Topic: WL Update problems and Cumulus oddity

[archae86]

I have a Davis VP2 system, connected to my PC for reporting by an Envoy with the USB variant of WeatherLink hardware. For over a year I've been running Cumulus nearly all the time, using it to report to Wunderground and to create a Cumulus-generated set of web pages.

In order to have nearly intact history available for graphing functions in both WeatherLink and Cumulus, I've had the habit from the beginning of stopping Cumulus and running Weatherlink for just long enough to load the data since last update, then revert to Cumulus.  I try to do this twice a week, though with my logging interval I don't have a data gap in WL unless the time between updates exceeds about ten days.

The WeatherLink part of this seems to have started behaving abnormally a few weeks ago. Here is the current behavior, logged starting with a shutdown of Cumulus which has been running for a day.

1. on commanding download of the station, WeatherLink announces there are 369 pages (72%) available. At my data collection rate (5 minute interval) this would historically have been a bit under seven days--odd since I downloaded it yesterday, at which time it announced 6n% available.

2. the WL transfer progress bar appears to show normal progress to completion

3. On clicking WL's "make a plot" button after the transfer is complete, the page shown is for October 14, the same it has been since this problem started, and not today. clicking the date shows available days of data going back but not days more recent.

4. WL shows the "station" to have the correct current date and time.

5. on shutting down WL and restarting Cumulus, Cumulus shows the "please wait, downloading data" box for 68 seconds--far longer than the historic amount for a 5 minute shutdown.

I originally posted this same query on the Cumulus Davis forum.  Mr. Sandaysoft advised me to post my Diags folder contents, and on reviewing them pointed out that the logging created at the point of the unusually long Cumulus download data delay showed Cumulus waiting a minute only to find there was no new data for it.

At this point, it seems to me my Envoy has gotten to a slightly abnormal state, or possibly some software on my PC (maybe the Davis DLL?).

Any suggestions in this forum of things I might do to diagnose or recover?  I'm pretty sure I've rebooted the host PC since this started, but I'm thinking I'll do a full cold (power actually off for a minute) reboot of the PC.  If that changes nothing, then disconnect the Envoy both from USB and power, pull out the batteries, wait an hour, then batteries in, reconnect, and see if all has gotten any different.

[ocala]

For as long as I have used WL, almost 10 years, it always seems to hiccup occasionally out of the blue.
It mostly seems to be corrupted data is the culprit but in this thread http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=16893.0 I ended up deleting and reinstalling to get rid of the problem.
I would first check the browse data to look for any readings that are abnormal. Sometimes that's all it takes.
Beyond that any recent changes in hardware or software may have had effect.
I'm sure some others will chime in with suggestions.

[Weather Display]

a power down and remove of the data logger might help , yes

[dalecoy]

a power down and remove of the data logger might help , yes

If that doesn't fix it, then try clearing the archive in the logger.  

Looking at the strip charts in WeatherLink will usually reveal if there's a problem with the WeatherLink data files.  If so, there are several detailed discussions in this forum, about methods of (perhaps partially) fixing that.

Do you have good recent backups of your data?

I'm betting you will probably need to delete the October and November .wlk files.  But try the other things first.

[archae86]

Do you have good recent backups of your data?

Yes--most directories on the system get backed up nightly to a hard drive on another system on my net--I should check that has actually happened to the WL data before tampering.

I'm betting you will probably need to delete the October and November .wlk files.  But try the other things first.

Thanks for the specific advice.  I have a concert today and need not to start something--so I'll look at any advice that comes in by morning, and probably try the full cold (battery removal) powerdown as my next move, then move on to deleting .wlk files.

While the .wlk files may well be corrupted, I don't see why the unusual extended startup data download delay for Cumulus would be part of the situation unless Weatherlink corruption extended to the Davis DLL Cumulus uses to actually talk to the Envoy.  If that is the case, I fear I may have to uninstall WL completely, which I dread a little because getting it started in the first place was just a bit of a tussle and I don't remember all the details.  But I'll go there when lesser things are exhausted.

Thanks

[dalecoy]

--so I'll look at any advice that comes in by morning, and probably try the full cold (battery removal) powerdown as my next move, then move on to deleting .wlk files.
...

I agree that the Cumulus symptom (in conjunction with the WeatherLink symptom) is curious.  And remember that you have two pieces of hardware here.  The "cold start" should assure that both the console and the logger are correctly started, but doesn't change any data that is stored in the logger.

After the "cold start" - if that doesn't fix it - then next try using WeatherLink to clear the archive on the logger.

[archae86]

And remember that you have two pieces of hardware here.  The "cold start" should assure that both the console and the logger are correctly started, but doesn't change any data that is stored in the logger.

After the "cold start" - if that doesn't fix it - then next try using WeatherLink to clear the archive on the logger.

Thanks for both the reminder and that particular suggestion.  I vaguely think I recall spotting the clear archive option on my travels through the WeatherLink menus, but definitely did not think of using it here.  Now that I think about it, I wish they had a "reset all internal state" function.

[dalecoy]

There are several ways to get to "clear archive".  The thing I normally do is to just go to the screen that sets the time, change it (and optionally change it back) by a bit, and then when you authorize the change, you are asked if you want to clear the archive.

[archae86]

I think all is well now, though I do have a nearly 4-week hole in my WeatherLink history.

I am not sure which step cleared which part of the problem, but in aggregate I did a cold PC reboot, an Envoy full disconnection with five minutes of disconnection and no onboard battery, deletion of the current and previous month Weatherlink history files, and a "clear archive".

I did the PC plus envoy cold reboots first.  After that there was some change in behavior, and for the first time since October 14, I was offered a today plot option in Weatherlink.  However, no data was displayed there.

So after that I deleted the 2012-10.wlk and 2012-11.wlk files, and cleared the archive (I assume this means Envoy onboard memory) in WL using Setup|Clear...|Archive Memory.

After running in Cumulus (my default mode) for an hour after these measures, I stopped Cumulus, started WL, downloaded, and found that I had one hour of fresh data. Stopping WL and restarting Cumulus the startup data download delay seemed normal.

Regarding backup, I was embarrassed to discover at the end that my backup (which runs by automated script using XXCOPY) has not actually been backing up my Weatherlink data.  My script actually enumerates the root directories from which I want backups, and c:\weatherlink has not been on my list.  I shall add it.

Thanks to all who provided comments and assistance, especially to dalecoy.

[dalecoy]

You are quite welcome.

BTW - the "archive memory" is (primarily) in the logger - and of course that is plugged into the Envoy, so it's "in the Envoy".