Author Topic: Webcam FTP to WU issues (Read 7211 times)

ixlr8 · « **on:** February 28, 2020, 05:51:25 PM »

Hi, I just acquired a Reolink RLC-410W IP camera and I am trying to get it to FTP to WU. I have added the camera on WU, I have used both the webcam.wunderground.com address and an IP address, along with my camera name and upload key. I set this about 11 this morning. So far every time I have tried to 'test' my FTP connection, it has failed. Do I need to wait longer for my camera name to propagate the WU system? Is there some setting in my wifi router I need to check/change? Is there any way to see why it is failing? Is WU just all FU'd? It does seem that with every "improvement" they make, they make things worse.
Thank you- Jim

Central Maine Weather · « **Reply #1 on:** February 28, 2020, 07:02:13 PM »

Hello from Leeds, Maine!
I have 2 Reolink RLC 410-W IP cameras uploading to my website http://monumenthillweather.webs.com/
I have tried to get one or the other to upload to my Weather Underground page, and after messing with the FTP settings and waiting as you have done, I finally get it to say FTP Success!, but even after it says that I have yet to ever see an actual image on my Weather Underground site.

After messing around with it for months and trying to contact WU for assistance, I have given up trying to get it to upload to them. I'm just glad I have my own website where I can upload the image.

In your case, I would wait a bit longer and then go back into the Reolink FTP settings and see if it finally says 'FTP Success' when you retry it. I think the biggest issue with the Reolink cameras are they upload very high quality images which are apparently too big for an allowed upload to WU. I have tried resizing the image however and that didn't do a thing.

Keep plugging away at it and I hope you have better luck than I have so far! Keep us updated if you get it to work!
Best,
- Matt

By the way, what is your Weather Underground Callsign or URL to your weather station on WU? I'd love to check it out! Nice seeing someone else from Maine on this Forum!

CKayaks · « **Reply #2 on:** February 28, 2020, 07:27:50 PM »

See a similar post...https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=38878.0

Seems to be a theme with WU.

ixlr8 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 28, 2020, 07:30:10 PM »

Quote from: The Maine Naturalist on February 28, 2020, 07:02:13 PM

Hello from Leeds, Maine!
I have 2 Reolink RLC 410-W IP cameras uploading to my website http://monumenthillweather.webs.com/
..............
Keep plugging away at it and I hope you have better luck than I have so far! Keep us updated if you get it to work!
Best,
- Matt

By the way, what is your Weather Underground Callsign or URL to your weather station on WU? I'd love to check it out! Nice seeing someone else from Maine on this Forum!

Here is a link to my WU site.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ISTARTKK2

Central Maine Weather · « **Reply #4 on:** February 28, 2020, 08:04:31 PM »

Quote from: ixlr8 on February 28, 2020, 07:30:10 PM

Quote from: The Maine Naturalist on February 28, 2020, 07:02:13 PM
Hello from Leeds, Maine!
I have 2 Reolink RLC 410-W IP cameras uploading to my website http://monumenthillweather.webs.com/
..............
Keep plugging away at it and I hope you have better luck than I have so far! Keep us updated if you get it to work!
Best,
- Matt

By the way, what is your Weather Underground Callsign or URL to your weather station on WU? I'd love to check it out! Nice seeing someone else from Maine on this Forum!
Here is a link to my WU site.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ISTARTKK2

Great, thanks!
Again, I wish you well in your attempt to get your cam onto WU! I’ll keep looking into it as well and will let you know if I figure out any tricks. As CKayaks said though, it definitely seems to be an ongoing WU issue amongst the many other issues that keep appearing.
- Matt

ixlr8 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 02, 2020, 02:34:21 PM »

I have done some more digging, and after using FileZilla to attempt a FTP connection to WU, I have found it looks to be an issue with WU. When I attempt a FTP connection, WU accepts my cam ID, but it rejects my password, even though I did a copy/paste of my password from my WU devices page. I have sent several emails to WU, I get a form reply but nothing more.

I contacted Reolink about reducing the size of image sent via FTP and here is their reply.

"Please lower the bitrate of the camera to reduce the image size. Thanks."

Jim

awsum140 · « **Reply #6 on:** March 02, 2020, 03:24:45 PM »

Image size seems to work best with about a 200-225KB file size. Reolink doesn't offer the most control of their cameras, and I have no experience with any of their recent offerings, so tinker and see what you can do. Bottom line is getting a 2K or 4K camera for use with WU is a total waste of money whether it's a Reolink, Dahua or Hikvision.

