Mac OSX Mountain Lion 10.8, 64 bit, serial drivers etc.

[stardog2000]

Greetings,

I have been using a Vantage Pro through many OS releases.  Most recently (last 3-5) years I have used a Keyspan (Tripplite) Serial to USB adaptor and the associated drivers.  A month or so ago I upgraded to Mountain Lion (10. which is based on a 64 bit addressing structure.  I figured there might be some driver issues but I decided to try to most current one I could find. 

WeatherCat can "see" the Station.  The current data in the Weather Gauges window all seems to be updating properly but the WeatherCat comm software seems unable to download historical or current data records.  The data viewer is empty.  Current Hi/Lows in the Today window are not updating.  Some buzz on the Internet talks about bad data if the drivers are still 32 bit.  I'm not really sure if this driver is 64 bit but I doubt it.

So, what to do. . .

Is anyone running Weathercat with a Serial-USB adaptor successfully on Mountain Lion?  If so what brand and where are drivers available.  This would be the cheapest solution.

I could buy the Davis General Purpose USB Data Logger.  I assume this will work with the older Vantage Pro (not 2).  Can anyone here confirm this. But I would be spending $165 in part for a Windows versions of Weatherlink which I don't want or need.

Any help is appreciated.  Id like to resolve this issue this year to start out 2013 with new software, data etc, all working right

Dave

[Steve]

Cant help you out Dave, but I want to welcome you to the forum! There are some very helpful and friendly folk here, and I think you'll find it a pleasant place to hang out.

I think we have a couple guys running serial adaptors, so I'll let them chime in.

Glad you found us,
Steve

[HairyMcLeary]

Is anyone running Weathercat with a Serial-USB adaptor successfully on Mountain Lion?  If so what brand and where are drivers available.  This would be the cheapest solution.

Hi Dave,

I'm running a FTDI (Future Technology Devices International) serial-USB adapter on Mountain Lion (64 bit) I have a LaCrosse station so I'm not sure if it will be compatible with Davis, I suspect not.

When i first upgraded to Mountain Lion WC would crash every couple of hours, the problem was solved with a clean install of Mt. Lion rather than an upgrade (from Lion in my case)

Tony

[Bluesky51]

My Keyspan USA-28 serial adaptor still works with my ancient Davis Weather Monitor II after I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Running version 2.6.b5 of Keyspan Serial Assistant, the OS 10.7 beta version from the Tripp Lite site.

The one problem the adaptor has had for some time now, it only reliably gets recognised on the front USB ports on my MacPro, don't know why this is the case.

Noel

[stardog2000]

Thank you all for your advice but I am still having issues.  I have tried my old Keyspan USA-28-X-B and a newer Tripplite USA-19HS on loan to me.  I believe I am using the same driver Noel is using (the only beta driver on the Tripplite site supposedly for Lion (not Mountain Lion)

This is a little weird but here is the current state of affairs when running WC.  WC launches OK and can "see" my Vantage Pro station.  Current Data seems fine.  The gauges window shows current correct data and updates normally and smoothly.  Quality is 100% with 0 comms errors.The Live Data window shows current values as correct

The kicker is . . . for some reason WC is unable to download any any records.  The Data-Viewer shows no current data with the message "Disabled, waiting for data...".  Of course any view requiring historical data . . . .the "Today" window, 1 hour Delta in Live Data, Red-Blue High Low ticks in the gauges are all incorrect because WC is not downloading historical records.

So lieu of this info, any ideas from you guys.  I don't know the Station Data protocol (i.e.. why is current data getting read but no records).  Maybe my data logger is dead in some way  I have been using this station free standing for quite a while and haven't actually downloaded records for several months.

Thanks for any further advice

Dave

[WCDev]

Hi Dave,
How do your station comms figures look (Tools->Status)?

[stardog2000]

I checked the Status window as requested. . .

FTP 1 & 2 both show a status of Idle, FTP 3 shows a status of Not in Use
All Online Services are currently Disabled

After running for approximately 12 minutes Station Comms lists as   Excellent (100%)  with Good Data of 260 , Comm Errors of 0

Again, thanks for your interest,

Dave

[WCDev]

Thanks Dave.

Boot WeatherCat up, leave it run for a few minutes then open the Log window (Tools->Log) and check for any messages that might indicate an issue.

If you can't spot anything obvious, copy all the text out of log window and post it here so we can see if there's anything there that might help diagnose the problem.

[stardog2000]

 Here is the Log  . . .

