Topic: WU - Let us know your issues

[Tangmu]

Today I noticed that the temperature icon shows 40F, the map shows 40F, but the graph shows 39F for the last two data points.  My station is actually reporting 39.6.  So WU is rounding up to 40F for the icon, and down to 39F for the graph.

As has been requested already, the temperature should be reported in tenths, like 39.6.  You should also round up on 0.6, and not down.  You should also use the same rounding convention consistently, and not round up one place (temp icon) and down another place (graph).

[jasonbopp]

I couple things I want to throw out there.  First is a temporary fix for no rapid fire.  Install "super auto refresh plus" in your chrome browser.  It will refresh the page at whatever interval you like.  Link here https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/super-auto-refresh-plus/globgafddkdlnalejlkcpaefakkhkdoa?hl=en

Secondly, moving servers and implementing a brand new website are two totally different things.  I wonder if both happened, or we were told the wrong thing?  *shrug*

Good luck weather lovers.

[Smokeyrn]

So here were are again (still).  There was an "update" to Wunderground that has trashed it again for many of us.  I complained and complained via email to WU and finally got an answer. After 27 emails I got an answer.  They basically asked me to "...hang on a little while longer..." while they "fixed" things.  So I did.  I actually was able to see my WU page for about a month.  And it was accurate.  Then came the "upgrade" and I haven't seen my page functioning since.  I know that it is uploading.  My CWOP page has NEVER been off.  But the cameras, WU page and all the information is just blank.  I guess it is true.  IBM has all but killed off Wunderground.  I hope that it can rest in peace.
Another interesting thing I am finding here.......  I no longer see ANY WU folks responding to ANYTHING on this board.  I think they figure it is a nice place for all of us to vent and fret and they can sit back and have a nice chuckle at our expense.  Way to go WU.  You have lost yet another long term member. (just over 11 years.)  I give up

  Take care,

   Smokey
   Belgrade, MT

[a55bruce]

That's not necessarily the developers' fault, I've seen way too many software projects where the go-live date is set in stone months or years in advance and no-one in charge wants to pull the plug no matter how obvious it is that it's not ready.  More often than not, rushing unfinished software into production is a failure in leadership, not a failure by the technical people doing the work.

And I wouldn't be surprised that the "set-in-stone date" was tied to the bonus-pay for the "leadership".    (They lose bonus if the go-live date is missed)
Been there 

[Cocute]

metric users always marginalized
Please FIX this older problem, metric rain in wundermap not show correct,
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to calculate is very simple:
1 inch  = 25.4 millimeter
how many developers need to calculate  this simple rule of three?
and result round 1 or 2 decimals

[PaulMy]

I no longer see ANY WU folks responding to ANYTHING on this board.  I think they figure it is a nice place for all of us to vent and fret and they can sit back and have a nice chuckle at our expense.

http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=33651.msg374751#msg374751

Try to enjoy,
Paul

[wxnut99]

That's not necessarily the developers' fault, I've seen way too many software projects where the go-live date is set in stone months or years in advance and no-one in charge wants to pull the plug no matter how obvious it is that it's not ready.  More often than not, rushing unfinished software into production is a failure in leadership, not a failure by the technical people doing the work.

And I wouldn't be surprised that the "set-in-stone date" was tied to the bonus-pay for the "leadership".    (They lose bonus if the go-live date is missed)
Been there 

That's exactly what happened to the Canadian federal service payroll (aka "Phoenix" - another IBM venture).  Government had a set in stone deadline to implement a new payroll software that was supposed to save taxpayers "millions".  Managers pushed through software by deadline even though problems were noted and implementation delay was recommended. Nothing but problems ever since.. with thousands of cases of incorrect pay or even no pay for many. That was 3 years ago and they're still trying to fix problems. Price tag now estimated at $2 billion to get things back to normal.  But hey, managers got their bonuses for meeting deadline.   

[OldAlaskaGuy]

Noted the data boxes on the PWS page are smaller prior to log in. After login all the data boxes are larger. Firefox

[konz]

Just going to step away from WU.
They have had some serious issues for a long time and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.
Several other choices out there. Hopefully they get it right in the future.

.
.
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The PWS website most likely doesn't provide enough advertising revenue and is only an inconvenience they have to deal with so people will continue sending weather data in.
Here in the US we do have multiple options but from the sound of it, many areas outside are limited.

