doesn't wait forever for a cranly sensor to report in.

[Downlinerz2]

    I just installed my Solar Sensor and I wish you could turn the Solar and/or UV sensors on and off the broadcast display.  I have to rearrange display for the first time in 2 years to make room for solar.  Oh well.

[Whuffo]

Here's some data points you can use:

This is the Philippines; average wage is about $3 per day. Compare with price of VWS Internet version - it's not a trivial purchase.
Our time zone is GMT +8; it's 12:40PM on Saturday as I write this, and it's 10:40PM on Friday where Ambient is. Just call?
Free international calling sounds wonderful - could you point me to a telecom provider in the Philippines that offers such a deal?

At current rates for calling to the US - it'd take two weeks pay to spend an hour on the phone with Ed. That might be worth it if there was some configuration option or way of holding my keyboard that would resolve the rain problem. Unfortunately, it's a flaw in the program logic and it's going to require some programming effort (and a better understanding on Ed's part) to correct.

I've exercised the "contact support" option multiple times and haven't heard back on any of them; how many weeks or months should I wait?

Calling Ed is not a workable option here; I know you say that you don't care where I live and you're welcome to that opinion. You'd do better to understand that there are a huge number of people living in countries that are not the USA. We have weather here, too. Our lifestyles and economies are different and expecting us to behave according to US rules and your expectations is - well, draw your own conclusion.

OK, so I've sent support requests and I'm understandably reluctant to get up in the middle of the night to spend a couple of weeks pay to talk to Ed. So what's left is to spread the word about the broken code that doesn't get fixed. Maybe, just maybe, Ed will decide that it's better to fix the code than to hide away and watch his sales decline.

Here, let me put this in a form that you might understand: suppose you spent two months pay on a car and discovered that if you shut it off you couldn't restart it without jumper cables - and then it'd run badly. Suppose you contacted the dealer several times and they wouldn't even bother to reply to you. Now imagine some third party came along and said you should just call the dealer - think about it.

Thanks!

Humm, things just don't add up here. On one hand, you complain that a phone call is too expensive, yet in another thread you spout that you live in a hugh house (4000SF+ was it) in a sub-division and the cost of living is only 7300 pesos (or whatever it was).

You lived in the US and then moved there to make, on average, only $3 per day. Just doesn't add up man!

As for te car thing above, the very FIRST thing I would have done is CALL them. Now you are just being stupid....

It's clear that you are only interested in proving that you're right. You keep suggesting that I get up in the night to make an international call when the problem isn't something we could talk out on the phone. VWS is badly broken in the rain calculations. Any time the system reboots VWS forgets the rain totals and fakes them in - incorrectly. This is a flaw in the program logic; rather than spend time discussing this with me, Ed could sit down and fix the problem. He's been advised about it already; more than once.

OK, so there are proven bugs in VWS; serious ones. They've been reported to Ed through Ambient's website. Nobody there has seen fit to reply - it's been over a month now, I doubt they ever will. Your suggestions to "just call Ed" - excuse me, he's released faulty software and refuses to respond to support requests. What do you think we should talk about? How much does he pay you, anyway?

[racenet]

Here's some data points you can use:

This is the Philippines; average wage is about $3 per day. Compare with price of VWS Internet version - it's not a trivial purchase.
Our time zone is GMT +8; it's 12:40PM on Saturday as I write this, and it's 10:40PM on Friday where Ambient is. Just call?
Free international calling sounds wonderful - could you point me to a telecom provider in the Philippines that offers such a deal?

At current rates for calling to the US - it'd take two weeks pay to spend an hour on the phone with Ed. That might be worth it if there was some configuration option or way of holding my keyboard that would resolve the rain problem. Unfortunately, it's a flaw in the program logic and it's going to require some programming effort (and a better understanding on Ed's part) to correct.

I've exercised the "contact support" option multiple times and haven't heard back on any of them; how many weeks or months should I wait?

Calling Ed is not a workable option here; I know you say that you don't care where I live and you're welcome to that opinion. You'd do better to understand that there are a huge number of people living in countries that are not the USA. We have weather here, too. Our lifestyles and economies are different and expecting us to behave according to US rules and your expectations is - well, draw your own conclusion.

