WXforum.net
Weather Related Organizations => WeatherUnderground => Topic started by: jpk1018 on May 22, 2019, 10:40:18 AM
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Just curious as to the state of the webcam debacle.
Mine is hit and miss once and awhile it will show up on the map but has never shown up on my dashboard page. My devices page says it's online.
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Mine has been "connected but offline" for years. Whatever. I gave up on webcams and WU
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Mine has been working well for the last 2 weeks or so. It hasn't always been that way.
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I thought I would just add a new cam and change the name of my current one but that never even gets past the ftp login.
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I gave up trying to get a camera working and deleted all of my devices, PWS included.
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Was it a couple years ago when they had so much trouble with the webcam? Whenever it was, I eliminated two of my cams and and switched the other two to upload every 6 minutes. Haven't done anything since then. If they work, they work and if they don't, I don't worry about it. They have been working for almost two weeks on the new dashboard.
I used to use WU as a way to see what was going on, weather wise at my house while I was away for extended periods. The webcams were a nice addition. I now access my webcams on my phone and have them set up to show the temperature both inside and out, which WU never would. I almost never look at the map, but only one of my cams is showing.
WU once served a purpose for me, now it doesn't but I will continue to upload in the hope that they get the mess sorted out.
Mark
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Mine has worked fine for the past couple months. Installed it in January, disappeared for a couple weeks sometime early March if I remember correctly and has been working since. Haven't touched anything on my end since it was installed.
It's an ftp cam directly to WU.
Have a bunch of other WU issues, some longterm, some come and go, but the webcam is fixed for me.
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My FTP upload has been working *fingers crossed* through these trying times but it's almost always 30-minutes behind. Better than my neighbors - their cameras are sometime 12-hours behind, but still "working".
https://icons.wunderground.com/webcamramdisk/k/o/konz/1/current.jpg (https://icons.wunderground.com/webcamramdisk/k/o/konz/1/current.jpg)
Mainly, I haven't touched it or tried to modify anything since the craziness began.
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Hey guys, I wrote Victoria Gardner from Weather underground to see if I could get some sort of answer as to the status of the FTP webcam situation. Here was her reply today...
I don't have any answers to give you. The url-based uploading system seems to be working, but the FTP one is not. I have not been given any additional information about when it is expected to return.
--Victoria
I've been sending FTP images with my PWS for years until the recent "move" WU did and screwed everything up. None of my three cams will FTP upload. Just getting errors back. She says in her reply the URL system is working. So, my questiuon is how do I send images via URL. I am on the devices page and it will not accept a direct link to my camera URL. Seems like it wants a HTTPS vs HTTP. What do I need to do? Details please #-o
Thanks
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My FTP webcam worked pretty much flawlessly until the new site launch. Then everyone lost their webcam. Then webcams came back for some people. I want to believe that since I patiently waited and I never messed with my webcam settings that whatever fixed they did helped the webcam come back. So I've had a webcam on the new site pretty much reliably to some extent. The extent that I'll mention is that yes from time to time since I'm using FTP via Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) and not via IP address sometimes you hit 1 of the 3 IPs that is not working. Sometimes it is 2 IPs that are not working. But pretty much I get a good bit of webcam image uploads every day. I have still yet never touched my webcam settings. Until they fix it, there is no reason to believe that by messing with you you'll be able to solve it. The problem is on their end. Now if you are a new webcam user then all bets are off.
Most people discuss uploading via one of 2 methods. But if you break it down there are actually 3 methods.
- FTP using FQDN of webcam.wunderground.com
- FTP using 1 of 3 different IP addresses that are what webcam.wunderground.com resolve to randomly
- URL using your hosted webcam link.
I suppose but not sure that some people choose to use the FTP IP method because their webcam does not support using a FQDN for FTP. Or maybe they think they can do better by continually testing all 3 IPs and then only selecting which one is good that day (tedious). I prefer the FQDN for FTP method. You just FTP to webcam.wunderground.com and forget it. If it works it works....if it doesn't so what...you'll only be missing a few frames a day from my experience.
It has always been said that one of the FTP methods is more reliable than URL. What Victoria was quoted as saying is a bit curious because it is the opposite not only of what is written on WU website but also from my own experience. As I also upload a second camera using URL and that is something that misses a lot of days and on days that it does work only gets but a small handful of frames per day. I have the URL webcam to compare the two and the URL one is different in that it has embedded weather data that I do via Meteobridge.
It is known at this point that there are problems with some accounts. Either they didn't migrate correctly or there were issues with passwords. In some cases users needed to use an old email and/or password that they hadn't used for WU in quite some time to get things to work. I've never changed my email nor my password with WU and I've never touched the webcam settings...maybe some of those are reasons why I've had better luck.
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So, my questiuon is how do I send images via URL. I am on the devices page and it will not accept a direct link to my camera URL. Seems like it wants a HTTPS vs HTTP. What do I need to do? Details please #-o
Thanks
Here are few thoughts.
