Problems with station communication: USB locks up completely

[Super-T]

Why not try running the outside transmitter alongside, or very close to the Console, and see if you lose signal?
Then work you way out until you find maximum distance.

[Spider-Vice]

I restarted it again, it seemed to work but it was only one transmission so I guess USB is ruled out. That's probably what I'm gonna have to do, or the transmitter batteries are dying.

[rwilliam99]

Just another short update - I have been running the 1058 beta build for 3 weeks now and it has been working flawlessly. No lockups at all. I don't believe I've ever run anywhere close to this long without issues before.

Thank you for being persistent with this issue! I made a donation to express my appreciation for your hard work.

Rob

[steve]

That's good. I think I'll go ahead now and make 1.9.3 the current release.

[jim-easterbrook]

To save you struggling to understand my software, here's a description of the algorithm:

1/ Fetch current data every half second until it changes. Store the timestamp this happens at as "sensor clock time".

I've just discovered that this fails on 3080 type stations - as well as the usual 48 second updates, the illuminance data changes at 60 second intervals. You need to ignore changes in illuminance and UV when looking for data changes to get the "sensor clock time".

Do the 3080 type stations have the USB lockup problem?

[steve]

I've just discovered that this fails on 3080 type stations - as well as the usual 48 second updates, the illuminance data changes at 60 second intervals. You need to ignore changes in illuminance and UV when looking for data changes to get the "sensor clock time".

I assumed that would be the case, so I didn't use the solar data anyway. I thought you would be doing the same; sorry for not querying it.

[jim-easterbrook]

I've just discovered that this fails on 3080 type stations - as well as the usual 48 second updates, the illuminance data changes at 60 second intervals. You need to ignore changes in illuminance and UV when looking for data changes to get the "sensor clock time".

I assumed that would be the case, so I didn't use the solar data anyway. I thought you would be doing the same; sorry for not querying it.

Glad that one of us has got his eye on the ball.

[gregp]

My WH3081 stopped communicating via USB today. Also the History button on the device did nothing.

Neither Cumulus or EasyWeather would communicate with the device. Cumulus worked on Saturday.

I had to reset the device to system default by holding the UP button for 20 seconds.

Now all communicate again.

Seems like the problem maybe that the device stores 12 months of data in internal memory and need to be reset after that?

Incidentally, after the reset to defaults, the memory showed no use but Cumulus retrieved tha last few (2) days data so no history was lost.

Maybe cumulus should have some abilitty to do a remote memory reset (as apparently with EasyWeatherPlus) after a defined time, say 6 months?

[steve]

Seems like the problem maybe that the device stores 12 months of data in internal memory and need to be reset after that?

The amount of data stored in terms of time depends on the logger interval you've set in the station (e.g. a five minute interval gives you about 11 days with a WH3081). When it gets to the end of the memory it just starts again at the beginning. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between memory usage and the USB lockup problem, it seems to be caused by software reading memory at the same time that the console is writing to it, and the workaround that Jim designed and is now implemented in Cumulus seems to get around the problem.

Incidentally, after the reset to defaults, the memory showed no use but Cumulus retrieved tha last few (2) days data so no history was lost.

If you did a full reset, the current memory pointer will have been reset to the beginning of memory, and it's likely that the data Cumulus downloaded wasn't actually recent. This is an unfortunate side effect of having to do a reset.

Maybe cumulus should have some abilitty to do a remote memory reset (as apparently with EasyWeatherPlus) after a defined time, say 6 months?

There's no way that I'm aware of that a reset can be done from software. My understanding is that the only reset that EW can do is to clear the 'memory used' indicator on the screen, which doesn't actually affect the memory itself.

[lairgweather]

Hi

I have a couple of FO stations running the new version of Cumulus,1 in particular locks up every other day,the only fix is USB cale and battery out and back in and it is ok for 24-48 hours.
The station is remote,40 miles from here so getting it rebooted is a pain.
The 'error:no response' is showing at the bottom left of the display after it runs the 'download data' when i close and re open Cumulus- which i can by means of remote access from here.
The odd thing is i recently replaced the PC it runs on and at the same time downloaded the new version,it worked perfect before i made these 2 changes...so is it the PC tower or the new version?
Any help much appreciated.
Thanks

Lee

[steve]

The odd thing is i recently replaced the PC it runs on and at the same time downloaded the new version,it worked perfect before i made these 2 changes...so is it the PC tower or the new version?

Have you enabled the new 'synchronise' setting? You need to enable that for the 'lockup avoidance' to work, and it does seem to have worked for others. I can't think of anything I've done in 1.9.3 that could actually cause the station to lock up, but as the problem appears to be down to timing, and isn't fully understood anyway, who knows? I can't really claim to know what I'm doing, I'm just using information about the station that I've been given by unofficial sources, and Fine Offset ignore me when I ask them anything.

[rwilliam99]

The other thing to enable is the power setting on the USB ports if you are running windows 7 or 8. The specific steps are somewhere back in this thread.

Mine has been humming along well - I did have one lockup after a month or so, but that is WAY better than having it lockup every 4 or 5 days. I also have notification enabled in Cumulus toolbox, so I get an email when it happens so I can restart it quickly to minimize data loss. Not a perfect solution, but for a cheap weather station it works well.

[lairgweather]

Thanks Steve - yes it is enabled.
PC is using XP and the usb ports are set NOT to power down.

[steve]

Thanks Steve - yes it is enabled.

If you zip up the diags folder and attach it, I'll take a look.

[steve]

By the way - if it was working perfectly before, it probably wasn't a good idea to enable the new setting! It's probably worth turning it off and then restarting Cumulus, and then it's exactly as it was in 1.9.2; that's the version you were using before, when you weren't having problems, yes?