Author Topic: broken EC radar images (Read 4584 times)

weathergirl · « **on:** January 18, 2010, 09:57:36 AM »

My EC radar images are broken:

http://www.beamsvillewx.ca/wxradar2.php

Might this be a result of my webhost upgrading his server?

saratogaWX · « **Reply #1 on:** January 18, 2010, 10:59:24 AM »

Could be...

Make sure your website has a /radar/ directory under the document root, and that the directory permissions are 777

weathergirl · « **Reply #2 on:** January 18, 2010, 12:49:47 PM »

Hi Ken: I changed the permissions, the images are still broken. I don't understand because I have had the EC radar setup for awhile now and they have always worked.

saratogaWX · « **Reply #3 on:** January 18, 2010, 01:05:30 PM »

Hmmm.. doing a http://www.beamsvillewx.ca/maps/ec-radar.php?cache=no

results with comments

Quote

I suggest you change

$radarDir = './maps/radar/';

to be

$radarDir = '/maps/radar/';

also check your php.ini on your new site and make sure that

allow_url_fopen = on

is in there.

weathergirl · « **Reply #4 on:** January 18, 2010, 04:02:42 PM »

Thanks for your help, Ken. The php.ini is fine, and I'll make that change to the ec-radar.php script and let you know what happens.

saratogaWX · « **Reply #5 on:** January 18, 2010, 05:55:20 PM »

You may also need to delete the cache files in /maps/radar/ .. the permissions on the files may be preventing them being written by the PHP script (based on the old permissions on the /maps/radar/ directory).

weathergirl · « **Reply #6 on:** January 23, 2010, 12:41:08 PM »

I made the changes and I'm still getting broken images. I have removed the page from my menu until I can rectify the problem.

saratogaWX · « **Reply #7 on:** January 24, 2010, 08:59:28 PM »

Hmmm... unfortunately, the current code doesn't highlight the reason why the images are not being cached. The code

Code: [Select]

function download_file($file_source,$file_dir, $file_target) {
// do a binary download and save to disk file locally
  $rh = fopen($file_source, 'rb');
  $wh = fopen($file_dir . $file_target, 'wb');
  if ($rh===false || $wh===false) {
   // error reading or opening file
    return false;
  }
  while (!feof($rh)) {
    if (fwrite($wh, fread($rh, 8192)) === FALSE) {
          // 'Download error: Cannot write to file ('.$file_target.')';
          return false;
    }
  }
  fclose($rh);
  fclose($wh);
  // No error
  return true;
}

is used to download the images, and a failure in either the first fopen() for the image file by URL, or the second fopen() for the local cache file can cause the message you are getting

Quote

I suggest you change the function to read

Code: [Select]

function download_file($file_source,$file_dir, $file_target) {
// do a binary download and save to disk file locally
  error_reporting(E_ALL & ! E_NOTICE);
  $rh = fopen($file_source, 'rb');
  $wh = fopen($file_dir . $file_target, 'wb');
  if ($rh===false || $wh===false) {
   // error reading or opening file
    return false;
  }
  while (!feof($rh)) {
    if (fwrite($wh, fread($rh, 8192)) === FALSE) {
          // 'Download error: Cannot write to file ('.$file_target.')';
          return false;
    }
  }
  fclose($rh);
  fclose($wh);
  // No error
  return true;
}

and see what errors pop up.

Best regards,
Ken

weathergirl · « **Reply #8 on:** January 24, 2010, 09:05:38 PM »

Ken: Would it have anything to do with the fact that cURL is failing on my site? I just found out in another forum because some images produced by another software were not displaying data either, and I was told that was the reason.

saratogaWX · « **Reply #9 on:** January 24, 2010, 09:10:17 PM »

It could be symptomatic of a problem with HTTP access from your webserver to the internet .. however, the ec-radar (and ec-forecast) scripts don't use cURL. Both scripts use the fconnect() function which seems to work ok for the the text of HTML pages from Environment Canada. The ec-radar script uses the fopen() with an URL to binary read the radar image and binary write the image to a cache file. Adding the error_reporting() in the function should show which of the two functions (read the EC graphic file, and/or write the cache file) is failing .. my bet is on the open the EC-graphic file from the webserver. The change to error_reporting should show the underlying cause

weathergirl · « **Reply #10 on:** January 24, 2010, 09:20:09 PM »

OK, I changed the code.

saratogaWX · « **Reply #11 on:** January 24, 2010, 09:26:22 PM »

Oops... had the wrong syntax for the error_reporting()

It should read

Code: [Select]

error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);
Sorry...

weathergirl · « **Reply #12 on:** January 24, 2010, 09:33:52 PM »

