Author Topic: WU - Let us know your issues  (Read 183938 times)

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Offline WUpm

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WU - Let us know your issues
« on: January 15, 2018, 02:55:41 PM »
My name is Sean and I work at the Weather Underground.  There have been some big changes in the organization in our company.  We are a new team that has been tasked with working to bring WU back to a working state, with the users as our primary focus.   Our goal is to be fully transparent with the community as we work to resolve some of the issues with the Weather Underground products, particularly as it relates to our PWS users. 

Our hope is that with some communication and some sharing of our plans as clearly as possible, we can help to make changes for the positive.  Our initial goal is to start pinpointing PWS issues that you all are experiencing.  We are already aware of a number of issues that are affecting a large portion of the PWS user base.  One thing we would like to know from you is the #1 issue you are having.  If you have specific issues with your PWS, feel free to private message your email and PWS ID.

We know that many of you are frustrated by your experience.  We are going to do our best with what we have to improve, and to be as transparent as possible about our progress.

EDIT:  Trello Board: https://trello.com/b/hqC0tb0u/weather-underground  This contains the current issues we are tracking.  We have enabled comments so don't hesitate to comment on the board for specific issues.  Please continue to let us know what we need to focus on to make the products better for you.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 03:59:45 PM by WUpm »

Offline PaulMy

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2018, 03:05:16 PM »
Welcome Sean.  I am sure you are expecting some criticism based on recent experiences by PWS contributors, but great to have you here.
For me, 2 things:
Would like stability in the data that is shown from my uploads.
Would like to get my webcams showing again, and on a regular interval with the time lapse videos.

Thank you,
Paul
IONTARIO226
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Offline Glenn

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2018, 03:26:22 PM »
Sean,
Thanks for joining here and soliciting feedback, it's much appreciated. I'm sure having a WU presence here will help with a lot of questions.

My stations appear to be good after a few bumps in the road last week. All my data is showing up correctly and the charts/graphs look good. I even noticed my station views counter has gone up again.

I would like to see the ability to upload a station picture for each location I have. I know that feature went away with WU pictures; I often find it interesting to see how other folks have their station mounted. Certainly wouldn't have to be a large high res imagine...just something to get an idea of the station and mount.

Again, appreciate WU's availability.
Acurite 5 in 1 Pro+
Southern VT
Connecticut

Offline jackman

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2018, 03:29:19 PM »
Oh wow, yes welcome Sean! This is a great place to check the pulse of WU and nice to have you with us. As a start the story around webcam support is lengthy going back months and perhaps for most of 2017. Here's my error message from a few minutes ago:

ftp> Connected to webcam.wunderground.com.
open webcam.wunderground.com
421 50 users (the maximum) are already logged in, sorry


Offline ebfletch

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2018, 03:30:34 PM »
Hi, my name is Ben. I work with Sean at the Weather Underground. We were thinking of setting up a trello board so that you could see what work is in progress. What do you all think about that?

Offline Mapantz

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2018, 03:35:22 PM »
Hello Sean.

I'm not here to slag WU off or start pointing the finger, as you've probably had a lot of that in your mail for some time. I simply just want my station working correctly again.

I don't know what your limit or rate is on accepting webcam images via FTP, but I send mine every 5 minutes. For months now, the image is either an old one, or no image shows at all. In the rare case that it is working, the timelapses just don't work. It says they're a minute long (give or take 10 seconds) and then playback just jumps through a dozen images before coming to the end of the video, which ends up being about 15 seconds.

A lot of weather data has been missing too, even though it is  working (sort of) now, the graphs have data points sometimes 20 or 30 minutes apart, and as much as 50 or 60 minutes, even though they are sent via 'Rapidfire' - it has been like this for days, now.

My PWS ID: IDORSETW12
My Email: mapantz@warehamwx.co.uk

PS: One suggestion if I may.. I would like to see 'units' mixing on our PWS page. I use (as do most Brits) °C and MPH but you only allow °C and KMH or °F and MPH, if there was a way to mix it to how we like it, that would be grand!

Kind regards.


Offline nincehelser

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2018, 03:40:09 PM »
Webcams are #1 on my list.  None of mine have worked properly since December.

I'm using the URL method, not ftp.

Oddly, the images do get updated at times, but there seems to be no way to associate a camera with my station any longer.  If I add the camera to my station setup and then press "save", nothing happens.   :?

Thanks!

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2018, 03:40:24 PM »
One of the main issues is FTP with cameras. I no longer even try but have my own website.
 
One thing you should consider is user overload of servers don't keep allowing more users than servers can handle.

