Bannergate

[xairbusdriver]

Yep, anything (text, html, php files, images, your contacts list, assorted plist backups, etc. ) you put in the ~/Library/Application Support/WeatherCatCustomWeb/ directory get uploaded to your web space. I think most of us use the Prefs/On-Line/Custom Web/Additional Files list to put stuff in there. That list also allows one to set a time interval for each file. I update my Statistics page every 360 minutes, but my webcam page gets updated every 30 minutes. Computer-Up-Time.txt is uploaded every 1.3 minutes. It is then read by a php script and converted/echoed to the page that needs it. How they are used there is up to you. Of course, the Custom Gauges/Graphs already "know" to put their images in that location.

Hope this problem can be corrected, perhaps after the Seasonal rush?

[wx-watch]

As a further test I downloaded the Banner file from an earlier post and copied it to

/Users/MYNAME/WeatherCat/WCWebCustom/WeatherCatBanner.jpg

From the log

7:16:13 PM 04-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: Uploading WeatherCatBanner.jpg.
7:16:15 PM 04-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: Finished. Uploaded 34,955 bytes in 2 seconds at 12,483 bytes per second.

And it is successfully uploaded to my site.

So if a valid file is present it will get uploaded .

I presume therefore WeatherCat running under Big Sur for some reason is not generating the file

[xairbusdriver]

Yes. And "presuming" is slightly less dangerous than "assuming".

[elagache]

Dear ColdnFrosty, X-Air, wx-watch, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

"mydisk" is an acronym for my drive name.
. . . .

Of course, you can call your hard drive anything you like and you can store these files in any convenient folder path.  Clearly the banner file isn't being generated.  What I am wondering is if there is some sort of errant path that WeatherCat is somehow generating on your installations.

Checking my hard drive the path of my hard drive in UNIX notation is:

/Volumes/Odysseus HD

However, what the log output from WeatherCat is proposing a path in the Users directory:

/Users/mydisk/

That is the incorrect path and if WeatherCat was attempting to save a file there, it would fail.  I'm not sure why WeatherCat could get this wrong, but this appears to be at least a possible cause.

It continues to be a long shot, but you would be able to restore preference files from backups before you upgraded to Big Sur?  If so I would suggest trying to restore the main WeatherCat preference file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.trixology.weathercat.plist

and the WeatherCat banner preference file:

~/Library/WeatherCatData/BannerGeneratorData/BannerGeneratorSettings.plist

These are in UNIX convention with the ~ standing for the path to your home account directory.

In order to restore these files, you must first quit WeatherCat, restore the files from backup, reboot, and only then launch WeatherCat once more.  Unless you reboot, the restored preference files won't be used.

Sorry for the hassles and once more please let us know what you discover.

Cheers, Edouard

[wx-watch]

Instructions to restore the two .plist files followed exactly and no joy! Log excerpts follow...

3:46:54 PM 05-Dec-2020: WeatherCatPlugInManager: Starting updates for Banner Generator
...
3:46:55 PM 05-Dec-2020: Banner Generator initialising.
...
3:52:05 PM 05-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: FTP upload starting.
3:52:05 PM 05-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: FTP advice - file wasn't ready to upload - will try again shortly. Path was: /Users/MYNAME/WeatherCat/WCWebCustom/WeatherCatBanner.jpg
3:52:15 PM 05-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: Finished. Uploaded 0 bytes in 11 seconds at 0 bytes per second.

So in short - still no Banner 

[xairbusdriver]

Just for (more) grins...

See what happens if you (wx-watch):

• Quit WC
• Locate the ~/Library/WeatherCatData directory.
• Inside, find and move the "BannerGeneratorSettings.plist" to your Desktop.
• Restart WC.
• Re-create a Banner and see if it gets uploaded.
• Buy a nice gift for your wife.

[elagache]

Dear wx-watch, X-Air, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Instructions to restore the two .plist files followed exactly and no joy! Log excerpts follow...
. . . . .

Sorry, alas I did describe it as a long-shot.  I do have one more rather strange suggestion.  Try moving all your custom web folders to a location inside your home folder (~ in UNIX convention.)  Obviously then update WeatherCat with the new locations of these folders.  To avoid conflicts, it might be easier to make copies of your current folders and change the locations in WeatherCat.  That way there is no risk of WeatherCat attempting to access a relocated folder.

If that solves your problem, that strongly suggests that there is a bug in macOS daemon that caches preference settings and it is that bug which is giving WeatherCat a nonexistence location for your banner to be saved to.

Please do let us know what you discover.

Cheers, Edouard

[ColdnFrosty]

It does not.

[wx-watch]

Neither of the above two fixes worked for me either

[elagache]

Dear ColdnFrosty, wx-watch, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

It does not.

Neither of the above two fixes worked for me either

Sorry to hear that, but it was a long shot at best.  Could you retrieve the log error messages in this case?  It might still provide some useful information for your fearless leader - Stu.

Edouard

[ColdnFrosty]

Already posted the error log earlier in the thread.

