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Problems with station communication: USB locks up completely

Discussion specific to Fine Offset and similar rebadged weather stations
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pete_c
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by pete_c »

New beta software is working fine here with the remote only connection to the Fine Offset device that I have installed in Florida.

I only though have had two lockups in about a year with the previous beta software.
- Pete
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rpo
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by rpo »

steve wrote:
rpo wrote:I turned on the fix "Synchronise Fine Offset reads" and my USB link is still failing every couple of days. Did I do something wrong?
It may not be the same problem. If you zip up the diags folder and attach it, I'll take a look.
I just uploaded the Diags folder. Please let me know if this is a different issue. Thanks!
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by steve »

rpo wrote:I just uploaded the Diags folder. Please let me know if this is a different issue. Thanks!
Sorry, can't see it. Instructions for attaching the diags folder are in the post linked to near the top of the forum page - 'please click here before posting'.
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by rpo »

steve wrote:
rpo wrote:I just uploaded the Diags folder. Please let me know if this is a different issue. Thanks!
Sorry, can't see it. Instructions for attaching the diags folder are in the post linked to near the top of the forum page - 'please click here before posting'.
It is on my prior post on page 24.
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steve
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by steve »

rpo wrote:It is on my prior post on page 24.
It's not a good idea to edit old posts as there's nothing to tell me that a post has been edited and has new information.

It's not the same problem. Cumulus restarted at 04:46 on the 3rd Jan because no new data had arrived for over a minute, but when it started up again, the station was responding but the memory was corrupt:

1/3/2013 04:46:05.820 : EWUSB: Bad startup block 0, discarding. Byte 0 = 03 Byte 1 = FF

This is the issue described here: http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#When_I ... ialised.22

It looks like you reset the station to clear the problem, and it was then working OK from then on, up to the end of the diags files.
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by rpo »

steve wrote:
rpo wrote:It is on my prior post on page 24.
It's not a good idea to edit old posts as there's nothing to tell me that a post has been edited and has new information.

It's not the same problem. Cumulus restarted at 04:46 on the 3rd Jan because no new data had arrived for over a minute, but when it started up again, the station was responding but the memory was corrupt:

1/3/2013 04:46:05.820 : EWUSB: Bad startup block 0, discarding. Byte 0 = 03 Byte 1 = FF

This is the issue described here: http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#When_I ... ialised.22

It looks like you reset the station to clear the problem, and it was then working OK from then on, up to the end of the diags files.
Sorry about that. Thanks for the info. Is there any known fix besides restarting the receiver? Is this something that could be fixed by getting the received replaced under warranty?
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steve
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by steve »

rpo wrote:Is there any known fix besides restarting the receiver?
Not that I'm aware of.
Is this something that could be fixed by getting the received replaced under warranty?
I'm afraid I don't know much about how these stations work, and what those particular two bytes mean (other than the values that they are supposed to contain when the station is working properly) but if you get this frequently then it does look like the console is faulty.
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by rwilliam99 »

steve wrote:
rwilliam99 wrote:Just wanted to let you know that the new beta version (once I enabled the synchronization option) seems to be working. I used to go about 5 days before a lockup - so far, I've been over 10 days and it is working fine thus far. Fingers crossed.....
Thanks for the feedback. It does seem to be working, or at least increasing the period between lockups. I would think you are bound to get one eventually, let's just hope that's a long way off.
Coming up on 3 weeks now without a lockup. This is by far the longest period I've had it running without a lockup. I hope it continues. Maybe I'll get lucky and not get a lockup! :D

Thanks for your diligence in fixing this issue - or at least mitigating it.
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by Charlie »

I upgraded to the new beta while migrating to a new computer, and got the "bad start up block" message while restarting Cumulus on two separate occasions. I had never seen this before, except while developing my 1-wire station. I rolled back to 1.9.2 and have not seen it since, although it's only been two days and a half dozen restarts (lots of software to (re)install).
I though nothing of it until I saw someone else with a similar problem in this thread, so I guess potentially there's a bug. I'll try to set up a separate install and see if I can uncover the situation in which it happens.
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by rwilliam99 »

I guess I shouldn't have said anything - it locked up a few minutes ago. The good news is that the Cumulus Toolbox alert I had set up worked PERFECTLY, and I was notified immediately that it had locked up, so I didn't lose much data.

