Cumulus Support

I have been using Cumulus with a Fine Offset (Maplin) Weather Station for a week or so (so I am very new to your excellent software) and I believe the movement when I set up the station led to incorrect rainfall readings, which I would like to correct. I have successfully reset the rainfall for last 24hrs, last month etc. to zero on the station unit itself but the Cumulus main page shows Yesterday 34.8mm, This Month 35.1mm and This Year 35.1mm. I would like to reset these back to zero. I have tried using the All Time Records screen but when I reset the rainfall entries to zero, nothing changes and when I load the All Time Records screen again, the rainfall numbers have reverted back to the original! I have tried opening and closing the Cumulus software after each stage in the hope that this would help but without success!

Can you advise please. Many thanks

The monthly and annual totals are calculated from the daily totals in dayfile.txt, so that's what you need to edit. To correct the display of yesterday's total, you can edit the yesterday= figure in the [Rain] section in today.ini.

Thanks for your advice, but in editing the files I may have corrupted something and all went 'pear shaped'. However, I have reinstalled Cumulus and all seems to be well now.

I have also installed the excellent Cumulus Real Time Gadget on my desktop, however although it updates 4 or 5 times with no problem it than ceases to update until you go to the settings box and then back again, when it will continue updating for a few more times then stops again! Have you any advice you can give to overcome this problem please?

Many thanks

David

dmattock wrote:I have also installed the excellent Cumulus Real Time Gadget on my desktop, however although it updates 4 or 5 times with no problem it than ceases to update until you go to the settings box and then back again, when it will continue updating for a few more times then stops again! Have you any advice you can give to overcome this problem please?

I don't really know anything about it, but from what I've read it seems to be a known problem. You'd be better asking Ib in this thread: https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2144

Again, thank you for your advice, however, I have changed the settings of the Cumulus Realtime gadget so that instead of getting the information from the realtime.txt file on my computer I have redirected it to the realtime.txt file on my website and for some unexplained reason this now seems to update properly! Problem solved!

David

Happy New Year everyone.

I am still having problems with rainfall spikes. I have accepted that as a fact of life now, but the problem is how to edit them out without destroying my rainfall record. I had hoped I could make a clean start with the new year (my last year's rain figures are completely wrecked as a result of botched attempts at editing the data - but were incomplete anyway).

What I need is a definitive guide to removing erroneous rainfall readings. It would be helpful it it were posted somewhere prominent and easy to find on the website, since it is such a common problem with this type of weather station.

We need to be able to deal with spikes Today. Yesterday and earlier. dayfile.txt does not include today's data for example, so where is it?

We need to be able to get rid of the spike without destroying records of any real rain that fell on the same day. I think you can work out what other (real) rainfall has been registered by looking at the log file (e.g. Jan11log.txt). But I have never been able to work out which files I need to edit to ensure that the erroneous reading isn't resurrected when I restart Cumulus.

The bad reading seems to affect the daily, monthly and yearly and all time records, and editing the obvious files does not seem to help. I have even tried resetting the weather station base unit and clearing out all its data to no avail. No idea whether this is necessary.

Perhaps this information could be added to the wiki. I and I'm sure others would find it a lifesaver!

I attempted to download the Cumulus Toolbox, but it won't run on my computer (Windows XP SP3). All I get is "The Application failed to initialize properly (0xC0000135) Click OK to terminate the application".

It would also be helpful to publish the actual format of the data files, instead of having to guess what the various fields mean.

Even better would be a "spike remover" that would allow individual readings to be edited or removed from the record.

I hope someone can help with this. Cumulus is an excellent product, and is in no way to blame for the problems of course, but I think the best hope of overcoming the spike problem is a simple means of remedial action, either as editing instructions for the data files or a feature to display and edit the uploaded raw data and redo the calculations.

Martin

MartinDn wrote:What I need is a definitive guide to removing erroneous rainfall readings. It would be helpful it it were posted somewhere prominent and easy to find on the website, since it is such a common problem with this type of weather station.

http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#My_sta ... it_to_zero

It would also be helpful to publish the actual format of the data files, instead of having to guess what the various fields mean.

In the help file. Also, here: http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Category:Log_Files

Thanks Steve,

I don't know how I missed that. It worked brilliantly.

Two other things I noticed (they are probably mentioned somewhere too)

1. The rainfall counter is actually in mm (or presumably whatever units you use) so I was able to preserve the 3.6mm rain that I worked out actually fell today by adjusting the "Start" figure by that amount, rather than resetting to zero. Equally, you could look up the counter value for midnight in the log, and use that as the start figure.

