Author Topic: ACCESS dead?  (Read 3874 times)

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Offline kdschu

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ACCESS dead?
« on: February 01, 2020, 04:14:31 PM »
MyAcurite lost contact with ALL 5 of my sensors 2 days ago.  WU was down as well.  The AcuRite Access device locked up and stopped communicating.  I unplugged power, took out batteries, plugged back in.  I got good link lights on the ethernet port, then a steady blue light in front.  iI's Back!!--- for about 30 to 60 seconds.  Then locked again.  I enter the IP in a browser.  no response.  I use a port scanner-- no active ports at that IP (though it DOES return a ping).  <sigh> A hard factory reset had it up for about 10 minutes, then dead again.  Tried again today with a hard reset--  worked for about 5 minutes and crashed again.

When this initially happened, I got on FB and found a group dedicated to Acurite Wx products, and someone else had Their Access die the same HOUR that mine did.  Another person had theirs die about 18 hours earlier.  Hmmmmm  Coincidence?  These are only about 2 years old.  All 3 of us have identical symptoms and behavior of this hardware. Has anyone else had issues with an Access this past week?  I wish they hadn't killed their own support forums.

EDIT:  yet ANOTHER person said their Access died a few days ago.  :O
FB group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/AcuriteUsers/
« Last Edit: February 01, 2020, 04:55:55 PM by kdschu »

Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2020, 03:04:01 PM »
Mine froze on January 29, 2020, at about 3:05PM PST.

Same symptoms. I can reset it, then it freezes immediately after start up in like 20-25 seconds. Firmware ver 51.

   

Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2020, 05:33:47 PM »
Sigh, another useless RESET button (does nothing when frozen).
To get it back to running, you need to log into myacurite and delete WU settings. Then unplug Ethernet and USB power cord. Remove battery cover to restart Access, plug in USB power. Wait until the light starts blinking red. Press RESET button and hold until light returns to solid Blue. Once it start blinking red again, plug in Ethernet cable.
At that point it will connect to myacurite and download configuration data (minus WU which was deleted earlier).
You should be able to connect to Access IP via HTTP. WU fields should be empty.
No WU but at least works with myacurite.

Seems like Access firmware has hard coded data-submission URLs and bad error handling, which makes it freeze after WU changed URLs.

Big thumb down to WU,
for not notifying manufactures about upcoming changes
for messing up intermediate SSL certs
for having unnecessary CNAME records, ie weatherstation -> rtupdate ->
prod-pws-ng-ingest.prod-pws-ng-546567-997b58a668d15d562a6bed58ea7c5f9e-0000.us-south.containers.appdomain.cloud ->
prod-pws-ng-546567-997b58a668d15d562a6bed58ea7c5f9e-0000.us-south.containers.appdomain.cloud

Insanity.

Big thumb down to Acurite
for hardcoding URLs
for shitty firmware error handling which makes device freeze
for not issuing firmware update


Anyway
I've found solution.
Just ordered Davis Vantage Pro2.





Offline nincehelser

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2020, 07:23:36 PM »
Seems like Access firmware has hard coded data-submission URLs and bad error handling, which makes it freeze after WU changed URLs.


Sorry, but no.   It doesn't work that way.

Good luck using something else.

Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2020, 08:02:53 PM »
Sorry, but no.   It doesn't work that way.

Well, could you then explain how it does work?

I rebooted the Access again just to see if I've missed something in the logs.
These are the only connections it has made:
52.203.138.112:443 -> atlasapi.myacurite.com
52.4.125.17:443 -> atlasapi.myacurite.com
35.171.190.170:443 -> atlasapi.myacurite.com
13.224.51.45:443 -> server-13-224-51-45.phx50.r.cloudfront.net
172.98.193.44:123 -> ntp.backplanedns.org (time server)

I'll repeat that again with Atlas configured for WU (won't be much because it freezes)




Good luck using something else.
Can't have luck worse than that with Atlas. But thanks for the well wishes...

Offline nincehelser

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2020, 08:50:42 PM »
It's not "hard coded".  The host names are defined in the upload protocol.  They are resolved by your local DNS.


Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2020, 09:11:00 PM »
Sorry, but no.   It doesn't work that way.

Well, after about 20 reboots and about 10 resets, the only DNS request was to 8.8.8.8, but nothing before that.
So, if it actually query DNS, it does so seldom, ie, it does not respect TTL but is caching the records for a much longer period. And it does not query DNS servers which are specified by DHCP at all.
It could also just DNS query atlasapi.myacurite.com and download the rest of DNS pointers from there as it does with WU settings.
Third possibility is that my (and of those who have the same problem) Access is faulty in a way that it affects only us few. It still freezes whenever it sniffs WU.

