Connectivity Issues - Davis Vantage Vue

[dmatrix]

Greetings!

I'm looking for guidance in troubleshooting this rather annoying connectivity issue I'm experiencing.

I have a Davis Vantage Vue station, with the USB DataLogger on my Mac Mini running OSX 10.8.2.  I'm running version 3.0 of the USB driver.  The console is directly connected to an onboard USB port to the back of my Mini (ie, no external usb hub).

Almost on a daily basis, I will receive alerts that WeatherCat lost communications with the console and is unable to reset it.  This results in me either doing a reboot, or physically disconnecting the console from the computer. 

Now, I have been running this same hardware setup and USB drivers with other Weather Station software without these issues - for weeks at a time.    It seems that as soon as I switched over to WeatherCat the stability and reliability has greatly suffered. 

The last incident occurred this morning -and I've attached the WeatherCat Logs showing the event.  At the time that this occurred, it showed that I had 44 Comms Errors, and 0 Sensor Errors.   Now with my previous weather station software, I was also receiving the occasional comms errors so, the fact that it's showing up here doesn't surprise me.   I would like to figure out what I need to do to resolve those errors,  but I guess what I'm saying is I don't know if that necessarily is the cause of this issue with WeatherCat.

What are the suggested next steps that I should take to further nail down what's happening here? 

Many thanks in advance!
-bill

[elagache]

Dear Bill and WeatherCat fans, 

I'm looking for guidance in troubleshooting this rather annoying connectivity issue I'm experiencing.

. . . . .

The last incident occurred this morning -and I've attached the WeatherCat Logs showing the event.  At the time that this occurred, it showed that I had 44 Comms Errors, and 0 Sensor Errors.   Now with my previous weather station software, I was also receiving the occasional comms errors so, the fact that it's showing up here doesn't surprise me.   I would like to figure out what I need to do to resolve those errors,  but I guess what I'm saying is I don't know if that necessarily is the cause of this issue with WeatherCat.

You seem to have the fundamentals down, but 44 Comm errors is very high.  Most of us using Davis stations have 0 errors for months at a time.

Try going through the troubleshooting tips on the WeatherCat Wiki:

http://wiki.trixology.com/index.php/Davis

One possibility is that you have some EMI interference that is interfering with your USB cable.  There is advice in the Wiki on how to deal with that.

Cheers, Edouard 

[WCDev]

Hi Bill,

As Edouard points out, the problem is likely to be electrical interference/noise (a thermostat switching/fluorescent lights/ TV's etc) - this crashes the Silicon Labs driver. WeatherCat will try to recover it (it attempts to unload the USB driver and reload it) but if this fails you have to reboot WeatherCat and/or the machine (the USB driver lives in kernel space so can make it unstable when it crashes).

Davis have an F.A.Q. on this on their site ( http://www.davisnet.com/support/weather/faq/answer/index.asp?ProdFam=2&faqCat=3&faqid=6 ) and there's also information available on the wiki, specifically: http://wiki.trixology.com/index.php/Electronic_Interference_Effects_on_Station_Hardware/Data_Logger/USB_Cable

Basically the advice is remove the cause of the interference and/or use ferrite clamps on the cables to filter out the noise.

Cheers,
Stu.

[jace]

Hi Bill

I had a Vantage Vue with the USB datalogger until recently. I always had lots of comms errors as well, if run for a few days I could have a couple of hundred errors recorded.

I had to return the Vue back to Amazon due to a firmware problem in the ISS that the UK agents for Davis could not resolve and bought a Pro 2 as a replacement.

I found that the USB datalogger fits very tightly into the Pro2 console, a lot tighter than it did in the Vue console, in fact with the Vue if I removed the datalogger cover for the Vue the datalogger would fall out ! It may be that your datalogger is slightly loose in the console leading to the communications failures.

I very rarely get communications errors now, using the Pro 2 console in the same location with the same USB datalogger.

JC

[dmatrix]

Based on everyones suggestions - I tried the following:

* Used a shorter USB Cable / one with a built in ferrite.
* Physically moved the console near the computer - previously it was on the other side of the wall in the family room.
* Run the console on batteries only.  (PS already was the updated one with the built in ferrite)

Upon doing all of this, I still managed to get about 12 comm errors over night. 

I just reseated the data logger - so we'll see if this has any effect.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

-bill

[dmatrix]

Just an update - the issue has yet to be resolved. 


I replaced the USB cable with a new one that included two ferrites, as well as moved the console to a new room as well as connected it to a different computer.

I'm at this point at a loss as to what to try next.

Thanks in advance!