Try opening a command prompt and FTP directly into WU that way. See if it accepts your password that way. I had a similar problem getting it to accept the password, but finally it started working after about a week, but that was almost a year ago so I could be off with that time frame.

ixlr8 · « **Reply #7 on:** March 02, 2020, 04:58:08 PM »

Quote from: awsum140 on March 02, 2020, 03:24:45 PM

Try opening a command prompt and FTP directly into WU that way.

Not sure how to do this on my MacBook Pro.

awsum140 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 02, 2020, 06:33:53 PM »

I'm not in the Apple crate but maybe someone that is will chime in.

rormeister · « **Reply #9 on:** March 02, 2020, 07:37:22 PM »

Quote from: awsum140 on March 02, 2020, 06:33:53 PM

I'm not in the Apple crate but maybe someone that is will chime in.

Rotten Apples they are...this is (untested) from StackExchange:

macOS does not come with an FTP command line tool. You can connect read-only (just for downloading things) to FTP servers using Finder. Open Finder and choose Go → Connect to Server (CMD-K) and enter ftp://webcam.wunderground.com/

ixlr8 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 02, 2020, 08:08:30 PM »

Quote from: rormeister on March 02, 2020, 07:37:22 PM

Rotten Apples they are...this is (untested) from StackExchange:

macOS does not come with an FTP command line tool. You can connect read-only (just for downloading things) to FTP servers using Finder. Open Finder and choose Go → Connect to Server (CMD-K) and enter ftp://webcam.wunderground.com/

I just found this procedure in an Apple help file. Procedure seemed to work, but again WU rejected my password.

awsum140 · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2020, 08:15:12 PM »

Give it some time, they'll find a roundtuit eventually. Any day now, aaaaannnnnyyyy day.

rormeister · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2020, 08:18:19 PM »

Quote from: ixlr8 on March 02, 2020, 08:08:30 PM

Quote from: rormeister on March 02, 2020, 07:37:22 PM

Rotten Apples they are...this is (untested) from StackExchange:

macOS does not come with an FTP command line tool. You can connect read-only (just for downloading things) to FTP servers using Finder. Open Finder and choose Go → Connect to Server (CMD-K) and enter ftp://webcam.wunderground.com/
I just found this procedure in an Apple help file. Procedure seemed to work, but again WU rejected my password.

Don't feel too bad, all 4 (yup F.O.U.R.) of my cameras reject my credentials to the FTP site. Maybe we're showing too much <blush> information?

awsum140 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2020, 09:21:35 PM »

Ror, they're not supposed to be in your bathtub!

Andy Beim · « **Reply #14 on:** March 11, 2020, 03:17:01 PM »

New setup. Reolink camera. Saw other comments, so tried FileZilla. WU doesn't like the password. Tried WU Support. Haha on that . . . will keep trying, but clearly a WU issue.

ixlr8 · « **Reply #15 on:** March 14, 2020, 01:22:14 PM »

Quote from: Andy Beim on March 11, 2020, 03:17:01 PM

New setup. Reolink camera. Saw other comments, so tried FileZilla. WU doesn't like the password. Tried WU Support. Haha on that . . . will keep trying, but clearly a WU issue.

After trying to get my FTP webcam to work for over a week. I tried FileZilla for about a week to verify login, still no joy in getting my password accepted at WU. Heard that uploading via URL was better so I tried that. A week later, my URL 'device' still says "OFFLINE". I gave up on WU and I am now uploading my station info and webcam to AWEKAS and WINDY. My Webcam was up on AWEKAS within 2 hrs and the folks at WINDY took 3 days to approve my webcam. For the time being, I have given up on uploading my webcam to WU.
I am using an Ambient Weatherbridge (Meteobridge) to replace my PC that was running 24/7 to upload my station data and webcam images.
In the past 3 weeks a have sent 4 messages to WU about the issue. All I get back is form letters, no help. WU seems to be running on life support since IBM took over. I'm not sure why IBM is buying all these weather sites, but they are ruining all of them.

rormeister · « **Reply #16 on:** March 14, 2020, 01:43:32 PM »