[wx-watch]

Same error as before. As I said earlier in this thread in an attempt to troubleshoot I deleted all instances of WeatherCatBanner.jpg from the system and it has never been re-created anywhere since.
.
.
9:15:13 AM 08-Dec-2020: WeatherCatPlugInManager: Starting updates for Banner Generator.
.
9:16:10 AM 08-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: FTP upload starting.
9:16:10 AM 08-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: FTP advice - file wasn't ready to upload - will try again shortly. Path was: /Users/MYNAME/WeatherCat/WCWebCustom/WeatherCatBanner.jpg
9:16:20 AM 08-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: Finished. Uploaded 0 bytes in 11 seconds at 0 bytes per second.
.
.

[elagache]

Dear ColdnFrosty, wx-watch, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Already posted the error log earlier in the thread.

Same error as before. . . .

Unfortunately, what this shows is that you didn't follow my second suggestion.  What I was asking you is to move all your custom template processing folders inside your home folder.  In my case this is (again in UNIX notion:)

/Users/elagache

Here is my reasoning for the experiment.  I checked the contents of the general WeatherCat preference file and the unique one for the Banner generator.  All the paths are only in the general preference file.  What that means is that if there was some problem reading the preference file, all custom web processing should fail, not just the banner generator.  Unfortunately, Apple has a daemon that caches the contents of the preference file.  When WeatherCat requests a preference, Apple provides the data instead of WeatherCat going directly to the preference file.

The log files you are providing me show that the path to save the WeatherCatBanner.jpg file is an impossible path.  The daemon is mixing a user directory with the path to your hard drive.  Not surprisingly, that fails.  Your hard drive cannot be accessed off us the /User branch of the UNIX file system.

That is why I am suggesting that you move all your custom web folders to your home folder.  Given that the Daemon is prepending /User erroneously to path, it - might - work because the path would be off of /User.  Another possibility is that it will still insist on putting that on the front of the path which would generate an erroneous path that would look start this:  /User/User.

Either way, that would provide Stu with a much clearer idea of what is going wrong.  It might be enough for him to be able to make a precise bug report for Apple and it certainly should help him find a way to work around this bug in the Apple daemon.

Cheers, Edouard

[ColdnFrosty]

As noted in Reply #5, all of my WeatherCat folders are in my Home folder. In the /Applications folder. In Mac OS X, the home folder is /users/[myusername]

For the purposes of the discussion, I am using "mydisk" as a pseudonym for [myusername]

In that home folder is the /Applications folder and two subfolders, /WeatherCatHTML and /WeatherCatJPG

All of my generated .JPG files (33 of them) are saved there according to the time value set in preferences. There are also two .MP4 that are saved there.

In the /WeatherCatHTML folder, there is one subfolder called WCWeb. In that folder there are five .HTML files, eleven .JPG files, and one .TIF file used for created a web page.

The FTP settings in WeatherCat copy all of those files over to aShare on my router, for easy access. The last time WeatherCatBanner.jog was generated was on November 15, 2020 following my installation of Big Sur. (see below)

I think the developer(s) need to install Big Sur so they have a more direct view of what is working and what is not. :-)


2020/11/28 10:18:45:290  Aux. FTP: FTP upload starting.
2020/11/28 10:18:45:332  Aux. FTP: FTP advice - file wasn't ready to upload - will try again shortly. Path was: /Users/[myusername]/Applications/WeatherCatJPG/WeatherCatBanner.jpg
2020/11/28 10:18:55:297  Aux. FTP: Finished. Uploaded 0 bytes in 11 seconds at 0 bytes per second.

Dear ColdnFrosty, wx-watch, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Already posted the error log earlier in the thread.

Same error as before. . . .

Unfortunately, what this shows is that you didn't follow my second suggestion.  What I was asking you is to move all your custom template processing folders inside your home folder.  In my case this is (again in UNIX notion:)

/Users/elagache

Here is my reasoning for the experiment.  I checked the contents of the general WeatherCat preference file and the unique one for the Banner generator.  All the paths are only in the general preference file.  What that means is that if there was some problem reading the preference file, all custom web processing should fail, not just the banner generator.  Unfortunately, Apple has a daemon that caches the contents of the preference file.  When WeatherCat requests a preference, Apple provides the data instead of WeatherCat going directly to the preference file.

The log files you are providing me show that the path to save the WeatherCatBanner.jpg file is an impossible path.  The daemon is mixing a user directory with the path to your hard drive.  Not surprisingly, that fails.  Your hard drive cannot be accessed off us the /User branch of the UNIX file system.

That is why I am suggesting that you move all your custom web folders to your home folder.  Given that the Daemon is prepending /User erroneously to path, it - might - work because the path would be off of /User.  Another possibility is that it will still insist on putting that on the front of the path which would generate an erroneous path that would look start this:  /User/User.

Either way, that would provide Stu with a much clearer idea of what is going wrong.  It might be enough for him to be able to make a precise bug report for Apple and it certainly should help him find a way to work around this bug in the Apple daemon.

Cheers, Edouard

[wx-watch]

Like this??

12:29:44 PM 09-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: FTP advice - file wasn't ready to upload - will try again shortly. Path was: /Users/MYNAME/WCWebCustom/WeatherCatBanner.jpg
12:29:54 PM 09-Dec-2020: Aux. FTP: Finished. Uploaded 0 bytes in 10 seconds at 0 bytes per second.