[WCDev]

Hi Bill,
Might be worth uninstalling the Silicon Labs driver then reinstalling again, just to make sure you have the latest installed (V3.0).
https://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx

Another thing to try, and it's a bit of a long shot, is plugging the logger into a powered USB hub and connect the computer to that rather than directly to the logger. This goes against all the advice but the thinking is filtering (and possible isolation as it's powered) in the hub might help.


Cheers,
Stu.

[dmatrix]

Hi Stu -

I also tried connecting it to a powered hub - with no change in behavior.   The second computer that I tested with, never had the console connected to it...  so I had to perform the initial installation of the drivers before launching WeatherCat.

Is there any chance that I'm running into a compatibility issue with the drivers, and Mountain Lion?    I also have a PPC Mac Mini that I can also try and use for testing purposes and see if I get any favorable results.   

I fired off an email over to Davis late last night to see if they have any other suggestions, will let you know what they say.   

Is there any simple test or utility that I can run on a Windows platform to eliminate the chance it's a faulty Datalogger, or console?

Thanks again!

-bill

[WCDev]

Hi Bill,
I was just digging around the forums looking for other Vue comms issues and came across the following:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=123.msg1207#msg1207

Is this similar to what you're seeing? (I'm guessing not as your's is locking up and not recovering?)

One other thing to check - the batteries in the console - if these get low they can drag the station voltage down which will lead to poor comms. If you have a fresh set, put them in to see if it makes any difference.

Cheers,
Stu.

[Steve]

Is there any chance that I'm running into a compatibility issue with the drivers, and Mountain Lion?

There are a few of us using the latest Silabs driver, WeatherCat 1.1 build 1570, and Mountain Lion 10.8.2. So I can't see compatibility being the problem.

Steve

[dmatrix]

Stu -

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=123.msg1207#msg1207
Is this similar to what you're seeing? (I'm guessing not as your's is locking up and not recovering?)

Yes.  That sounds pretty spot on.  I reset the application earlier this afternoon (as well as replaced the batteries).   It's been running for slightly over 4 hours, and has logged 9819 Good Coms, and 12 Errors - 99.89%.   In the first hour or so, I had already logged 2 errors.

Where the app is unable to automatically reset the Comms/Driver, the Application will attempt to restart - but fails at discovering the appropriate console (and driver).  At this point, it will just sit there, dumbfounded.

I'd just exit out of the application and disconnect/reconnect the console, and restart the App and it will continue on.  Or I will just remotely reboot the computer. 

I would say that the app has yet to run a full 24 hours without needing to be reset.

i'm running WeatherCat 1.0.2 Build 3. 

Thanks...
-bill

[WCDev]

Thanks Bill. Yes, that's a USB driver crash. Comms errors come in two types, either a failure to reply to the poll or a reply with a bad checksum/crc. When faced with this, WeatherCat will continue to try for a few minutes (just incase it' some spurious issue), then attempt to unload the USB driver. When it does this it'll send out an admin email saying comms have failed. If the driver reloads (which it typically will do if it's just hung) you'll get an email saying comms have restored. If the driver doesn't unload, WeatherCat will reboot (if it's allowed) in an attempt to get the OS to unload the driver, but if the driver has crashed, it's likely this won't work and there's nothing more WeatherCat can do.

Now what's surprising is you're still having this problem after doing everything that's recommended, which leaves me wondering if the noise could be coming through the mains on the computer side (or if there's some other issue)? Do you have a mains suppressor/surge protector you could plug everything into?

Stu.

 

[dmatrix]

Stu -

Interestingly enough, Weathercat is able to properly recover by automatically resetting the driver when running on Mac 2.  Whereas on my Mac 1, it would eventually just crash and die. 

So far, on Mac 2, WeatherCat has been running for slightly over 2 days - 122512 Good Data, 90 Coms Errors - 99.93%  Much longer than it would have run for on my Mac 2.

In regards to your power suggestion -  Mac 1 was protected by a line conditioning UPS.  When the console was connected to AC, it was also connected to the same UPS.     Also ran the console on battery - which also generated the same errors. 

Mac 2 - is connected to standard surge protector.  When the console was connected to AC, it was also connected to the same surge protector.

-bill

[dmatrix]

I spoke too soon.  I awoke this morning to find that Mac2 was unable to recover/restart the driver.

[WCDev]

Hi Bill,
I've just completed a 3 day run here with ours - no errors. Now that's a UK unit, so just in-case there's some difference between the UK and US  variants, I have one coming in from ATP. Should be here in a few days (at the mercy of the USPS and UK customs), I'll give that a test when it comes in.

Stu.