Welcome to the Cumulus Support forum.

Latest Cumulus MX V3 release 3.28.6 (build 3283) - 21 March 2024

Cumulus MX V4 beta test release 4.0.0 (build 4018) - 28 March 2024

Legacy Cumulus 1 release v1.9.4 (build 1099) - 28 November 2014 (a patch is available for 1.9.4 build 1099 that extends the date range of drop-down menus to 2030)

Download the Software (Cumulus MX / Cumulus 1 and other related items) from the Wiki

How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

From build 3044 the development baton passed to Mark Crossley. Mark has been responsible for all the Builds since. He has made the code available on GitHub. It is Mark's hope that others will join in this development, but at the very least he welcomes your ideas for future developments (see Cumulus MX Development suggestions).

Moderator: mcrossley

User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

I've been running Cumulus 1 for many years, uploading data to my web page (on my own hosted domain) every five minutes, and 'real-time' data (for Gauges) every nine seconds. Worked a treat using the standard web files originally supplied with Cumulus, plus the modification for 'steel series' gauges.

A few days ago my ISP/domain host changed their security settings, essentially forcing everyone/everything to use TLS rather than SSL. Having installed TLS 1.2 on my Win7Pro64 PC some days beforehand, e-mail continued working after their change. But my Cumulus web page didn't! :-(

Specifically, the main Cumulus web page (at http://www.advanced-solutions.com.au/Gerroa-Weather/) has not been updated since 10:00 on 02 June 2021 (about the time the security changes were implemented), but the 'real-time' gauges continued to work, updating each nine seconds.

Finding no security-related settings in Cumulus 1, I decided (after my ISP suggested) to try Cumulus MX. After making a backup copy of my Cumulus directory, I simply copied the MX folders/files from the downloaded Zip into my \Cumulus directory, changed the port setting in Cumulus.ini, and changed the date separator in dayfile.txt from / to - (as used in my Windows locale long-date setting).

On then running MX and opening the admin interface in Firefox, the readings and historical data all appear to be correct, but nothing is being uploaded to my web page; neither the full data-set nor the 'real-time' gauges data.

I'm not a web programmer, but can generally understand instructions if fully described for a novice. Can anyone guide me through the steps I'll need to do to get my Cumulus web page working again? I live by a very popular surf beach, and hundreds of locals use my web page to check the local weather to help them decide if it will be a good day for surfing/sail-boarding/kite-surfing, etc.

Any help would be much appreciated by me (and them!).
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
User avatar
PaulMy
Posts: 3777
Joined: Sun 28 Sep 2008 11:54 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 Plus 24-Hour FARS
Operating System: Windows8 and Windows10
Location: Komoka, ON Canada
Contact:

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by PaulMy »

Hi Daniel,
First, it seems from your profile your Cumulus is quite an old version and v1.9.4 -b1099 is the latest available (but no longer ongoing development). There is a b1099(2) patch for this to allow for the pull down menu to go to the year 2030. Not saying to use this but there may be some security improvements between your b1086 and the latest b1099.

Re CumulusMX, what version did you download and have running?
Do you have a separate remote folder for CMX?
Have you set the Internet settings, Web/FTP Site and Web/FTP Settings and ticked "I want to use the supplied default web site", etc. ?
Have you one-time FTP the contents of CumulusMX/webfiles ?

Can you zip up the latest MXdiags folder after you have set FTP Logging and let it run a couple of 5-min cycles.


Enjoy,
Paul
Davis Vantage Pro2+
C1 www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www. komokaweather.com/cumulusmx4/index.htm

Image
User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

Paul,

Thanks for your quick reply. I'm just heading to bed now (12:50am!), but will try some of your suggestions later today (Sat).

I did first try the 1099(2) patch, but it made no difference. I already had made all the selections in MX you suggested, except I didn't do a one-time upload of the CumulusMX/webfiles. I'll do that this weekend, and if it doesn't fix the problem will turn on FTP logging for awhile and upload the log.
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

Paul,

Sorry for the delay, it's a mad week this week, and then going interstate for two weeks, so only just got round to working through your suggestions!

And woohoo! After following your instructions (uploading web files, etc) my web weather page is now working with Cumulus MX!

The default web page is pretty plain (compared to the old one), but I guess I'll just have to learn some HTML coding to fix that! :-)

The main thing is it's working, and the many people who look for my wind etc readings can again rely on my data.