Visit my site on WeatherCloud.  I think they're in Spain.
https://app.weathercloud.net/d0818716686#current

[havtrail]

Noted the data boxes on the PWS page are smaller prior to log in. After login all the data boxes are larger. Firefox

This visual update is like many others done by other organizations. The info is broken down into "tiles" that often are made graphic. In this way, the tiles can rearrange themselves to fit the many sizes and aspect ratios of all the possible desktop, laptop, notebook and tablet screens out there, so a single site design can work on them all in a more automatic way. When you log in to WU and the ads disappear, the tiles enlarge to fit the available space.

The "dumbing down" isn't done to dumb things down. It's a result of the design consideration that the tiles should be readable on the smallest screens out there, so what can fit into them for all screens is therefore limited.

Try this experiment. Change your WU PWS page browser window from full screen to part-screen and then drag the right edge of the window left and right to make the window wider and narrower. Do it slowly, and you will see where the page display changes from 3 tiles wide to 2 tiles wide. On my "standard" old desktop screen, when the tiles get bigger, the square ones grow in both directions, but the rectangular map tile unfortunately does not grow vertically, leaving blank space below it.

I'm not defending this style (in fact I don't like it personally), but it is the trend and it's not just WU doing it.

Rich K.

[jasonbopp]

Noted the data boxes on the PWS page are smaller prior to log in. After login all the data boxes are larger. Firefox

If you turn ad block off, you'll see that's where the ads are when you are not logged in.

[CBXSteve]

problem is many stations sent data only to Wunderground,
what is solution create website with wunderground php data script?
mod firmwares to obtain station data to use out of wunderground?

If you back out of the WU forum here and find the forum for your particular brand of weather station, you will find ways to send your data to other services. For instance, I am currently setting up an old XP Toughbook to run Kevin Key's software to extract data from my Acurite hub and send it to any one (or all) of 5 other services. I would imagine that there are existing work-arounds for any commercial hardware that are exclusively married to WU in their stock forms.

[toddiscdn]

Not sure if its related, but anyone know why my map has no background, or actual map in Chrome on WU, just my station and radar.

I tried Edge and it was fine.
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[awsum140]

It doesn't matter, to me at least, exactly how those box graphics work or resize according to a device/screen size.  They still are nothing but a total waste of space and require scrolling to access them.  That might be fine for a phone or tablet, iOS or Android, but on a real PC are just a total waste IMHO.  I know, everyone is glued to their phone now, but come on, being able to detect and adjust to an OS isn't rocket science either.

[Jim_S]

Another interesting thing I am finding here.......  I no longer see ANY WU folks responding to ANYTHING on this board. 

It's Sunday. I wasn't expecting any updates over the weekend but we got several yesterday I expect we'll see more updates and some fixes rolled out tomorrow.

[Souwesterly]

Apologies for being a relative ignoramus but I'm lost and annoyed and lacking in information, so please accept that and help me.
I've been sending my PWS data to wunderground for a number of years now but of late things have changed - and not for the better.  The new display (from a few days ago) is complete rubbish - it's like some child's efforts at making up a webpage and right now I've every intention of deleting my account and moving my data elsewhere.
I've had no notifiations of any big change (apart from a general note on the wunderground page that changes were coming) so I really can't understand how or why things should become so painfully bad.
Browsing through wunderground topics on the internet I can now see that ownership has changed (I think?) and that wunderground API (whatever that is) has stopped but beyond that I'm sunk - bereft of useful help and lacking a decent online display.
Please could you update me with the truth, the real truth and no bulls**t.
Thank you.

[jpwp]

How many developers work on the new design?
It is not understood that a basic thing like changing imperial to metric that costs 5 seconds to do it, to an international group of developers is costing them weeks.

You have no idea if it is just a 5 second fix or where it is in the bug chart. Each of these charts is probably their own program with their own code that needs to be updated.

As a developer I know it should be absolutely trivial because you separate raw data and raw data transformation from the parts that display the data.

Of course, it could be designed so badly that it's unnecessary complicated to make such a trivial change. Bad look for IBM Cloud if they can't handle something that any junior developer should have learnt in the first few years of their career.