Anyway, not in the mood of installing packet sniffer just to figure out who screwed up more, Acurite or WU.





Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2020, 09:14:11 PM »
They are resolved by your local DNS.

It does not query my local DNS servers. It queries google DNS once in a blue moon.

Offline nincehelser

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2020, 09:19:27 PM »
They are resolved by your local DNS.

It does not query my local DNS servers. It queries google DNS once in a blue moon.

My Access units query my local DNS just fine.

I guess your mind is just made up, so no point in going further.

Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2020, 09:39:20 PM »
I guess your mind is just made up, so no point in going further.

Sure, if you say so

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Offline nincehelser

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #10 on: February 02, 2020, 09:51:07 PM »
Yep.  We're clearly on a different wavelength.

Offline kdschu

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #11 on: February 02, 2020, 10:53:25 PM »
It's not "hard coded".  The host names are defined in the upload protocol.  They are resolved by your local DNS.
What is your theory as to why the Access devices are dropping like flies?

Offline nincehelser

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2020, 10:59:39 PM »
Not seeing any indications of that other than the breathless comments here.

If there is an actual problem, it's likely that wunderground is not closing the connections, keeping them tied up in the Access.

Offline Mabcmb

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2020, 11:27:11 PM »
 kdschu and giveme5 I would call AcuRite tomorrow and let them deal with it . I do know my Access is working but a person who has a station one town over never came back online after the last WU glitch . Sounds like there a conflict  inside the Access software that WU caused that maybe Acurite can solve . Good luck and please keep us informed !!!

Offline kdschu

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2020, 11:47:59 PM »
Not seeing any indications of that other than the breathless comments here.

If there is an actual problem, it's likely that wunderground is not closing the connections, keeping them tied up in the Access.

LOL... there IS an actual problem. My Access went down.  Then I find another who reported his went down the same HOUR mine did.  Huh-- weird.  Then another person spoke up and said the same thing happened to his hours earlier, and then another person reports his went down that same day, and another person here said the same thing.  That isn't coincidence.  That's an actual problem.  Not sure why you're dismissive of the UNlikely timing of the same devices all locking up across multiple locations-- all within a 24 to 36 hour period.

The procedure from giveme5 works and has my Access reporting to MyAcurite again.  I tested it twice by adding back the WU reporting config info---  locked up that Access within a minute both times.  I will wait now for AcuRite and WU to get their crap together and solve this. 

Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #15 on: February 02, 2020, 11:57:56 PM »
breathless comments here.

You don't have to be a*hole about it.

If there is an actual problem, it's likely that wunderground is not closing the connections, keeping them tied up in the Access.

It freezes after first data submission. So I doubt it is that. Unless Access can't handle more than 1-2 connections at the time, but then, Access is basically $10.00 device sold for $129.99, so it wouldn't be such a surprise.

kdschu and giveme5 I would call AcuRite tomorrow and let them deal with it . I do know my Access is working but a person who has a station one town over never came back online after the last WU glitch . Sounds like there a conflict  inside the Access software that WU caused that maybe Acurite can solve . Good luck and please keep us informed !!!

Will definitely do. If nothing else, just to argue with nincehelser. Always nice to see his wavelength tuned.

Offline nincehelser

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #16 on: February 03, 2020, 09:18:02 AM »
You  should probably use a network monitor and find out what is really going on than making such speculations.

Bye.

Offline kdschu

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2020, 02:03:28 PM »
AcuRite support wants me to buy a new Access.  this was via FB Messenger...


Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #18 on: February 04, 2020, 04:04:54 PM »
You  should probably use a network monitor and find out what is really going on than making such speculations.

Well, if you know better, tell, so we don't have to speculate.


Anyways, after some more logging, this is the behavior of my Access:

1.) Access connects to atlasapi.myacurite.com right after boot.
2.) It uses Google DNS once in a blue moon to check if atlasapi.myacurite.com still resolves to:
52.4.125.17
52.203.138.112
35.171.190.170
3.) Apart from the above it does not query any other DNS servers.
4.) it NEVER lookup rtupdate.wunderground.com, therefore it must get IPs from myacurite
5.) rtupdate.wunderground.com [prod-pws-ng-546567-997b58a668d15d562a6bed58ea7c5f9e-0000.us-south.containers.appdomain.cloud] resolves to following IPs:
169.60.133.170
169.47.111.58
52.116.188.166

6.) My Access however gets also other IPs from myacurite.
for example (they're many more):
13.224.51.45 (on port 443)
When it tries to connect to these it gets 403 in response and it freezes

7.)
Acurite has to remove these IPs from their pool of IPs and/or hosts it returns to Access.