Ok, Ken, just changed the code. Lots of errors:

http://www.beamsvillewx.ca/maps/ec-radar.php

saratogaWX · « **Reply #13 on:** January 24, 2010, 09:37:43 PM »

And... we have a cause:

Quote

Warning: fopen() [function.fopen]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/annmarie/public_html/maps/ec-radar.php on line 509

So the allow_url_fopen = on is NOT being honored in your php.ini

You might try putting a php.ini in the /maps/ directory too with

allow_url_fopen = on

in it.
If that still doesn't work, time to contact your hoster and ask 'What's up with that?'

weathergirl · « **Reply #14 on:** January 24, 2010, 09:56:59 PM »

Nothing after adding the php.ini to the directory, so my webhost has been contacted. He is looking into it as I write this.
Thanks for your help, Ken

I thought it might be the server, the webhost has been performing upgrades lately, and his weather forum is looking great

weathergirl · « **Reply #15 on:** January 24, 2010, 10:02:52 PM »

Voila!

http://www.beamsvillewx.ca/wxradar.php

mackbig · « **Reply #16 on:** January 25, 2010, 06:35:03 AM »

Good thing you got EC working again, cause KBUF was down pretty much all weekend. 3-23 hours at a time.

Andrew

weathergirl · « **Reply #17 on:** January 25, 2010, 06:42:19 AM »

I know, Andrew. It was tense for awhile there

knowing this big rain event was coming and having no way of displaying it

mackbig · « **Reply #18 on:** January 25, 2010, 06:49:30 AM »

I know, I thought it was my weekly (or so) issue where GR3 inexplicably stops polling for data... but after a manual restart Saturday morning I headed out skiing, and kept getting my email warnings that the file was not loaded. got home to see that accorrding to nws, kbuf failed at 12:04utc... not up all day. Then sunday it would come up for a few minutes/hours at a time. It was even down when I left for work this morning, but I saw that it started cranking again at 5:55am

Andrew

CNYWeather · « **Reply #19 on:** January 25, 2010, 07:59:01 AM »

Is the Montague radar too far away for you guys when BUF is down?

mackbig · « **Reply #20 on:** January 25, 2010, 08:11:26 AM »

Looks like it, not in front of GR3 right now, but it looks like the sweep from Montague only makes it to just past Trenton, which is about half way across Lake Ontario. Even if it touched my location at its outer reaches, since 98% of our weather is west to east, would not really work. Definitely would not hit Ann-Marie where she is. She actually uses overlays from Detroit (and Cleveland I think) on hers as well to get a bigger west to east track. We have our EC radar as a backup for the sites.

KBUF has a pretty good uptime from what I have seen. From all my outages, I have only noticed KBUF to be the cause on one of them.

Andrew

Quote from: CNYWeather on January 25, 2010, 07:59:01 AM

Is the Montague radar too far away for you guys when BUF is down?

weathergirl · « **Reply #21 on:** January 25, 2010, 09:18:36 AM »

I also find that the King City radar displays what the KBUF radar, and my other overlays, can miss, such as precipitation further north of my location. That`s why I like to offer my visitors a choice of which radar to view

saratogaWX · « **Reply #22 on:** January 25, 2010, 12:20:54 PM »

Looks like it's working now, Ann-Marie .. hoster must have fixed the issue

weathergirl · « **Reply #23 on:** January 25, 2010, 12:45:25 PM »

Yes, the radar works great now, Ken

I must say, my webhost is great. When or if there is a problem (fortunately rarely), he gets around to fixing it right away

mackbig · « **Reply #24 on:** January 26, 2010, 07:07:44 AM »

another 14 hour outage at kbuf just ended

sounds like someone needs a new cable modem

"THE KBUF WSR88D IS EXPERIENCING PERIODIC COMMS FAILURE BETWEEN THE OFFICE AND TH
E RADAR SITE. COMMUNICATIONS AND NWS TECHNICIANS ARE WORKING ON THE PROBLEM...BU
T NO ESTIMATED RETURN TO SERVICE IS KNOWN AT THIS TIME. THE SPORADIC NATURE OF T
HE OUTAGE IS MAKING THE ASSESSMENT VERY DIFFICULT. SURROUNDING RADARS INCLUDE KC
LE...KPBZ...KCCX...KBGM...AND KTYX AS WELL AS ENVIRONEMENT CANADA KING CITY RADA
R. ***END OF MESSAGE*** HITCHCOCK"

Sounds like they use EC as an alternate too....

Andrew

Quote from: weathergirl on January 25, 2010, 09:18:36 AM

I also find that the King City radar displays what the KBUF radar, and my other overlays, can miss, such as precipitation further north of my location. That`s why I like to offer my visitors a choice of which radar to view

News:

Author Topic: broken EC radar images (Read 4584 times)