Many thanks for your patient support. :)
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
User avatar
PaulMy
Posts: 3777
Joined: Sun 28 Sep 2008 11:54 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 Plus 24-Hour FARS
Operating System: Windows8 and Windows10
Location: Komoka, ON Canada
Contact:

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by PaulMy »

Hi Daniel,
Good to see you have it working.
A couple of things to look at as Historic charts are not loading, and NOAA reports files not found.
Then other ways to present your weather information...
http://komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/index.php
http://komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/wBoxH3f.html

Your Jan 2017 weather must have been a doozer :shock: ;)
Looking at your current weather data, and looks a lot like when we were in Sydney in June 2005 for our son's wedding and weather was quite nice and comfortable.
Over the past 7 days here we've gone from a low of 2.6°C to high of 31.6°C

Enjoy,
Paul
Davis Vantage Pro2+
C1 www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www. komokaweather.com/cumulusmx4/index.htm

Image
User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

PaulMy wrote: Mon 07 Jun 2021 2:59 pm ...
A couple of things to look at as Historic charts are not loading, and NOAA reports files not found.
...
Paul,

I'm heading interstate in a few days, and in the meantime will be dealing with more important technical issues (unrelated to weather stations – my non-working hi-fi system specifically), so won't be able to do much more on Cumulus till early July at the earliest. But if you can give me any pointers on where to start looking for those missing data, I would appreciate it.
PaulMy wrote: Mon 07 Jun 2021 2:59 pm ...
Your Jan 2017 weather must have been a doozer.
I'm not quite sure what you're alluding to here, Paul. My (local) all-time records don't indicate anything extreme in that month. Is there some erroneous data in the on-line version that I haven't noticed? Now that the 'real-time' data is being successfully uploaded, and thence distributed to some other water-sports-specific websites, I'm not spending any more time on Cumulus until I've resolved my more-urgent problems.
PaulMy wrote: Mon 07 Jun 2021 2:59 pm ...
Over the past 7 days here we've gone from a low of 2.6°C to high of 31.6°C
Wow! That's an extreme range of of temperatures. Even where I live (minimum 6°, very rare) is too cold for me. One day I might move to Cairns! On my only visit to Canada (Calgary), it was –29° when I stepped out of the airport terminal, and my first breath 'burnt' my windpipe! I was coughing for the rest of my (short) stay there.

Also, I've been looking for documentation on Cumulus MX, but so far found nothing useful. Is there a 'user manual' somewhere that I haven't discovered? At the very least it would be great to have the various file formats detailed (as they were for v1), since my colleague whose job it is to scrape my real-time data from my website, extract the wind details and forward them to a few other websites, had issues due to the changed format/layout of the realtime.txt file. He thinks he's sorted it out now, but proper documentation would be good for this and future purposes.
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
water01
Posts: 3215
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2011 9:33 am
Weather Station: Ecowitt HP2551
Operating System: Windows 10 64bit
Location: Burnham-on-Sea
Contact:

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by water01 »

Also, I've been looking for documentation on Cumulus MX, but so far found nothing useful. Is there a 'user manual' somewhere that I haven't discovered?
https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Category:Cumulus_MX
David
Image
User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

Thanks David, but that's not what I call a 'manual'.

I really don't have time to jump back-and-forth between hundreds of pages, with all the slow loading times, to find something that I could find in a second by searching a PDF. And sadly the 'printable version' link only prints the contents page, not the whole 'book'.

Can anyone point me to a real manual? Thanks.
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
freddie
Posts: 2434
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2011 11:19 am
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Pro 2 + Ecowitt
Operating System: GNU/Linux Ubuntu 22.04 LXC
Location: Alcaston, Shropshire, UK
Contact:

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by freddie »

DanielF wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 8:07 am Thanks David, but that's not what I call a 'manual'.

I really don't have time to jump back-and-forth between hundreds of pages, with all the slow loading times, to find something that I could find in a second by searching a PDF. And sadly the 'printable version' link only prints the contents page, not the whole 'book'.

Can anyone point me to a real manual? Thanks.
This is not a commercial product with abundant funds for documentation - it is provided by a community of volunteers. A Wiki is the ideal documentation tool in this scenario, as it can be maintained by multiple volunteers. The Wiki also contains a search function, so arguably is no different from a PDF.
Freddie
Image
sfws
Posts: 1183
Joined: Fri 27 Jul 2012 11:29 am
Weather Station: Chas O, Maplin N96FY, N25FR
Operating System: rPi 3B+ with Buster (full)

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by sfws »

DanielF wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 8:07 am Can anyone point me to a real manual? Thanks.
None exists yet, any volunteers?

Further to what Freddie says:
One issue is that MX is far, far more complicated than the legacy Cumulus, with many, many more options, so it is almost impossible to decide which bits to document. And anybody attempting to understand MX needs to have all the different hardware it works with and explore all those options! I don't think a single manual covering everything about MX is feasible without a big documentation team, and given how few contribute to Wiki, that won't happen!