My guesses . . .
     The Serial to USB Driver is working OK, probably not the issue
     The Data Logger isn't storing any data for some reason
     The station isn't sending data to the data logger



2:44:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherCat V1.02 Build 3. 19:44:09 Jul 11 2012 loading...
 2:44:14 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Initialising data sub-system...
 2:44:17 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Starting Stats...
 2:44:17 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Initialising algorithms...
 2:44:17 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Station Driver Manager loading...
 2:44:17 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Loading station drivers.
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Loaded Davis Monitor/Wizard.
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Loaded Davis Vantage/Pro/Pro2/Vue/Envoy.
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Loaded WeatherHawk (Web).
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Loaded Davis WeatherLink I.P..
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Loaded WMR 928/968.
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Loaded La Crosse WS23xx.
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Finished loading station drivers.
 2:44:18 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Trying to connect to Davis Vantage/Pro/Pro2/Vue/Envoy...
 2:44:20 AM 18-Aug-2012:  StationPlugInManager: Starting driver Davis Vantage/Pro/Pro2/Vue/Envoy.
 2:44:20 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherCat Plug-in Manager loading...
 2:44:20 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherCatPlugInManager: Starting updates for Live Data View.
 2:44:20 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherCatPlugInManager: Starting updates for Banner Generator.
 2:44:20 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Initialising custom graphs...
 2:44:20 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Launching imagery threads...
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Davis Monitor driver initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Davis Vantage driver initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherHawk driver initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Davis WLIP driver initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WMR968 driver initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WS23xx driver initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Station Driver Thread V1.00: Running.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Current Conditions Calculator initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Live Data plug-in initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Banner Generator initialising.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Running.
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherCat server is starting - running on port 49250
 2:44:21 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherCat is running...
 2:44:28 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Checking for application updates...
 2:44:28 AM 18-Aug-2012:  No application updates found.
 2:44:31 AM 18-Aug-2012: 
 2:44:31 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Fetching data from weather station...
 2:44:31 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Temperature not ready...
 2:44:31 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Dewpoint not ready...
 2:44:31 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Pressure not ready...
 2:44:31 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Precipitation rate not ready...
 2:44:32 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Rain count not ready...
 2:44:32 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Wind speed not ready...
 2:44:32 AM 18-Aug-2012:  External rh not ready...
 2:44:32 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Weather data not ready - retrying in 10 seconds.
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012: 
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Fetching data from weather station...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Temperature not ready...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Dewpoint not ready...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Pressure not ready...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Precipitation rate not ready...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Rain count not ready...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Wind speed not ready...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  External rh not ready...
 2:44:42 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Weather data not ready - retrying in 10 seconds.
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012: 
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Fetching data from weather station...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Temperature not ready...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Dewpoint not ready...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Pressure not ready...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Precipitation rate not ready...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Rain count not ready...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Wind speed not ready...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  External rh not ready...
 2:44:52 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Weather data not ready - retrying in 10 seconds.
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012: 
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Fetching data from weather station...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Temperature not ready...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Dewpoint not ready...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Pressure not ready...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Precipitation rate not ready...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Rain count not ready...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Wind speed not ready...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  External rh not ready...
 2:45:02 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Weather data not ready - retrying in 10 seconds.
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012: 
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Fetching data from weather station...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Temperature not ready...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Dewpoint not ready...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Pressure not ready...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Precipitation rate not ready...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Rain count not ready...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Wind speed not ready...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  External rh not ready...
 2:45:12 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Weather data not ready - retrying in 10 seconds.
 2:45:22 AM 18-Aug-2012: 
 2:45:22 AM 18-Aug-2012:  Fetching data from weather station...
 2:45:22 AM 18-Aug-2012:  ***WARNING*** WeatherCat was not able to fetch all the weather data from the hardware after repeated tries.
 2:46:55 AM 18-Aug-2012:  WeatherCat Vantage Driver: ***Station Power Alert*** Station voltage is low - actual value is 4.184 Volts.
 2:48:34 AM 18-Aug-2012: 
 2:50:29 AM 18-Aug-2012: 

Thanks   Dave

[WCDev]

Hi Dave,
Thanks for the log. The problem is your station voltage is too low.

Replace your console batteries and check the mains power supply, that'll cure the problem.

[stardog2000]

Many thanks to everyone who helped me through this issue.  I had seen Low Voltage warnings but because I have always used the 120V house current adaptor with my station I figured . . . so what, if the battery voltage is down some, I'm using the house current adaptor.  I guess I need a primer on the importance of the batteries.  If anyone would like to educate me, thanks.

Anyway WC is up and running under Mountain Lion fine now.  I had some pretty pessamistic thoughts over the past few days thinking I might have to buy a new station etc.  Fortunately the cure was relatively inexpensive. 

I'm sure I'll be on the forum from time to time as I learn more about WC's features.  I look forward to further discussions in the future

Regards & thanks

Dave