Bottom line, based on correspondence with Victoria Gardner @ IBM; once back in June of 2019, and again a week ago, webcams are a very back burner issue for WU/IBM. back in 2019 it was "approval" problems. Now it's credential failures. I personally don't believe the skeleton crew at WU gives a rats behind what happens to the PWS portion of their acquisition. As you can see from the most recent response, where I inquired about our old pal 'WunderTodd', he's no longer there. Pity, he seemed to be the only one capable of actually making things work.

ixlr8 · « **Reply #17 on:** March 14, 2020, 03:10:43 PM »

Quote from: rormeister on March 14, 2020, 01:43:32 PM

Bottom line, based on correspondence with Victoria Gardner @ IBM; once back in June of 2019, and again a week ago, webcams are a very back burner issue for WU/IBM.

At least you have a solid contact and you can get some sort of a response, like it or not. I have sent 4 requests to that support address in 3 weeks and all I have gotten in response is a form letter saying thank you for submitting your request. With regards to WU/IBM, I don't think they give a rats $$%^ about WU at all. Which makes me wonder why they bought it in the first place. WU started down hill when the Weather Channel bought them, now that IBM has bought WC & WU & Intellicast, they all are terrible. When WU sends me a Pop-up note asking me for my feedback, I tell them NO I would not recommend them to anybody. Although it does sound like Victoria is between the rock and a hard place with no help, so I can't fault her.

WSWeather · « **Reply #18 on:** March 14, 2020, 06:45:52 PM »

Quote from: ixlr8 on March 14, 2020, 03:10:43 PM

Which makes me wonder why they bought it in the first place.

They bought it (The Weather Company) to get at the WU PWS data and use it in their "microforecast" product. You'd think that they would be a little more responsive to the owners of those PWS who upload the data but I am quite confident that the vast majority of them don't complain when things go sideways (or just don't notice) and the ones who do--us--are an insignificant fraction of the total.

In other (paraphrased) words, they don't care...they don't have to. They're IBM.

Mirwin275 · « **Reply #19 on:** July 12, 2020, 10:45:50 PM »

I have had my Reolink camera for almost a year now which has been uploading to WU fine until yesterday. Late yesterday morning, I noticed it was not updating on WU anymore. I went into My Devices on WU and my camera shows offline now. I checked the settings in my Reolink software for FTP upload and I see red "!" next to everything. This causes me to think that WU's camera servers are down. Anyone else notice their webcam is offline now suddenly?

ConligWX · « **Reply #20 on:** July 13, 2020, 05:52:49 AM »

WU is flakey at the best of times, however afaik the maximum size of image must be less than 150kb and named "image.jpg" for any upload to WU to work correctly.

Felix1 · « **Reply #21 on:** July 13, 2020, 08:09:27 AM »

Quote from: Mirwin275 on July 12, 2020, 10:45:50 PM

Anyone else notice their webcam is offline now suddenly?

Same here. Upload software shows 100% receipt of webcam data. Went down over the weekend, I expect it’ll get fixed today when folks are back in the office.

sundevil01010101 · « **Reply #22 on:** July 13, 2020, 11:15:17 AM »

Agreed, all my webcams went offline this weekend so must be some issue at WU...

Great timing if you happen to be trying to set one up lol.

Just for the record, I've had a lot of weird issues with my devices on WU. I have 3 weather station/3 webcams reporting to them. One disappeared off the list for months even though it was reporting to WU and I could see the dashboard updating the whole time. One day it magically reappeared on the list.

I had one camera showing online for months but no webcam pics ever showed up, then magically they did for about two weeks and then quit again.

So they have a lot of different issues as reported many times here. It's a crap shoot with IBM running it since I can't imagine user reported data is a priority for them.

casa manana · « **Reply #23 on:** July 13, 2020, 08:35:52 PM »

Mine have been down since Saturday. They all look like their uploading to the cloud fine, it’s just another WU problem.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if they just sent out a message when they have a technical issue?

awsum140 · « **Reply #24 on:** July 13, 2020, 09:03:29 PM »

I don't think webcams are very high up on the list of things that IBM is concerned with. All they want is the data we provide. Anything else, including the website, webcams and apps, is a waste of dollars to them. I am so sorry I got an AcuRite weather station since without buying additional equipment WU is the only game in town. As always, lesson learned the hard way.

News:

Author Topic: Webcam FTP to WU issues (Read 7211 times)