- I don't think URL is better. I'm using both and I see way better results with FTP.
- If you want to try URL method you can. You can have both an FTP and a URL method configured. They each are their own separate device. I'm doing just that.
- You can't convert a webcam device from FTP to URL nor the other way around. You must set up a new WU device. You don't need to delete the old device in case you want to go back to the other method. Or keep both and try both at the same time like I'm doing.
- To have a URL method work your webcam image needs to be available on the internet. You'll need to use one of a few techniques to achieve this. 1- You can FTP the image to your own hosted website and then use that URL to give to WU. 2- You can open ports on your router and do port forwarding and then use a dynamic DNS service so that your home connection has a URL. This requires some networking knowledge but isn't too difficult to pull off if someone gives you the steps and you are comfortable changing configuration on your router. 3- You can use a 3rd party web service to host your webcam image. For example I use a Meteobridge and it has a built in service to upload my webcam to meteobridge.com where I can have my own unique URL to my webcam.
One more tip. If you are going to open a port directly to your webcam and do port forwarding and use a dynamic DNS service you need to know what the URL format that is supported by your webcam manufacture. Not all webcams have the feature to pull an direct image. If this is the case then you can still use this method but you['ll need additional software to convert the video to an image and then the port forwarding and redirection is to your computer and not to directly to your webcam. For example my webcam does support a direct connection to it. This is how I pull the image with the Meteobridge rather than opening a firewall port though.
https://admin:password@192.168.1.220/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?channel=8&loginuse=admin&loginpas=admin
Technically that isn't directly to a camera since it is my channel 8 on my camera NVR system but if an IP camera were on the local network the same principle would apply. But don't use my URL....every manufacture has a different supported format.
Yep I actually do expect most of this to go over most people's heads. If you need more help you need to start at the beginning. And for every person the beginning is different depending on your camera, your router, your situation and knowledge..etc. So I can't spell things out in more detail without having your details.
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Mine is working but it is storing only 12 seconds of images that are updated every 120 seconds where is used to store 1 minute of a day. But my neighbor has several cameras and each stores at least 1 minute of images, even the one of his garbage dumpster.
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No joy here with URL. I switched to URL when WU went down to one FTP site with a 250 user limit. I had success until “the big bang”, then darkness. I’ve double and triple checked my file size, permissions on my web server, and even provided WunderTodd with my Station ID. Nada.
For me, the pure joy of following discussions surrounding the Wunderground Divide, and munching on fresh buttered (and lightly salted) popcorn 🍿 is quite entertaining.
<edit> And yes, I have deleted all camera related devices and started from scratch.
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Galfert,
I sent you a quick email. I too have meteobridge so I am curious as to how you are uploading the image via meteobridge to a secure URL (which WU requires in the setup).. I'm only considering giving the URL method a try since nothing works via FTP anymore. So ridiculous they cant get this working. My thinking is they are hoping we all give up and they can get what they wanted a year ago...No Cams!
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This is the method I use to get the Meteobridge.com URL.
First you need to configure the Meteobridge to acquire the image from your IP webcam. This is where I said it would be different for every webcam. It is even possible that some webcams don't have a URL to pull a still image from.
In the Weather Station tab on the Meteobridge you do this:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Then on the Weather Network tab you do this:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Then if you click on one of the two camera icons there you'll get a metebridge.com URL. One has text the other doesn't. I like the one that shows as +text.
When you click on one of those icons the browser will open a new page with the webcam image. Copy the resulting meteobridge.com URL and use that for WU.
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Thanks for the information. So I went through the steps. Everything worked fine until I got to clicking on the icons (mini camera and +text) I get an unreachable link in Chrome and I.E. The only thing I see different is you have HTTPS and I don't.
I tried adding the "S" on the meteobridge cam page but the check was not green, red X.
Any ideas?
Wait! I added the "S" to the link it created and it worked!
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Wait! I added the "S" to the link it created and it worked!
John, I just visited your KNCWHISP3 page and there isn't any current webcam image. Yours looks just like mine. I'm directing WU to my HTTPS image.jpg file and they're not fetching anything.
If this whole debacle wasn't so pathetic I'd probably stop visiting.
Cheers
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Then everyone lost their webcam. Then webcams came back for some people. I want to believe that since I patiently waited and I never messed with my webcam settings that whatever fixed they did helped the webcam come back. So I've had a webcam on the new site pretty much reliably to some extent.
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In my case I found out that the cameras (1 ftp and 1 url) came back because they were created using a userid & password that was no longer active. My original userid was from 2000 (WAY before I got a weather station) and used a userid@netscape.net. I changed to a gmail.com in 2015 - a year after I had a camera set up. It seems when the cameras were 'updated' a old user/password database was introduced into the new system.
Now either of my userids is recognized by the system but 'My Devices' are attached to the OLD userid. I have made no attempt to correct or change them away from the old userid and they have MOSTLY worked.
