Broken connection, help please!

[pjrainbow]

Hi guys, I'm throwing myself on your mercy.  My weather station will no longer talk to Weather Cat!  After weeks of running with no problems at all last night my iMac rebooted itself and now Weather Cat has a bit of a glitch.  It seems to hang when it gets to the 'WS23xx driver initialising' part of the boot routine and then says it can't find the weather station.  In the Communications set-up window I choose  WH3080 (I have an Aercus WS3083) click Done and I immediately get 'No Weather Station Found'.  I have rebooted my computer, restarted Weather Cat, unplugged from the USB, tried a different USB port and multiple combinations of all those steps.  Any ideas please?

Thanks

Paula :-)

[JosBaz]

Hi Paula,
This post may help you: http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1006.0
If your iMac crashed, I would also run Disk Utilities and do a 'Verify Disk' and 'Repair Permissions' on your drive.
Good luck.
Jos

[pjrainbow]

Thanks Jos,

I've read through the thread but according to the wiki page about Fine Offset http://wiki.trixology.com/index.php/Fine_Offset I don't think I need a serial converter.  Good thinking on the verify and repair permissions!   Done that but they still won't talk to each other..grrr.  Maybe low lights and a bottle of wine?  Thanks again for taking the time to reply 

Paula

[elagache]

Hi Paula and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Hi guys, I'm throwing myself on your mercy. 

  . . . . Now calm down, Stu keeps us well fed so we have no need for fresh meat! . .   

My weather station will no longer talk to Weather Cat!  After weeks of running with no problems at all last night my iMac rebooted itself and now Weather Cat has a bit of a glitch.  It seems to hang when it gets to the 'WS23xx driver initialising' part of the boot routine and then says it can't find the weather station.  In the Communications set-up window I choose  WH3080 (I have an Aercus WS3083) click Done and I immediately get 'No Weather Station Found'.  I have rebooted my computer, restarted Weather Cat, unplugged from the USB, tried a different USB port and multiple combinations of all those steps.  Any ideas please?

Unfortunately, this type of station has only gotten recent support from WeatherCat so there aren't as many of us familiar with whatever fickle tendencies it might have.

You say that your iMac rebooted itself - was there any indication why?  Was there an error report sent to Apple?  Have you done any software updates at around the time the problem started?

I just made a quick scan of the WeatherCat manual looking for possible things you could check, but it appears that WH3080 is supposed to be more or less "plug and play." 

Could some of you WH3080 users out there chime in with any suggestions?

Sorry Paula, I'm rather out of my element.  You may be in need of our fearless leader's help, Stuart Ball the WeatherCat developer.  He may have the most experience of us all with the WH3080 station since he recently added support for it.

Cheers, Edouard

[Felix]

Sorry Paula, I'm rather out of my element.  You may be in need of our fearless leader's help, Stuart Ball the WeatherCat developer.  He may have the most experience of us all with the WH3080 station since he recently added support for it.

OK, so what does that mean? You kind of left Paula hanging there.

Is she to contact 'fearless leader' directly (weathercat_support@trixology.com) or just hang around here and hope that Stu might stumble on this thread and answer it? He doesn't spend as much time in the forum as the yesteryear days.

[pjrainbow]

Hehe, thanks guys!  I'm calm, really.  Just tell Weather Underground to stop sending me alerts because my PWS is down.  I know, I KNOW!

I'm presuming that my Mac rebooted for a software update, there were no error messages and i vaguely remembered answering 'try later' when prompted for an update.  Everything else is running fine.  As to fickle I've been really pleased with the Aercus so far, considering the price it is a lovely bit of tech.  It's been running great for a couple of months, no problem to set up, etc etc.

A clue might be that the information is just not reaching the computer at all.  I looked in System Information at the USB devices attached and I'm not seeing the station there.  I tried unplugging and plugging it in when I had the USB info on the screen and nothing, zero, zip, dead parrot, etc.  My only hope now is that it might be the cable?  Strangely in a house stuffed with cables I can't seem to find one with a 'normal' USB connection at each end.  Sigh.  I'll try that next and if that doesn't work I'll contact the boss man directly.  Thanks again for you help :-)

Paula

[Blicj11]

I'm presuming that my Mac rebooted for a software update, there were no error messages and i vaguely remembered answering 'try later' when prompted for an update.

Paula:

One thing you can do to provide us a wee bit more information is to open up your App Store application and click on the Updates radio button. This show you two things:

• Any updates that are not yet installed
• All updates installed in the  last 30 days

This will tell you what the last update was that required your mac to reboot.

[KeithC]

Hi Paula.

My pre-Stu advice is to zap the P-RAM (i.e. port RAM) with your USB disconnected. There is a fair likelihood that this will solve your problem. In case you've never zapped p-ram before:

Turn the keyboard to an angle in such a way that the following is reachable with one hand: with your left hand pinkie finger only, hold down simultaneously the command key and the option key. With the thumb on the same hand hold down the "p" key. With the ring finger of the same hand hold down the "r" key. Then with your right hand move your mouse to choose "Restart" from the Apple menu. Let it reboot/chime 4 times (some say once with the newer Macs, old Macs were 4 or 5 times). Let go of all keys after the 4th chime/reboot.

That's it.

When your Desktop is back up again and settled in, plug in your USB again and see if it works as it should.

Best of luck.

Keith

[elagache]

Hi Paula, Felix, Blick, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Thanks you'all for trying to brainstorm on this problem. 

He doesn't spend as much time in the forum as the yesteryear days.