2. I also needed to edit my all time record, easily restored using the edit facility in Cumulus and a backup of the data.

One thing puzzles me though. The Start figure in today.ini was originally 6199.79. This is very different to the counter value for midnight today, which is 6507.0, in fact the original start figure is lower than the figure in the log for the beginning of the month. How did that happen? If the spike came from the weather station, I would have expected to see a big jump in the count at the time it happened. 16.30. The total rainfall figure for the day suddenly changed from 3.6mm to 310.8mm at that time, but the counter appears unchanged at 6510.6.

Here is the relevant bit of the monthly log file

05/01/11,00:00,5.0,90,3.5,3.1,18.7,154,0.0,0.0,1001.6,6507.0,17.8,38,9.1,4.1,5.0,0.0,0
05/01/11,00:30,5.1,89,3.4,2.2,16.9,262,0.0,0.0,1001.3,6507.0,17.2,38,7.8,5.1,5.1,0.0,0
05/01/11,01:00,5.2,89,3.5,5.3,16.9,190,0.0,0.0,1001.0,6507.0,16.7,39,15.5,3.2,5.2,0.0,0
05/01/11,01:30,5.4,89,3.7,4.4,16.9,197,0.0,0.0,1000.6,6507.0,16.2,39,11.0,3.9,5.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,02:00,5.4,88,3.6,3.1,18.7,209,0.0,0.0,1000.4,6507.0,15.9,39,12.3,4.5,5.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,02:30,5.3,88,3.5,2.2,21.9,174,0.0,0.0,1000.0,6507.0,15.6,39,9.1,5.3,5.3,0.0,0
05/01/11,03:00,5.4,87,3.4,4.4,21.9,183,0.0,0.0,999.3,6507.0,15.2,39,11.0,3.9,5.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,03:30,5.2,87,3.2,4.4,20.1,171,0.0,0.0,998.9,6507.0,15.1,39,15.5,3.6,5.2,0.0,0
05/01/11,04:00,5.0,87,3.0,6.3,20.1,196,0.0,0.0,998.4,6507.0,14.8,39,18.7,2.6,5.0,0.0,0
05/01/11,04:30,5.0,87,3.0,6.3,23.3,174,0.0,0.0,998.0,6507.0,14.6,39,20.1,2.6,5.0,0.0,0
05/01/11,05:00,5.0,86,2.9,2.2,21.9,166,0.0,0.0,997.7,6507.0,14.4,39,12.3,5.0,5.0,0.0,0
05/01/11,05:30,4.9,86,2.8,7.5,21.9,174,0.0,0.0,997.4,6507.0,14.2,39,18.7,2.1,4.9,0.0,0
05/01/11,06:00,4.8,86,2.7,4.4,16.9,186,0.0,0.0,997.2,6507.0,14.1,39,15.5,3.2,4.8,0.0,0
05/01/11,06:30,5.1,87,3.1,4.4,23.3,198,0.0,0.0,996.8,6507.0,13.9,39,12.3,3.5,5.1,0.0,0
05/01/11,07:00,5.5,85,3.2,3.1,31.0,191,0.0,0.0,996.5,6507.0,13.9,39,9.1,4.6,5.5,0.0,0
05/01/11,07:30,5.7,83,3.0,9.7,37.4,202,0.0,0.0,996.4,6507.0,14.2,39,37.4,2.5,5.7,0.0,0
05/01/11,08:00,5.5,82,2.7,6.3,26.5,196,0.0,0.0,996.4,6507.0,14.9,42,14.1,3.2,5.5,0.0,0
05/01/11,08:30,5.2,80,2.0,4.4,31.0,178,0.0,0.0,996.4,6507.0,15.1,41,11.0,3.6,5.2,0.0,0
05/01/11,09:00,5.3,80,2.1,6.3,24.6,201,0.0,0.0,995.9,6507.0,15.3,41,21.9,3.0,5.3,0.0,0
05/01/11,09:30,5.2,80,2.0,8.5,35.6,201,0.0,0.0,995.8,6507.0,15.3,40,23.3,2.2,5.2,0.0,0
05/01/11,10:00,5.4,79,2.0,5.3,27.8,171,0.0,0.0,995.8,6507.0,15.4,40,15.5,3.5,5.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,10:30,5.3,78,1.7,4.4,23.3,185,0.0,0.0,995.5,6507.0,15.5,40,18.7,3.7,5.3,0.0,0