8.)
Why it doesn't affect all Access devices? No idea. It may be that some of these IP/host pools are cached and not yet refreshed, since Acurite is using Amazon CloudFront for atlasapi.myacurite.com. Probably depends on region and which cloudfront servers it connects to.

Anyways, I'll try and block IPs which return 403 response and see if that helps. Maybe Access will skip those and try next IP in the pool.



AcuRite support wants me to buy a new Access.  this was via FB Messenger...

Cute. They really need to re-examine how they do things.









Offline kdschu

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #19 on: February 04, 2020, 06:58:31 PM »
She DID later acknowledge that this is an issue and they are researching. 


Offline SevenTrees

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #20 on: February 04, 2020, 07:09:29 PM »
I'm so glad I didn't fall for the Access garbage when they first pulled this prank. And customer service via facebook?? Hard pass.

Offline Hossy

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2021, 03:42:42 PM »
This seemed to be a heated thread, but it helped me get to the root of the problem and I wanted to post it here.

TL;DR: This is 100% an AcuRite firmware bug with firmware 051.  I am also sharing a workaround you can implement, but it will require maintenance.

Original Facebook thread: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AcuriteUsers/permalink/1439076649766551/?comment_id=1440117446329138&reply_comment_id=1440177932989756

Quote
I FIGURED IT OUT! And it is 100% Acurite's problem!
There is a problem in the processing of the DNS response in the AcuRite firmware. It only happens in a VERY specific case: When a CNAME returns a value equal to its parent. I have confirmed this multiple ways by overriding DNS responses in my local DNS server for rtupdate.wunderground.com.
In the real world, rtupdate.wunderground.com is currently prod-pws-ng-ingest.prod-pws-ng-546567-997b58a668d15d562a6bed58ea7c5f9e-0001.us-south.containers.appdomain.cloud. That record is rather long, so let's look at it like this: prod-pws-ng-ingest.<zone>. prod-pws-ng-ingest.<zone> is a CNAME record pointing to <zone>. <zone> is a collection of A records. In this case, it actually doesn't matter what <zone> is. The fact that the Access processed a DNS response in the format: <child>.<parent> CNAME <parent>, it crashes the Access.
If you'd like to confirm my findings, you can create the following on your local DNS server:
1. Create a zone named wunderground.com. Note, doing so will stop you from getting to wunderground.com temporarily until you delete it.
2. Create the following records:
parent 30 CNAME rtupdate-test.wunderground.com.
test.parent 30 CNAME parent.wunderground.com.
rtupdate 30 CNAME test.parent.wunderground.com.
rtupdate-test 30 A 169.60.133.174
                 30 A 52.116.188.163
                 30 A 169.47.111.58
                 30 A 169.47.111.60
                 30 A 169.60.133.171
                 30 A 52.116.188.162
3. Setup your Access to report to WU. It will instantly crash.
To fix it, change rtupdate to point to rtupdate-test.wunderground.com. (don't forget the <period> at the end).
The failure is caused when the Access processes the test.parent RR.

Workaround:
Quote
1. Setup a local DNS server for your Access (or use your existing local DNS server, either will work).
2. Create a zone named rtupdate.wunderground.com.
3. Create the following records:
@ 30 A  52.116.188.163
                 30 A   169.60.133.174
                 30 A   52.116.188.162
                 30 A   169.60.133.171
                 30 A   169.47.111.60
                 30 A   169.47.111.58
4. Periodically query public DNS for rtupdate.wunderground.com and confirm your IP's match.
5. Open an AcuRite support case and complain about this problem when the Access is running firmware 051.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2021, 03:58:43 PM by Hossy »

Offline giveme5

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #22 on: February 22, 2021, 04:23:44 PM »
Thank you Hossy!

Just tried this and I can confirm it works.


Offline SevenTrees

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #23 on: February 22, 2021, 09:20:20 PM »
I replaced my AcuRite with an Ambient Weather WS-2000 a while ago, and so far so good.

Offline daman

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Re: ACCESS dead?
« Reply #24 on: February 23, 2021, 06:10:28 PM »
Ive had Firmware ver 51 for a wile now no problems, purring right along  [tup]
KMIBADAX38
AcuRite Iris/AcuRite Access

 

anything