FTP Failure

[wx-watch]

I have been running the Weathercat on a Mac mini without a problem for a year now. WeatherCat is the latest version and the Mac mini is running Mojave with all the latest updates. However twice in the last week I have had an FTP problem. My web page wx-watch.co.uk fails to update and looking at the log it says FTP failure, site may be down. It isn't as I can connect to it via an FTP client. No details have changed as far as my account is concerned. Updates to other sites like Wunderground and the Met Office are unaffected. Simply restarting Weathercat (not the Mac mini) resolves the problem.

Any ideas?

[elagache]

Dear wx-watch and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

I have been running the Weathercat on a Mac mini without a problem for a year now. WeatherCat is the latest version and the Mac mini is running Mojave with all the latest updates. However twice in the last week I have had an FTP problem. My web page wx-watch.co.uk fails to update and looking at the log it says FTP failure, site may be down. It isn't as I can connect to it via an FTP client. No details have changed as far as my account is concerned. Updates to other sites like Wunderground and the Met Office are unaffected. Simply restarting Weathercat (not the Mac mini) resolves the problem.

Unfortunately there isn't any obvious explanation for this sort of phenomenon that I'm aware off.  The only thing I've noticed with Mojave is that the operating system itself can behave strangely after allowing it to run for an extended period of time.  In my case, I have an external USB hard drive that is used infrequently to store larger videos.  After about 20 days, that drive starts to be mysteriously and spontaneously disconnected.  If I do nothing the problem repeats.  If I reboot the drive remains connected to my computer.

So if your Mac mini has been running for an extended period of time on Mojave, you might try rebooting and see if that clears up the problem.  WeatherCat uses the external utility curl to actually perform the FTP upload, so it is more vulnerable to Mojave than one might expect.

Cheers, Edouard 

[wx-watch]

So then I wonder if the way forward is to get the Mac Mini to restart once a day using its schedule function? That way I don't need to keep checking to see if has stopped uploading my data.

Or is there anyway to get WeatherCat to restart itself if FTP uploads fails (as I said simply restarting WeatherCat manually fixes the problem)

[Blicj11]

WeatherCat does have some capability of restarting itself. In Preferences on the Units/Misc 1 tab, in the bottom left corner, is a box labeled Monitor & Re-launch WeatherCat. When this box is checked, WeatherCat runs a separate process called WatchDog. However, in my experience, WatchDog only restarts WC when WC hangs. I have had several experiences where FTP did not work for quite a while when my site was down and WatchDog did not restart, or if it did, it was hours before it kicked in.

It seems to me that your easiest temporary workaround is what you suggested: Reboot the Mac once a day. But If you use the macOS schedule function to do this, make sure that:

• WeatherCat is in your Login items so it runs at startup
• WeatherCat Preferences | Advanced | Quit Check is NOT checked

This will only work if you have enabled Automatic login in your macOS Settings because WC doesn't startup until you are logged in. If you are running Mojave, read this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250389991

[wx-watch]

Thanks.

WeatherCat is in my Login Items and the Mac Mini is set to auto login.

Why is this needed

?WeatherCat Preferences | Advanced | Quit Check is NOT checked?

As when I reboot manually all is well with this checked

[elagache]

Dear wx-watch, Blick, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Before you make any significant changes to your current setup, could you simply let us know how long macOS had been running on your mini?  Perhaps an infrequent, but still periodic reboot of the operating system will solve your problems.

Cheers, Edouard

[wx-watch]

It runs 24/7 headless as my WeatherCat and VPN server. I can?t remember when it was last rebooted prior to the two recent ftp failures. No changes had been made to it. As I said I didn?t need to reboot to fix the problem on both occasions I simply closed down WeatherCat and restarted it.

[Blicj11]

Why is this needed

?WeatherCat Preferences | Advanced | Quit Check is NOT checked?

As when I reboot manually all is well with this checked

When that is checked, you have to confirm you are quitting WC. I am assuming that auto reboot will hang when that is checked because you are not there to confirm you are quitting WC. However, it may be that when you quit using the Schedule function that macOS uses Force Quit to close WC.

[xairbusdriver]

it may be that when you quit using the Schedule function that macOS uses Force Quit to close [any app]

Would that it were so easy... About once a week I see that my wife's Mac has stopped dead in it's track while trying to Shut down on schedule. There will always be some app sitting with a notice that the last edit was never saved and the World will forever miss that wisdom if the Shut down were to proceed.

In reality, it is a safety feature, of course. While the mini running WC is never shutdown unless some System update requires it, I have never tried to even manually Shut down with WC still running. Of course, Stu has many more skills at programming and he may have solved this OS stubbornness.

[wx-watch]

Ok - so Plan B is this!

Now I know WeatherCat uses Curl to upload the data -

If/when it happens again I will test Curl manually by uploading data to my weather site. If it works it is a WeatherCat problem and I will report back, if it fails it is a Mojave problem and I will use a scheduled reboot.

I have just tested a scheduled reboot and it works fine with the ?WeatherCat Preferences | Advanced | Quit Check" option checked (i.e. set to on)

[Blicj11]

I have just tested a scheduled reboot and it works fine with the ?WeatherCat Preferences | Advanced | Quit Check" option checked (i.e. set to on)

Good to know. Thanks for letting me know. Let us know how the rest of your test turns out.