Limit ftp logins something like once every 5-10 minutes would help. Asking the community to limit FTP is a first step until software can be programmed.
 
Limit number of active cameras to each account. Make sure they are weather related cameras. Police and revoke accounts that break the rules after a warning.

I would stop URL image fetching if this is causing server slowdowns and require FTP only.

Just a few ways to help solve server issues.

 

Randy

Offline nincehelser

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2018, 03:42:13 PM »
Hi, my name is Ben. I work with Sean at the Weather Underground. We were thinking of setting up a trello board so that you could see what work is in progress. What do you all think about that?

I'm not familiar with trello, but anything to show "work in progress" would be nice to see.

Offline WUpm

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2018, 03:44:56 PM »
Keep the feedback coming.  I added it to the main post so all newcomers can see it, but the Trello board is https://trello.com/b/hqC0tb0u/weather-underground 

Please continue to let us know what we SHOULD be working on for you.

Offline casa manana

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2018, 03:45:59 PM »
Gentlemen,

This new level of transparency and communications is the most welcome and positive news to come from WU in a long time.  As I’m sure you can tell from previous feedback, not knowing whether anyone at WU was “listening” has been as frustrating as the problems themselves. Giving us some acknowledgement about the issues being worked and status would be terrific.

Thank you for your commitment and good luck on the technical front.

You asked for feedback on the main issues.  For me it has been webcam stability (not just my own, but many that I follow).

Thanks again.

A 10 year + user.

KAZSEDON3


Offline PaulMy

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2018, 03:48:46 PM »
Hi Ben,
Quote
We were thinking of setting up a trello board so that you could see what work is in progress. What do you all think about that?
Agreed, that would be nice and could answer a lot of ongoing questions.

Enjoy,
Paul

Offline SuperJoe

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2018, 04:06:22 PM »
My biggest issue is the data from my PWS is not uploading consistently. I have a raspberry pi running the weewx software. The data is tracked  every five minutes and uploaded to WU. However, it is currently not uploading correctly.

https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KCOLITTL149#history


Joe

Offline gellenb

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2018, 04:06:37 PM »
Thank you, this is what most of us wanted.  A way to see what issues were being addressed and how they were progressing.  One item I see missing is the API Key.  I have not tried again to put it into the app, because the referral link to test it does not work either.  www.wunderground.com/?apiref=xxxxxxxxx just takes me back to the WU home page.

Offline brucemac

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2018, 04:06:48 PM »
The most persistent problem I have is with my webcam.  I switched from FTP to URL because of connection failures (too many users) a couple of months ago.  The URL method worked for while until the glitch where all the webcams disappeared. Now it retrieves images rarely (currently been 24 hours) and the camera is tagged as not "Active", whatever that means.  I wanted to redefine the camera but couldn't find a delete option.  So I setup a 2nd definition for the same URL and am getting the same result.

Second issue is the Android app which just recently began stopping every few minutes.  I've had to remove the widget to prevent the error popups.  I'm currently on ver 5.8, updated Nov. 29.  But the problem began on both my devices in the last 48 hours.

Finally, the website has become so slow it is unusable.  Particularly when there are significant weather events.

I'm glad someone is listening.  But it would be nice to get a response from WU Support when I contact them as well.

Bruce McClinton
Station:  KVAMAURE1
Webcams:  BruceMacCAM1, BruceMacCAM2
Bruce McClinton
Maurertown, VA  USA
WU:  KVAMAURE1, Davis Vantage Pro2
Software:  Meteohub
Madis ID: C5286

Offline WeatherNC

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #15 on: January 15, 2018, 04:10:03 PM »
WEBCAMS!  Number one issue FTP not working.   ](*,)

Sean, So happy to see you guys are engaging with us.  Lots of frustration on our end as you know.  Two problems right now.  The first which is not a big deal but needs to be addressed.  The "Status" of my PWS can not be updated.  I go to update and it lets me edit but will not save the changes.

The other major problrm is the Webcams are down!  Whats going on with that?  They all dies off this past Friday at 11 am.  Nothing posting since then.  Please advise what the problem is and when we can expect them back.

Thank you!
John Hartlove

Offline saratogaWX

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2018, 04:21:45 PM »
Welcome, Sean and Ben to WXForum.net.  We are very pleased to have you here for feedback and discussion regarding WeatherUnderground. 

Many of our personal weather websites use information from WeatherUnderground (API queries, History data, NEXRAD images, regional maps) and have been for many years based on the accord per John Celenza with Wunderground.   It has been a bit disheartening and frustrating to see the services decline after purchase by The Weather Company, and especially vexing to have the Wunderradio NOAA Weather Radio vanish from the service.  That caused a group of us to set up noaaweatherradio.org to replace the function.  When the demise of weather webcams was announced (then thankfully rethought/rescinded), we were even mulling over how we hobbyists could replace that.. now we don't have to!

