Trixology
WeatherCat => WeatherCat General Discussion => Topic started by: West Seattle Wx Guy on January 05, 2018, 03:10:34 PM
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Hi folks, I've had my Davis Vantage Pro2 wx station for years, but just recently got a WeatherlinkIP logger, and have tried using WeatherCat. After a few novice glitches, it seems to be working now, with the exception that when I shut WC off, and then turn it back on some time later, it only backfills the historical data at start-up if it has been shut down for a long time (like several hours). If I shut it down and restart it after only a few minutes (and note I have 1-minute logging frequency), it does not load the missed data. And once there is a gap, even if I successfully get it to load later historical data at a later time, it does not fill the gap. I know the data is on the logger, because if I shut down WC on my mac and open up Weatherlink software on my wife's PC laptop, I can get the data. I haven't figured out the exact threshold of shutdown time that prompts a successful historical backfill at start-up. I know it hasn't worked for a 30-minute shutdown, and it has worked for a ~6-hour shutdown. So, maybe 1 hour? Not sure. Has anyone else noticed this? Also note, I have the option to delete historical data on logger after WC download turned OFF.
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First of all, welcome to the WeatherCat Forum.
I also use the WeatherLinkIP? Data Logger. For the life of me I cannot remember what the interval is, but you are correct: there is an interval, shorter than which, you will not get historical downloads from the logger. I know the interval is no longer than one hour and I thought it was actually less than that. Edouard probably knows. He usually checks the forum in the afternoon.
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Thanks Blick, that makes sense. I'll wait see if Edouard has any further insights. Best, Mark/West Seattle Wx Guy
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Welcome, Mark!
Do you have a weather web site? My daughter is at college in Queen Anne, at Seattle Pacific University. I could keep an eye on here via your site if you have one.
Welcome aboard,
Steve
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Dear West Seattle Wx Guy, Blick, Steve, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,
Let me also welcome you to the WeatherCat forum! (http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/Forum_support_documents/Custom_emoticons/welcome_smiley.gif)
Hi folks, I've had my Davis Vantage Pro2 wx station for years, but just recently got a WeatherlinkIP logger, and have tried using WeatherCat. After a few novice glitches, it seems to be working now, with the exception that when I shut WC off, and then turn it back on some time later, it only backfills the historical data at start-up if it has been shut down for a long time (like several hours). If I shut it down and restart it after only a few minutes (and note I have 1-minute logging frequency), it does not load the missed data. And once there is a gap, even if I successfully get it to load later historical data at a later time, it does not fill the gap. I know the data is on the logger, because if I shut down WC on my mac and open up Weatherlink software on my wife's PC laptop, I can get the data. I haven't figured out the exact threshold of shutdown time that prompts a successful historical backfill at start-up. I know it hasn't worked for a 30-minute shutdown, and it has worked for a ~6-hour shutdown. So, maybe 1 hour? Not sure. Has anyone else noticed this? Also note, I have the option to delete historical data on logger after WC download turned OFF.
Unfortunately, I cannot fully grasp your problem. However, there are two intervals and I suspect your problem is that one of them is out of whack. You can set the WeatherCat sampling interval under the Misc2 pane of the WeatherCat preferences. What is this set to? Is this the 1-minutes you are referring to?
The other interval setting is the setting of the data-logger itself. That is set Station Hardware Options under the Tools menu. To make the best use of your Davis Data Logger it is best to have these intervals the same. Could you let us know what these two different intervals are set to?
Let us know what you uncover.
Cheers, Edouard
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Edouard, yes, sorry to not be more specific. Both of those are set to 1 minute.
Steve, no, no web site, sorry. There are many wx stations between here and SPU, so you could do better than my house for wx monitoring at SPU. If you really want to keep an eye on her, I recommend http://spu.edu/webcam/ :-)
Mark
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Edouard, I think Mark is just saying that if he shuts down WeatherCat for 30 minutes or less and restarts it, the data logger does not download historical data. If WC is offline for 6 hours, it does download the missing historical data. He wants to know what is the minimum interval that WC needs to be down, to trigger the data logger to give up its historical cache. I thought that 30 minutes was the magic number but Mark says it is longer than that.