I took a look at the diags folder and it kind of looks like it locked up right after it did the syncronization:

1/12/2013 17:30:00.184 : Latest reading: 3F50: Data: 12 2D D5 00 55 0C 80 0E 28 00 00 00 04 52 06 00
1/12/2013 17:33:27.719 : 5:33:27 PM Start Synchronising
1/12/2013 17:36:36.426 : Sensor clock 5:33:28 PM
1/12/2013 17:36:36.426 : Station clock 5:36:36 PM
1/12/2013 17:36:41.427 : 5:36:41 PM Stop Synchronising
1/12/2013 17:37:01.430 : 5:37:01 PM Station not responding
1/12/2013 17:37:11.439 : 5:37:11 PM Station not responding
1/12/2013 17:37:21.440 : 5:37:21 PM Station not responding
1/12/2013 17:37:31.455 : 5:37:31 PM Station not responding
1/12/2013 17:37:41.459 : 5:37:41 PM Station not responding
1/12/2013 17:37:51.469 : 5:37:51 PM Station not responding
1/12/2013 17:38:00.452 : *** Data input appears to have stopped

Attached is the diags folder zipped up if you want to look at it.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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steve
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by steve »

1/12/2013 17:33:27.719 : 5:33:27 PM Start Synchronising
1/12/2013 17:36:36.426 : Sensor clock 5:33:28 PM
1/12/2013 17:36:36.426 : Station clock 5:36:36 PM
1/12/2013 17:36:41.427 : 5:36:41 PM Stop Synchronising
1/12/2013 17:37:01.430 : 5:37:01 PM Station not responding
The synchronisation process caused the lockup, unfortunately.

While determining the 'station clock' time, it presumably read the data on the 'sensor clock' interval. I suppose I could try to make it avoid doing that, but that then has the potential to miss a 'station clock' change and have to wait for the next one. I don't know if that's what pywws does.

And it seems to me that there's always going to be the chance of hitting the station clock change while determining the sensor clock time, and I don't think there's any way around that.

Also, it looks like your sensor clock is drifting by six seconds a day, and your station clock by four seconds a day, and I don't currently have any code in to cater for that (a drift of more than three seconds):

1/11/2013 17:40:40.509 : Sensor clock 5:33:22 PM
1/11/2013 17:40:40.509 : Station clock 5:40:40 PM

1/12/2013 17:36:36.426 : Sensor clock 5:33:28 PM
1/12/2013 17:36:36.426 : Station clock 5:36:36 PM
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by Charlie »

For those of us with older stations (or 1-wire stations) that don't have the lock up problem, is it possible to disable the function of attempting to sync clocks by adding something to the ini file? I'm sorry if this has already been answered, but a search didn't find it...
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steve
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by steve »

is it possible to disable the function of attempting to sync clocks
The announcement of the option says: "Note that this option is not enabled by default; you need to select it if you want to use it."
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by steve »

steve wrote:The synchronisation process caused the lockup, unfortunately.
Actually, I don't think that's true. The timeout on a read is 10 seconds, so this timeout indication:

1/12/2013 17:37:01.430 : 5:37:01 PM Station not responding

Was for a read performed at 17:36:51, i.e after the synchronisation process. And if the sensor values changed at 17:33:28 as indicated, then it would also update at

17:34:16
17:35:04
17:36:52

i.e. every 48 seconds, so it shouldn't have attempted a read at 17:36:51 as that's within the danger area. Could someone check my calculations and confirm? Maybe it's just a bug.
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Re: Problems with station communication: USB locks up comple

Post by steve »

steve wrote:Was for a read performed at 17:36:51, i.e after the synchronisation process. And if the sensor values changed at 17:33:28 as indicated, then it would also update at

17:34:16
17:35:04
17:36:52

i.e. every 48 seconds, so it shouldn't have attempted a read at 17:36:51 as that's within the danger area. Could someone check my calculations and confirm? Maybe it's just a bug.
No, my arithmetic is wrong. Updates are at

17:33:28
17:34:16
17:35:04
17:35:52
17:36:40

So a read at 17:36:51 is OK, but the station locked up anyway. I give up.
Steve
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