OK, so I've sent support requests and I'm understandably reluctant to get up in the middle of the night to spend a couple of weeks pay to talk to Ed. So what's left is to spread the word about the broken code that doesn't get fixed. Maybe, just maybe, Ed will decide that it's better to fix the code than to hide away and watch his sales decline.

Here, let me put this in a form that you might understand: suppose you spent two months pay on a car and discovered that if you shut it off you couldn't restart it without jumper cables - and then it'd run badly. Suppose you contacted the dealer several times and they wouldn't even bother to reply to you. Now imagine some third party came along and said you should just call the dealer - think about it.

Thanks!

Humm, things just don't add up here. On one hand, you complain that a phone call is too expensive, yet in another thread you spout that you live in a hugh house (4000SF+ was it) in a sub-division and the cost of living is only 7300 pesos (or whatever it was).

You lived in the US and then moved there to make, on average, only $3 per day. Just doesn't add up man!

As for te car thing above, the very FIRST thing I would have done is CALL them. Now you are just being stupid....

It's clear that you are only interested in proving that you're right. You keep suggesting that I get up in the night to make an international call when the problem isn't something we could talk out on the phone. VWS is badly broken in the rain calculations. Any time the system reboots VWS forgets the rain totals and fakes them in - incorrectly. This is a flaw in the program logic; rather than spend time discussing this with me, Ed could sit down and fix the problem. He's been advised about it already; more than once.

OK, so there are proven bugs in VWS; serious ones. They've been reported to Ed through Ambient's website. Nobody there has seen fit to reply - it's been over a month now, I doubt they ever will. Your suggestions to "just call Ed" - excuse me, he's released faulty software and refuses to respond to support requests. What do you think we should talk about? How much does he pay you, anyway?

[stevebrtx]

Really, on the feed.

However, I must be close to an expert in power outages, rebooting, power spikes, brownouts, you name it. And it happened again yesterday morning at 6:30 - 6 hours. I have OS "equipment?" and it keeps the running rain total in the console as long as batteries are good (and I change them often). When the system comes back up I download the datalogger from the 200 and merge it into the dbase.csv and we're good to go. So, I don't see this problem as VWS (not that it couldn't use some improvement). Between the bin and dbase files all the data is available for readouts, so "what's broke?"

The more I think of it, it sounds like problems I had with the 200 when I first brought it down, I'd get odd readings, extra readings in the daysum etc. and I finally went back to the 100 console which is stable and the 200 is literally banned to an adjacent powder room where it does receive all sensors and the data logger works, so not so sure I'd point at VWS.

[Whuffo]

Here's what I'm thinking: there are many different weather stations and they don't always present their data in the same way. As Ed deals with the rain errors for one weather station he breaks it for another one. It's a complicated problem and I'd be glad to share my readings and files with him if that would help. But he doesn't seem to care; repeated support requests accomplish nothing; I've yet to receive a reply to any of them.

That's a problem; when you sell "professional" software it's expected to work right - and if it doesn't, there should be a way to get it fixed. Ambient has failed on both of these counts; their product is demonstrably faulty, and repeated support requests are ignored.

I'd hoped that I'd find a solution here; when a thread opened up asking for suggestions for improvement I had a few. Look at what I've received in response from what appears to be a "moderator" here.

It looks like the "VWS Support" forum here is more of a place for moderators to snipe at VWS owners who are having problems with the software. Since the chance of any real help here is zero, I'm going to abandon this site.

Thanks to those of you who have helped and I've been able to help. I'm not interested in the kind of community that I see here, so goodbye.

[racenet]

[boopolo]

I don't think that saying 'goodbye' is any benefit to you or any other users here.

I am new to this forum; and I do think you went 'on' a bit in you posts. Having said that you made some valid points and have raised some concerns that may be of benefit to some users. Having been a moderator (semiretired now) of a large technical UK forum for many years, I have had to deal with all sorts.

I DO think that you deserve more respect than that given by the moderator here.

The average wage in the Philippines is not $3 per day though. It is in fact $279 per month. Given that many people here work 6 days (some 7 days) a week; I would say the average per day is $10. Many people do actually earn less than $3 a day. Regardless, I didn't read you stating what you earned $3 as the moderator stated. Like many expats, you may be living off a small/medium pension from the US (not I); I don't know and do not care. In any case you have learned to like a Filipino, and $100 (php4,000) is a lot of money here. But I do not think you have got that point into the head of the moderator.