[jpwp]

The "dumbing down" isn't done to dumb things down. It's a result of the design consideration that the tiles should be readable on the smallest screens out there, so what can fit into them for all screens is therefore limited.

Try this experiment. Change your WU PWS page browser window from full screen to part-screen and then drag the right edge of the window left and right to make the window wider and narrower. Do it slowly, and you will see where the page display changes from 3 tiles wide to 2 tiles wide. On my "standard" old desktop screen, when the tiles get bigger, the square ones grow in both directions, but the rectangular map tile unfortunately does not grow vertically, leaving blank space below it.

I'm not defending this style (in fact I don't like it personally), but it is the trend and it's not just WU doing it.

Sorry, it's not a design trend other than designers liking austere and empty space layouts and favouring look over functionality.

You can do automatic reflow for different browser sizes by splitting existing content into boxes (these boxes can even be invisible to the user).

It wouldn't have taken much to do this with the old layout.

[rydograbbit]

Unfortunately, everyone is supplying free data to this service and they are not required to listen to any concern you have.  Yes, the new interface sucks, yes IBM is notorious for having a horrible business model.  Imagine what would happen if EVERYONE REMOVED THEIR PWS data from their site only then would they might care about your concerns.

[jpwp]

Visit my site on WeatherCloud.  I think they're in Spain.
https://app.weathercloud.net/d0818716686#current

Thank you!! This looks great and they appear to understand that most of the world uses metric! I've asked them if they can add support for my PWS model. Maybe there is hope

[jpwp]

Unfortunately, everyone is supplying free data to this service and they are not required to listen to any concern you have.  Yes, the new interface sucks, yes IBM is notorious for having a horrible business model.  Imagine what would happen if EVERYONE REMOVED THEIR PWS data from their site only then would they might care about your concerns.

And this is exactly what I'm working on doing. I imagine there will be many more doing so... particularly those in countries that don't use antiquated imperial units. We are the majority and would appreciate being treated like first class citizens!

[WheatonRon]

Apologies for being a relative ignoramus but I'm lost and annoyed and lacking in information, so please accept that and help me.
I've been sending my PWS data to wunderground for a number of years now but of late things have changed - and not for the better.  The new display (from a few days ago) is complete rubbish - it's like some child's efforts at making up a webpage and right now I've every intention of deleting my account and moving my data elsewhere.
I've had no notifiations of any big change (apart from a general note on the wunderground page that changes were coming) so I really can't understand how or why things should become so painfully bad.
Browsing through wunderground topics on the internet I can now see that ownership has changed (I think?) and that wunderground API (whatever that is) has stopped but beyond that I'm sunk - bereft of useful help and lacking a decent online display.
Please could you update me with the truth, the real truth and no bulls**t.
Thank you.

Join the frustrated pws owner group! Weather Underground is a part of The Weather Company, which is owned by IBM. IBM bought WU a few years back. In any event, they have totally redesigned WU and it is very much a work in process. So far, they took three steps forward and numerous steps backwards. Hopefully, when they finish, it will be better, but I never had an issue with the “old WU.” Stay tuned, relax, have a glass of wine or beer, and don’t get too frustrated in the process! If you wish, read and study this thread—but ...

[awsum140]

..."relax, have a glass of wine or beer"

We're all gonna get pretty drunk at this rate 

[Souwesterly]

Thank heavens I don't have to share my drink with you lot - I really don't have enough to go around!
Thanks for your support and comments and here's raising a glass to successful improvements and updates.
Cheers!

[galfert]

Visit my site on WeatherCloud.  I think they're in Spain.
https://app.weathercloud.net/d0818716686#current

Thank you!! This looks great and they appear to understand that most of the world uses metric! I've asked them if they can add support for my PWS model. Maybe there is hope

Who do you mean by *them*? Are you asking WeatherCloud to add support for your PWS model or is *them* your PWS manufacture whom you've asked to add support for WeatherCloud? Because if you are asking WeatherCloud to add support for your PWS model then you are asking the wrong side. WeatherCloud has a published standard and any manufacture or weather software developer is free to add the support to submit data to WeatherCloud. So you need to ask your PWS manufacture. Or forget that idea and just do it yourself. In most cases you can add the required support to your weather station by adding some hardware/software solution to publish your data anywhere you want. What brand/model weather station do you have?