Based on comments here (and on other weather forums), the chief problem areas are (my list, not necessarily in priority order) :
1) reliability of weather data upload, storage and query for historical results.
2) reliability/availability of webcam image upload via FTP (connection limits too low) and even URL acquisition
3) API forecast queries returning no details in the JSON
4) API forecast queries returning English text instead of selected international text
5) Regional/National map images not updating

Thanks again for your willingness to dialog with us, and I'm sure that others will have issues to add to my sparse list above.

Best regards,
Ken

WU: KCASARAT1  (since 2004)
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Offline catdon

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2018, 05:11:59 PM »
Just to get the website back to some semblance of how it used to be.... Each new design is worst than the last... I know that since the latest change, my visits are far fewer.
Don
Staten Island, NY

Offline CW2274

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #18 on: January 15, 2018, 05:12:21 PM »
Single question: Why does WU substitute Sea-Level Pressure (SLP) values for weather stations when Altimeter (ALT) pressure is the "normal" for CWOP stations?
=D> Beat me to it. Mine's always jumping between the two on your site, and when it is MSLP, it's wrong. My vote is the altimeter, or at least leave mine that way.

Offline ebfletch

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #19 on: January 15, 2018, 05:13:55 PM »
Just to get the website back to some semblance of how it used to be.... Each new design is worst than the last... I know that since the latest change, my visits are far fewer.

What features do you miss? What changes do you hate most? We are very interested in making potential changes to help you all see what you really want to see.

Offline Central Maine Weather

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2018, 05:23:09 PM »
Just to get the website back to some semblance of how it used to be.... Each new design is worst than the last... I know that since the latest change, my visits are far fewer.
I couldn’t agree more! I loved the look of Classic Wundrground, and I’m sure it was simpler to run. Just a basic page that shows current data, historical data, and graphed data is what I like to see. But really any view works for me as long as it’s stable and reliable (i.e data is uploaded and plotted at its actual set interval, whatever that may be).

I am another vote for working on webcam stability as well. I’ve taken my cam down for now in hopes that WU Webcam stability will get better. I used the FTP method.

Thanks for letting us know you’re working on the issues, and an even bigger thanks for asking us what we think needs the most TLC!

Best,
    Matt
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 05:25:18 PM by MonumentHillWeather »
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Offline Jjm457

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« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 05:54:47 PM by Jjm457 »

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #22 on: January 15, 2018, 05:33:19 PM »
Welcome, Sean and Ben to WXForum.net.  We are very pleased to have you here for feedback and discussion regarding WeatherUnderground. 

Many of our personal weather websites use information from WeatherUnderground (API queries, History data, NEXRAD images, regional maps) and have been for many years based on the accord per John Celenza with Wunderground.   It has been a bit disheartening and frustrating to see the services decline after purchase by The Weather Company, and especially vexing to have the Wunderradio NOAA Weather Radio vanish from the service.  That caused a group of us to set up noaaweatherradio.org to replace the function.  When the demise of weather webcams was announced (then thankfully rethought/rescinded), we were even mulling over how we hobbyists could replace that.. now we don't have to!

Based on comments here (and on other weather forums), the chief problem areas are (my list, not necessarily in priority order) :
1) reliability of weather data upload, storage and query for historical results.
2) reliability/availability of webcam image upload via FTP (connection limits too low) and even URL acquisition
3) API forecast queries returning no details in the JSON
4) API forecast queries returning English text instead of selected international text
5) Regional/National map images not updating

Thanks again for your willingness to dialog with us, and I'm sure that others will have issues to add to my sparse list above.

Best regards,
Ken

WU: KCASARAT1  (since 2004)

What he said also Ken is the expert.  =D>
Randy

Offline catdon

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #23 on: January 15, 2018, 05:39:54 PM »
Just to get the website back to some semblance of how it used to be.... Each new design is worst than the last... I know that since the latest change, my visits are far fewer.

What features do you miss? What changes do you hate most? We are very interested in making potential changes to help you all see what you really want to see.
Simple answer is...the site the way it looked before the latest change was fine. Why is my additional station data now three rows below the temp and wind readings? Also put temp readings back to include tenths of a degree.
Don
Staten Island, NY

Offline ebfletch

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Re: WU - Let us know your issues
« Reply #24 on: January 15, 2018, 05:44:23 PM »
Could one of the webcam users who FTP their data tell us if the issues are resolved?