So if you spend php4,000 (more than half a months' rent and almost half a months salary for a civil servant) on software you would expect support. The fact that the moderator says 'just give him a call' is totally unhelpful. If you sell a product outside the US one should provide support that does not entail International calls. Also; the 'Please Do Not Feed The Troll' is not just unhelpful, but insulting as well. I accept when the moderator states he has no connection to ambient, as I have no connection to Sir Whuffo.

I think that Whuffo did a bad job in getting his point though, but he deserves the respect of other users and moderators. If he is not happy with Ambients' support, he has a right to complain without suffering the ridicule. Afterall, a one man 9 to 5 support for a worldwide product would be a complaint in itself.

[Whuffo]

I'd hope that Ed would go through and clean up what he has already; the menus are a mess - settings for things are sprayed all over the place. It looks like someone wrote a program, then several someone elses added features and they didn't communicate.

And the rain calculations - this shouldn't be that hard but you can see people complaining about it over and over and over again. Saying that we can manually fix the rain values begs the question: what's the program good for? Even if the varying station types make this too hard, checking the values for sanity is a must. Nonsense like 30 inches today and 1 inch in the last 24 hours has to stop. This is basic stuff; sure the "cloud base" calculations are nice but if you can't get the rain right it's a joke. I'm tired of going in and fixing the rain values after VWS screws them up.

Configuration changes should take effect immediately - or notify you that a reboot is necessary. Too many times I've wasted time troubleshooting a new configuration issue that disappeared after a reboot (or two).

The "start HeavyWeather" option should wait until HeavyWeather is up and running before complaining; this is a constant problem here. The system reboots and somehow VWS can't find it's sensors - even though it's really reading from HeavyWeather which is up and running. Even if it wasn't, VWS is really only looking for a file that HeavyWeather creates and it's RIGHT THERE. And that error about the sensors not being available; the options should actually work. Retry doesn't work, it just coughs up the same error. None of this should be a problem; the system should come up gracefully from a cold boot. It certainly can't do that now.

I guess what I'm saying is that if what we already have actually worked 100% (or even 98%) then I'd be thrilled. I'm not talking about little stuff; these bugs are serious and haven't been dealt with. I bought a "professional level" weather package - but.

Instead, I've got people asking about why the rain rate is 0.00 when it's raining heavily outside. I'm watching for power bumps so I can log into the weather computer and coax VWS back into operation. Even shareware usually isn't this bad - but I purchased this software.

And how about the "support"? There's numerous messages here from people who entered a support request at Ambient's site and never received a reply. Has anyone here actually received a reply, or do they just route the support requests to the bit bucket?

For me, there's some additional features I'd like, but I'd really prefer that the current version be fixed. Once they've accomplished that, then we can talk about new features.

Here we are almost exactly a year later and let's see what's changed. Have I received a response to any of my support requests? No. After a year, I'm going to assume that no answers will ever be forthcoming. Just as fixes for the known bugs with rainfall display have not been made. I "fixed" the hang at bootup problem by tossing Heavy Weather and replacing it with WUHU - that solved that stupid file deadlock condition with "stale" currdat.lst files. I thought file sharing was a solved problem, but apparently some folks didn't get the memo.

The rainfall problem is a design problem; VWS calculates the various rainfall values and keeps them in memory. When Windows does an unexpected reboot (as it does) that data is lost. The "recovery" that VWS performs just makes the problem worse by replacing hourly and / or daily rainfall with the total rainfall value. I could help Ed with a solution to this annoying problem - that's a solved problem, too. But I'm just a paying customer and apparently I don't deserve a reply to an email.

I know Ed and Ambient are focused on making money and that supporting existing customers isn't directly profitable. But they should know this: I won't spend another penny at Ambient - and I'll warn everyone I can about what they're going to get for their $150. Just because good support is expensive, they shouldn't ever forget that bad support is even more expensive. VWS has great potential, but there's some well known bugs that limit it's usefulness - and the support is non-existent. Buyer beware!

[DaculaWeather]

The only rain issues I've ever had was when i used my old OS100 station, never have had a problem with my Davis and VWS.