05/01/11,11:00,5.1,80,1.9,6.3,24.6,176,0.0,0.0,995.1,6507.0,15.6,39,15.5,2.8,5.1,0.0,0
05/01/11,11:30,4.5,82,1.7,3.1,31.0,193,0.0,0.3,994.9,6507.3,15.7,39,14.1,3.5,4.5,0.0,0
05/01/11,12:00,3.8,86,1.7,3.1,16.9,184,3.6,1.2,994.5,6508.2,15.7,39,11.0,2.7,3.8,0.0,0
05/01/11,12:30,3.4,88,1.6,2.2,15.5,203,0.0,2.4,994.2,6509.4,15.8,39,7.8,3.4,3.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,13:00,3.4,90,1.9,6.3,16.9,197,0.0,2.7,993.9,6509.7,15.9,39,15.5,0.7,3.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,13:30,3.4,91,2.1,4.4,12.3,211,3.6,3.3,993.4,6510.3,16.0,39,12.3,1.5,3.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,14:00,3.3,91,2.0,2.2,18.7,196,0.0,3.3,992.9,6510.3,16.0,39,7.8,3.3,3.3,0.0,0
05/01/11,14:30,3.3,92,2.1,3.1,16.9,210,0.0,3.3,992.6,6510.3,16.1,39,12.3,2.1,3.3,0.0,0
05/01/11,15:00,3.4,92,2.2,4.4,16.9,208,0.0,3.6,992.1,6510.6,16.2,39,16.9,1.5,3.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,15:30,3.5,93,2.5,3.1,12.3,195,0.0,3.6,992.0,6510.6,16.2,39,12.3,2.4,3.5,0.0,0
05/01/11,16:00,3.6,93,2.6,0.9,12.3,162,0.0,3.6,991.5,6510.6,16.3,39,7.8,3.6,3.6,0.0,0
05/01/11,16:30,3.9,94,3.0,2.2,12.3,178,0.0,310.8,991.2,6510.6,16.3,39,9.1,3.9,3.9,0.0,0
05/01/11,17:00,4.1,94,3.2,3.1,15.5,172,0.0,310.8,990.8,6510.6,16.3,39,12.3,3.0,4.1,0.0,0
05/01/11,17:30,4.1,94,3.2,2.2,11.0,194,0.0,310.8,990.8,6510.6,16.4,39,7.8,4.1,4.1,0.0,0
05/01/11,18:00,4.1,94,3.2,0.9,14.1,184,0.0,310.8,990.6,6510.6,16.4,39,6.4,4.1,4.1,0.0,0
05/01/11,18:30,4.3,95,3.6,0.0,9.1,0,0.0,310.8,990.8,6510.6,16.5,39,3.2,4.3,4.3,0.0,0
05/01/11,19:00,4.4,95,3.7,0.9,9.1,178,0.0,310.8,991.0,6510.6,16.5,39,4.6,4.4,4.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,19:30,4.7,95,4.0,0.9,9.1,199,0.0,310.8,990.9,6510.6,17.1,41,4.6,4.7,4.7,0.0,0
05/01/11,20:00,4.8,96,4.2,0.0,6.4,0,0.0,310.8,990.9,6510.6,17.6,40,3.2,4.8,4.8,0.0,0
05/01/11,20:30,4.4,95,3.7,0.0,3.2,0,0.0,310.8,990.8,6510.6,18.0,40,1.4,4.4,4.4,0.0,0
05/01/11,20:38,4.3,95,3.6,0.0,1.4,0,0.0,310.8,990.9,6510.6,18.1,40,0.0,4.3,4.3,0.0,0
05/01/11,20:48,4.1,95,3.4,0.0,3.2,0,0.0,310.8,990.9,6510.6,18.2,40,3.2,4.1,4.1,0.0,0
05/01/11,20:58,3.8,95,3.1,0.0,0.0,0,0.0,310.8,991.0,6510.6,18.3,40,0.0,3.8,3.8,0.0,0
05/01/11,21:08,3.6,95,2.9,0.0,0.0,0,0.0,310.8,991.1,6510.6,18.4,40,0.0,3.6,3.6,0.0,0
05/01/11,21:18,3.4,95,2.7,0.0,1.4,0,0.0,310.8,991.0,6510.6,18.5,40,1.4,3.4,3.4,0.0,0

Futher to this, I checked the today.ini start value for the rainfall counter against a backup I made on Christmas Eve. The value was 6498.4, higher than the original value in todays file!!! It is as if the start value suddenly moved backwards by over 300mm! Is this value getting corrupted somehow.

Thanks a lot for your help. I'm sorry I bothered you when the info was there all the time. I shall look more carefully next time!

Martin