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Dear Mark, Blick, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,
Edouard, I think Mark is just saying that if he shuts down WeatherCat for 30 minutes or less and restarts it, the data logger does not download historical data. If WC is offline for 6 hours, it does download the missing historical data. He wants to know what is the minimum interval that WC needs to be down, to trigger the data logger to give up its historical cache. I thought that 30 minutes was the magic number but Mark says it is longer than that.
Unfortunately, at least I thought WeatherCat didn't have any such interval. I thought instead WeatherCat would always download the logger data if the period that WeatherCat wasn't running exceeded the WeatherCat sampling interval. So on that reasoning, WeatherCat should always download data in the interval is set to 1 minute. At least I can't get my installation of WeatherCat to quit and start up again in less than a minute. Admittedly, I've got a lot of bells and whistles but starting WeatherCat is an involved process.
We might need to ask Stu to look into this one. You can get in contact with WeatherCat technical support directly by following the instructions on this web page:
http://trixology.com/contact-us/ (http://trixology.com/contact-us/)
Sorry, that's as far as my understanding of WeatherCat takes me.
Edouard
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Mark:
Perhaps this is unique to the IP data loggers. I know Stu has one of those installed so I like Edouard's suggestion of asking Stu for clarification in email. If you do so, please post his response in this thread so that others might know the outcome.
Thanks.
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WeatherCat needs to be not running for over 30 minutes (32 I think it is) before it will download from the logger - the reason for this is it's longest sampling period is 30 minutes.
Hope that helps!
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OK, well I think that final post from MCDev sounds definitive (thanks!). Not sure if MCDev is the same person as Stu, so I will still follow up by email and let y'all know the final disposition of this issue. Thanks to everyone else for chiming in. -Mark
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Not sure if MCDev is the same person as Stu
Yep, Stuart Ball, CEO, Developer, Mail clerk, and chief bottle washer at Trixology.com
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"MCDev" I like that! ;) ThU32:-)
Wonder if he programs in a kilt... [computer]
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Howdy Stu, Mark, Steve, X-Air, and WeatherCat "so how does it actually work?" ??? types
WeatherCat needs to be not running for over 30 minutes (32 I think it is) before it will download from the logger - the reason for this is it's longest sampling period is 30 minutes.
Uh I thought I understood how WeatherCat handled this situation, but now I am confused. ???
I have both WeatherCat and my data logger set to sample at 5 minutes. Rebooting often takes more than 5 minutes from shutting down WeatherCat to getting it going again. I have noticed that even if WeatherCat hasn't been running for as long as 15 minutes, the download window doesn't come up. I had assumed that WeatherCat was just grabbing the missing sample and thus it didn't need to make a elaborate display of grabbing data from the logger.
I just had to reboot and sure enough WeatherCat was idle for more than 5 minutes. Looking at the WeatherCat data during that last period, it seems like WeatherCat simply continues to use the last data pulled from the station - is that what is going on? Only if WeatherCat has been down for 32 minutes does WeatherCat take the extra precaution of getting data from the logger?
Please do tell!!
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]
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Edouard, I had this conversation with Stu in the past, I just couldn't remember the interval. Assuming your logger it set to record in 5 minute intervals, even though your logger saves data every 5 minutes, it will not download that data to WC unless WC has been down for more than 32 minutes. After 32 minutes it will fill in the tap with 5 minute intervals. If down less than 32 minutes, no download from the logger occurs.
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I wonder if a work-around might be that if I know I've incurred a data gap due to this issue, perhaps I could shut down WC, go to the data file, delete enough data at the end so that what remains has no gaps and ends more than 32 minutes before current time, but not so far back as to extend beyond the data logger's capacity. Then I restart WC. Will it then go to the logger and completely fill in from the end of the WC data file up to present, and continue happily along from there? I might try this tonight when I get home from work. -Mark
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I wonder if a work-around might be that if I know I've incurred a data gap due to this issue, perhaps I could shut down WC, go to the data file, delete enough data at the end so that what remains has no gaps and ends more than 32 minutes before current time, but not so far back as to extend beyond the data logger's capacity. Then I restart WC. Will it then go to the logger and completely fill in from the end of the WC data file up to present, and continue happily along from there? I might try this tonight when I get home from work. -Mark
I don't like this idea, because it involves deleting data, but it's your data. I don't know how WC is calculating the elapsed time, but I suppose it might involve looking at the last timestamp in the data file.