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Nope, they still are not working. I've got one sending via URL and the other FTP. I've been sending three cams via FTP since 2011. It was flawless unless WU had a screw up as we all have experienced. I made the mistake of trying to work on them a week after the the "transfer" since they were not showing us as a device. Mistake. That's when they became lost forever. ](*,) The sad thing is I can send my image to other sites and it works fine. One of them is in Spain. https://www.awekas.at/en/instrument.php?timezone=-6&id=15330#day Web cam image at the bottom. No time-lapse but WU time-lapse was never really good.
Curious to see if they come back completely or if we will have to renew our accounts. I found this link recently from the Weather Channel "Feedback and Support center"
https://feedback.weather.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2974873-webcam-ftp-issues?b_id=17298 Kind of blew me away to see TWC commenting on the puppy dog WU. Ha Ha \:D/
Good luck and enjoy the WAIT for WU to figure out which way is up.
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I don't post much, but I read lots. A member since 2013, but last web upgrade took 4 years, lol, regardless.
I use FTP and always have. When they announced that they would not show web cams anymore, I was working fine. When they put them back up again I never got the website view again on my station site in WU. I see my webcam on Phone and the Map. Never again under my station. And yes I have reviewed the links setup and the station link to the cam.
I think it is different with everyone, because of their servers, but it never came back to my station.
Just my input as the subject states.
Indy
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I had been using Bloomsky and with no problems. Since they started tinkering, not online at all. FTP should be sending data according to the Bloomsky folks, but the problem is with Wundergroundand they can't figure out a work around.
They should put back what wasn't broken and use it until they figure out the other.
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ODD I post that my station on site was not showing, only map and phone. All of a sudden it's showing as of 6 14 19
It has been months (7). I think there is a lot of background activity we don't know about.
Cheers
Wedding on Weather Cam 6 6 19 12 pm check it out [tup]
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Update on mine which has been working just fine for 2-3 weeks (knock on wood) Maybe they are getting all of the bugs worked out and can now work on the wundermap which last I checked could use some help.
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Still not working for me. I had three sending FTP for years. Now I’ve switched one to a URL which the Rep insist is working. Well, mine is not. I’m pretty much giving up on WU. Sending my data to other resources. How hard can it be to fix this? IBM is laying off people here in North Carolina. Probably don’t have the resources or people to screw with this minor issue. I feel The best of WU is a thing of the past.
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KININDIA72 Indianapolis
I am using FTP and have not changed to anything else. As I stated, when they decided to not have web cams , then we changed their mind, that is when the station webcam
went off line, I could still see in map and phone. As of last week, now the station is showing the webcam.
Correction. Wedding on Webcam here on 7/6/19 around 12.
Indy
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Connected to webcam.wunderground.com.
220---------- Welcome to Pure-FTPd [privsep] [TLS] ----------
220-You are user number 368 of 10000 allowed.
220-Local time is now 21:08. Server port: 21.
220-This is a private system - No anonymous login
220 You will be disconnected after 60 seconds of inactivity.
200 OK, UTF-8 enabled
User (webcam.wunderground.com:(none)): wu-0521643CAM1
331 User wu-0521643CAM1 OK. Password required
Password:
530 Login authentication failed
Login failed.
Been this way for months now.
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Still not. Sent yet another note to Bloomsky. I am going to sit still until after July 4. If they haven't got it fixed by then, I am giving up.
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Still not working for me :roll:
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Well, after months without images and going back and forth with Victoria @ IBM, my URL image pulls started working, kind of. My images get pulled maybe 4 times at most per day at totally random intervals. Until they get their $#!+ in order, here is my 5min interval image:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
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Lucky you! I’ve only had two images pulled in the past three weeks. Nothing current right now. I’m telling you, they are not bringing them back. They are just stringing us along until we give up.
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Well, after months without images and going back and forth with Victoria @ IBM, my URL image pulls started working, kind of. My images get pulled maybe 4 times at most per day at totally random intervals. Until they get their $#!+ in order, here is my 5min interval image:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
I have to laugh. The WUFixers must be reading our threads, because my webcam URL images are totally blank today, and my camera reports as "offline" on my profile devices pages. Geee, what do you think the odds are that it's a 'technical glitch'? ](*,) :twisted: :roll:
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Time for the test pattern again, rormeister.
I just checked webcam.wunderground and 52.36.136.128 aren't accepting my password.....still...after months of trying. Sometimes I think I stay on WU just for the disappointments and aggravation.
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Sometimes I think I stay on WU just for the disappointments and aggravation.
"Why do you keep beating your head against that wall"?
"Because it fees so good when I stop."
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Mine totally went off with the new site opening.
Came back a month or two ago and only misses the odd one. Seems to store a decent length slide show last time I checked. Pics are within a few minutes usually.
Just doing FTP with a Foscam.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IONOTTAW14
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Mine is working normally.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IBOLIVAR5#history
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Lucky guys..mine still not work at all