The other big issue is that MX has changed drastically, rapidly, over the last couple of years, and is likely to continue to have drastic changes. So any guide would need regular updating. That is a big commitment!

Even the https://cumuluswiki.org/Downloads/Cumul ... 0guide.pdf guide for the simpler legacy Cumulus is out of date.
DanielF wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 6:37 am had issues due to the changed format/layout of the realtime.txt file. He thinks he's sorted it out now, but proper documentation would be good for this and future purposes.
While the legacy Cumulus 1 included two optional wind graphics that used the realtime.txt file, MX does not include any functionality that uses a file of same name.

As it says at https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Realtime.txt, MX functionality creates a real time table in a database server instead.
DanielF wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 8:07 am I really don't have time to jump back-and-forth between hundreds of pages, with all the slow loading times,
The whole basis of Wiki design is to keep individual pages short and specific to one issue per page. Most people would only refer to a few pages.

The Wiki badly needs new contributors with time to write further MX documentation, and bring existing pages (that cover MX) up to date!
The only caution I would add is that there are still many people using Cumulus 1, and so any contributor needs to ensure documentation for Cumulus 1 is retained!
User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

freddie wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 8:25 am ... The Wiki also contains a search function, so arguably is no different from a PDF.
Fred,

I tried the search box at left of the contents page, entering 'file formats' (no quotes), but all the results pointed to Cumulus 1 pages. And I don't have the time just now to visit each of those (many) result pages to see if any also deal with Cumulus MX file formats.

But thanks for your comments. I understand the benefits of a wiki, but they're just so time-consuming to find anything.
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

sfws wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 8:35 am ...
While the legacy Cumulus 1 included two optional wind graphics that used the realtime.txt file, MX does not include any functionality that uses a file of same name.
...
@sfws,

Well, that's interesting, since my \Cumulus directory contains a file named realtime.txt that is being updated every 9 seconds as per my CMX real-time setting! And my friend is fetching this file from my web page, processing and forwarding the wind data to others!

So much for the wiki documentation! ;-)

As for getting a 'real' (single PDF) manual, I understand the problems with keeping it up-to-date, let alone not having enough volunteers to do the work. But even a somewhat out-of-date manual would be way ahead of none (or even crawling through a wiki looking for something the wiki-search doesn't find).

Given that the wiki documentation exists, even though not current, I would have thought (I'm not a PC programmer) it shouldn't be hard for some piece of software to trawl through the wiki, fetching each linked page in Contents order, and pasting their contents into some document (Word, or some Linux equivalent) from which a PDF could be easily 'printed'.

But I suppose it's again a lack of volunteers to write such a thing (I'm actually surprised it doesn't already exist, given the clear need). And I'm truly sorry I am unable to volunteer right now, due to other commitments.
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
sfws
Posts: 1183
Joined: Fri 27 Jul 2012 11:29 am
Weather Station: Chas O, Maplin N96FY, N25FR
Operating System: rPi 3B+ with Buster (full)

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by sfws »

sfws wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 8:35 am MX does not include any functionality that uses a file of same name.
DanielF wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 9:15 am Well, that's interesting, since my \Cumulus directory contains a file named realtime.txt that is being updated every 9 seconds as per my CMX real-time setting! And my friend is fetching this file from my web page, processing and forwarding the wind data to others!
Sorry this is a misunderstanding of my word "USES", I did not mean MX could not create a realtime.txt file, I meant any such file is not read by MX for any of its standard functionality. And the Wiki page I referenced does give an example of what MX can generate in this file.
DanielF wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 8:59 am to visit each of those (many) result pages to see if any also deal with Cumulus MX file formats.
It is by using a vague search such as 'file formats' that you are finding irrelevant material, some of those pages are only legacy Cumulus, some only MX, and some both.

A more specific search would find fewer pages.

You say many, but only a small number are generally relevant to a single MX installation, as those relevant depends on your weather station hardware and your MX settings. Actually, you should know a small number of file name(s) that you are interested in. You could then look up each file name either directly as the name of a Wiki page, or using link from the category page specific to MX mentioned by Water01 as the entry point for MX documentation.
DanielF wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 9:15 am fetching each linked page in Contents order, and pasting their contents into some document (Word, or some Linux equivalent) from which a PDF could be easily 'printed'.
Yes, it would be possible to work through all the links on that page mentioned by Water01, and produce a single document, but I don't think it would result in anything anybody would describe as friendly.
Now if you had claimed that individual Wiki pages could be improved, then many people would agree, but it takes time and effort, especially when it is against a rapidly moving target!
User avatar
PaulMy
Posts: 3777
Joined: Sun 28 Sep 2008 11:54 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 Plus 24-Hour FARS
Operating System: Windows8 and Windows10
Location: Komoka, ON Canada
Contact:

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by PaulMy »

Hi Daniel,
Good luck on getting your other issue resolved.
But if you can give me any pointers on where to start looking for those missing data, I would appreciate it.
Presumably you are creating and FTP the NOAA reports at the end of the day. The remote location for the NOAA reports is left to the user to set in the NOAA settings, and to create that remote folder.
FTP Options
Auto FTP NOAA report files
Enabling this means your NOAA reports will be FTP'd to the folder below after they are created during the daily rollover

FTP directory
public_html/cumulusmx/Reports
You can specify a different folder from the default FTP folder if you wish to up the reports to a different location
Leaving this blank will mean the reports are placed in the location specified in the main Internet Settings FTP folder
Paths entered here are relative to the FTP root folder

The CumulusMX js/noaarpts.js file has the default path as
let rptPath = ''; // Your path should have a trailing "/", eg. 'Reports/'
So change that default path to let rptPath = 'yourremotelocation/';
and then the Reports should display.

Sometimes some lighthearted comment doesn't come out the same through a keyboard :oops:
I was just going through your website data and in the Monthly Records tab noticed some pretty significant records for January:
Temperature and Humidity
High Temperature 73.3 °C at 23:52 on 16 January 2017
Low Temperature -29.3 °C at 13:11 on 17 January 2017
Which I assumed was just some initial weather station setup rogue data.

Enjoy,
Paul
Davis Vantage Pro2+
C1 www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www. komokaweather.com/cumulusmx4/index.htm

Image
User avatar
DanielF
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 12:53 pm
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Vue, serial logger
Operating System: Win10Pro64
Location: Gerroa, NSW, Australia

Re: How to get web page working after v1 -> MX upgrade?

Post by DanielF »

sfws wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 12:12 pm ...
A more specific search would find fewer pages.

You say many, but only a small number are generally relevant to a single MX installation, as those relevant depends on your weather station hardware and your MX settings. Actually, you should know a small number of file name(s) that you are interested in. You could then look up each file name either directly as the name of a Wiki page, or using link from the category page specific to MX mentioned by Water01 as the entry point for MX documentation.
@sfws,

Thanks for continuing the discussion. Many others, faced with such a persistent idiot as me, would have given up long ago! :-)

Well, I specifically wanted to know the new layout of the realtime.txt file CMX is generating, so my friend can check his reverse-engineering. So my search string was exactly that: realtime.txt. There were at least 20 results (the page count at the bottom invited me to click for 'Next 20', but I declined). The first was headed realtime.txt, so looked like a likely place to start. But that page started with the line: "This page describes a file used only by (the legacy) Cumulus 1.x.y", and was thus totally useless to me. I also tried realtime.txt format and realtime.txt format MX, but still didn't find anything explaining in detail the layout of CMX's realtime.txt file.

Perhaps you can give me a specific example of a 'more specific' search string that actually finds that information?

As for
sfws wrote: Tue 08 Jun 2021 12:12 pm Yes, it would be possible to work through all the links on that page mentioned by Water01, and produce a single document, but I don't think it would result in anything anybody would describe as friendly.
please consider this scenario:
I have a single PDF that contains the text from all the CMX Wiki pages. I press <Ctrl>-<F> and enter realtime.txt, and click 'Next'. In a fraction of a second I am looking at a sentence containing that string, and can in another fraction of a second assess whether it's talking about the information I'm seeking (file format). If not, another click of 'Next' and I'm instantly at the next mention of the search string. In this way, within a matter of seconds I have scanned the whole file and found (or not) what I'm looking for.

Doing the same by clicking links, wait for new page to load, search it for my string, click ← to go back to search results, try another page, etc, etc, and I've wasted several minutes looking (perhaps in vain) for the information I seek. How can you say a PDF is 'not friendly'? Sure, to be useful, it needs to be kept up-to-date, and I again acknowledge the problem of too few volunteers with too little time to keep the wiki relevant to the fast-evolving program features, but if this PDF-of-all-pages process could be automated, then a user would simply need to click 'Create PDF of whole wiki' any time they wanted to see the latest 'manual' for CMX.

Additionally, I think it's futile to try to cover both Cumulus 1 and Cumulus MX in one documentation wiki. Apart from now being obsolete (I believe the entire web is in the process of moving – this year? – from SSL to TLS), Cumulus 1 was already quite well documented by its original author, to the extent that the installation package contained detailed documentation of the format/layout of each of the data files used by the program. A documentation wiki confined just to CMX would not only be 'cleaner' (less confusing), but easier to maintain.

Just my 2¢ worth! :-)
Daniel
Gerroa ('paradise'), Australia
Gerroa weather
Post Reply