I think Stu is monitoring the forum about as much as before, but he is very busy and there is all that business with the hush-hush "Sekret" agent activity associated with the WeatherCat 2.0 development.  When WeatherCat 2.0 goes into public beta, I'm sure well see a lot more activity from Stu.

I'm presuming that my Mac rebooted for a software update, there were no error messages and i vaguely remembered answering 'try later' when prompted for an update.

So do you have automatic updates turned on?  If so I suggest that you turn this off.  Even if we hope that Apple has our best interests in mind, it is possible that Apple could release something that is dangerously unstable, spiked with malware, or some other horror.  Before installing anything, it is a good idea to glance over the technology news headlines to make sure there isn't a cyber bomb that has seeded into the Internet.

Also, WeatherCat may have some difficulty quitting fast enough to avoid having the reboot aborted by a "tardy quit."  Your machine probably isn't as overloaded as my MacBook "Odysseus," but I cannot just restart my computer.  I need to "manually" shut most of what is running before restart actually will restart the computer.

Have you ever used the Console application?  You can find it in the Utility folder.  Here is a little tutorial on how to use the application:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/mac_os_x_using_console_to_troubleshoot_problems

If you can look at the log entries around the time your Mac rebooted there might be an indication of why it rebooted.  If there was a problem, that might be the cause of why you cannot connect to your weather station now.

A clue might be that the information is just not reaching the computer at all.  I looked in System Information at the USB devices attached and I'm not seeing the station there.  I tried unplugging and plugging it in when I had the USB info on the screen and nothing, zero, zip, dead parrot, etc.  My only hope now is that it might be the cable?

Your station is relatively simple in operation, so there aren't many components that can fail outside of the station itself.  It isn't the happiest scenario, but you might have failure of the station hardware itself.  If you don't see any indication of problem with your Mac or the cable, you probably need to contact the vendor and see if you can have it repaired under warranty.

Best of luck with this Paula! 

Cheers, Edouard 

[WCDev]

Hello Paula,
Try powering off your console for 10 minutes then powering it back up, set the date/time on the console then give it another go. it might be it just needs a reset.

[pjrainbow]

It's good news!!  Guys, I can't thank you all enough. 

Sorry for the delay in reply but what with pushing P-RAMS and the like... :-)  KeithC - great suggestion!  I've reset P-RAM before but this time my iMac didn't want to know and refused to co-operate.  I thought I must be doing it wrong. Imagine the scene..me with my fingers poised on the keyboard- husband with his on the ON button.."Okay...NOW!".   Eventually after a bit of google I tried a WIRED keyboard instead of my usual wireless and it reset with no problem at all.  Unfortunately however it didn't make any difference to this particular problem

  Your machine probably isn't as overloaded as my MacBook

My machines always contain many very useful programs (the alternative, affectionate term from my husband is "stuffed full of cr*p!" Thanks for the advice about turning off auto updates..good idea, Edouard :-)

Blicj11: I was going to get round to examining logs and records of updates this morning until I saw WCDev's advice to reset the console. And that's what did the trick.  It worked!!!   

I can't believe the answer was as simple as..."have you tried turning it off and on again?!!" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksCTVFtjM4

I'm currently loading historical data from the last couple of days...phew.

Most importantly I want to thank you for the terrific help and support in 'crowdsourcing' the answer to my problem.  The potential solutions that were not relevant to me I'm sure will help someone else. 

Thank you all !!  I hope you all have a wonderful, weather filled weekend.

Paula

[WCDev]

Thanks for the update Paula - good to know what the problem was.

[pjrainbow]

Um...I may have spoken too soon.  The station and the software ARE talking to each other but Weather Cat fails part way through 'Downloading Historical Data'.  It gets to about 80% and then restarts.  I'm pasting in the info from the console log if that offers any clues.  Sorry to be a pain

Paula

31/05/2014 10:09:46.107 WeatherCat[753]: Reading historical block 2688 of 3264. 82% done. Addr=57556
31/05/2014 10:09:46.707 WeatherCat[753]:  29-5-2014 12:53 OT=10.1C Rain=125.7mm, Baro=1018.35mB IT=21.9C IH=61 OH=99 WSAv=0.0kmh WSG=2.5kmh WDir=225.0 solar=0.4 uv=0.0
31/05/2014 10:09:46.742 WeatherCat[753]: Reading historical block 2689 of 3264. 82% done. Addr=57536
31/05/2014 10:09:47.338 WeatherCat[753]:  29-5-2014 12:52 OT=10.2C Rain=125.7mm, Baro=1018.25mB IT=22.0C IH=60 OH=99 WSAv=0.0kmh WSG=1.1kmh WDir=270.0 solar=0.1 uv=0.0
31/05/2014 10:09:47.365 WeatherCat[753]: Reading historical block 2690 of 3264. 82% done. Addr=57516
31/05/2014 10:09:47.447 WeatherCat[753]: WeatherCat: watchdog - WeatherCat appears to have hung, trying to send admin email.
31/05/2014 10:09:47.448 WeatherCat[753]: WeatherCat: watchdog - admin email failed. Terminating WeatherCat.

[WCDev]

Hi Paula,
Looks like the download is taking so long it's tripping the watchdog in WeatherCat. You'll need to switch it off by launching WeatherCat then quickly before it starts to download open its preferences and select the 'Units/Misc1' pane. Down the bottom you'll see the option 'Monitor & Relaunch WeatherCat' - turn this off.

Just force quit it and wait for it to relaunch if you don't get to it in time.

[KeithC]

Well then I certainly earned the coveted award for "Most Difficult To Implement Suggestion That Didn't Work Anyway" 

Sounds like Stu almost has you back up and running again. Another rowdy ovation for Stu!