Data Input Appears To Have Stopped

[Vossenberg]

Hello,

I am using a Davis Vantage Vue together with the 6510USB connector and an Envoy 6316. For christmas I received the 6510 and the envoy to be able to connect my weather system to my computer and finally start using Cumulus for logging my local weather. Unfortunately I receive random error messages "Data input appears to have stopped".

The software I am using:

- Windows Server 2012 Essentials
- Cumulus 1.9.3
- Weatherlink 5.93 - with update to 6.0.3
- Updated the Silicon Labs Driver to 6.6.1


What I have done to resolve the errors:

1. I started experiencing errors with Data Input Appears To have Stopped, then I have upgraded the Silicon Labs driver, without success it did not change the messages from appearing.
2. I searched for all powersaving options regarding USB on the server, disabled USB Selective Suspend in the powerscheme.
3. Disabled the allow the computer to turn off this device to save power at the USB Root Hub Properties
4. Changed the CP210x to UART Bridge, and disabled the allow the computer to turn off this device option.
5. Last option I have changed is decreasing the UART buffers to 1 for the CP210x connector

Unfortunately I keep getting the errors every now and then, what I can find in the diags is the following:

30-12-2012 14:52:00.197 : *** Data input appears to have stopped
30-12-2012 14:52:11.197 : VP2: LoadCurrentVantageData_V, error = -32701

And this does not tell me anything. Might there be something I have missed? Is it normal to have occasionally stopped data?

Thank you in advance,

Pascal

[steve]

I am beginning to think there may be an incompatibility between the latest Davis hardware and the Davis DLL which Cumulus uses. The error code -32701 is the Davis DLL saying 'communication error'. The 'data input appears to have stopped' message is Cumulus saying that it hasn't received any new data for 60 seconds.

What firmware version do you have? Cumulus logs this near the start of the diags file.

[Vossenberg]

Steve,

Thank you for your quick response, the firmware of the Envoy is actually version 3.00:

30-12-2012 15:20:36.912 : Get Station Firmware Version, result = 1
30-12-2012 15:20:36.912 : Firmware Version: 3.00

(which raised problems with people not having the green dot dataloggers, old dataloggers and non davis dataloggers are not supported on this firmware)

When I end the software and restart the problem is gone for a while, however cannot invent anything more to increase stability. (What did you do on your WHS 2011 system?) Does there exist something similiar such as periodic disconnect for the IP dataloggers?

Pascal

[Jorginho]

I seem to have similar problems. I have the exact same combination (USB 6510 + envoy). It worked fine at home for a day. Then I put it into the countryside and it worked allright. Than disaster: teh EEE PC Asus fell a few meters actually. But prior to that I notd the temperature was stable for 1,5 hours. Not one change even though nearby station noted changes. After that the EEE PC (with Windows XP SP3 on it) fell. So I found it today and it worked alright. The cumulus was reattached. It has updated the lost files on WU but all the new files since it is back online are the same. The datalogger did not fall btw. So whyt does it update the archive memery from the datalogger but why doesn't it update the current data? If it wpuld be broken, than I'd expect it not to upload anything. But it does....Strange..I use a USB Hub today and that immediately gave the 32170 error. So I now have the USB 3G modem with prepaid card on it and since than all communications have gone. So now I am heading back to the countryside and the farm where my station is located and restart again.

A last point: when I looked at the windows screen the cumulus software did show the current values. I could see the wind change....So it seems to be the ciommunication with WU.

[steve]

(What did you do on your WHS 2011 system?)

I don't have any problems with my system, but mine is five years old.

Does there exist something similiar such as periodic disconnect for the IP dataloggers?

No, because that is to allow the IP logger to upload to weatherlink.com, and serial/USB loggers don't do that.

If this is an incompatibility with the Davis DLL, the only thing I can try is to change Cumulus to use the latest DLL, but even that is two years old. I am still using an old version of the DLL, because when I last tried to use a later one, it caused problems. There has been a further version since then, so hopefully that one won't have the same problems.

[Vossenberg]

I would be very grateful if you could try the change to the new DLL, I have tried copying the DLL to the cumulus directory and it says Ordinal 166 could not be located in the dynamic link library. This means there must be many differences to check, I will help you with testing as for programming I am not useful

[steve]

Yes, it's not as simple as just replacing the DLL, there are a lot of changes to make to Cumulus. I've been meaning to look at doing this anyway, for other reasons, so I guess it's time I got around to it...

[steve]

It seems I was mistaken about there being a later version of the DLL than the one I had previously tried. The latest version, 2.42, is the version which I tried back in October 2010, and which causes problems. The DLL performs extra actions before each read of the data, which means that Cumulus only gets new data every 8 or 9 seconds, rather than every 2 or 3 seconds, and even then the wind speed that it receives doesn't seem to correspond with the value on the console. I changed the code anyway, just to confirm it, and the problem is still there. So I can't use the latest DLL.

So we will have to hope we can find a fix using the older DLL. If you zip up the diags folder and attach it, I'll take a look and see if I can see anything useful.

[Vossenberg]

Steve thanks, hereby my diags. (I haven't used the option debug logging until now) so if more information is needed from debug logs I will send the new diags tomorrow. I will let it generate data overnight.

Kind Regards,

Pascal

[steve]

What is strange is that sometimes you are getting the 'data stopped' warning without getting the -32701 error back from the DLL, so I have no idea what's going on there. I may need to add more diagnostic tracing, but for now please turn on the debug log and wait until you get the 'data stopped' error again. Unfortunately, leaving the debug log on tends to cause it to crash after a while, but hopefully you'll hit the problem before that happens. The existing tracing in the debug.log may give some clues. You'll need to turn off the 'restart if data stops' option; I'm not sure there's any benefit to that option in this case anyway, as it seems to recover anyway without restarting.

[steve]

I think I now know the cause of this; the debug.log file will confirm it.

[Vossenberg]

Steve,

Thank you for your responses. Sorry to delay my responses, currently I am sick and have been sleeping a lot.

Well the good thing is the data appears to have stopped occurred sometimes since yesterday evening:

Code: Select all

30-12-2012 23:05:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
30-12-2012 23:06:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 00:13:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 00:14:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 00:42:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 00:43:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 00:44:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 02:54:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 02:55:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 03:17:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 03:18:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 03:19:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 03:41:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 03:42:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 06:25:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 06:26:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 06:34:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 06:35:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 06:43:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 06:44:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 13:46:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 13:47:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 13:48:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 14:52:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 14:53:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 14:54:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 16:00:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 16:01:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 17:39:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 17:40:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 18:14:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 18:15:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 19:07:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
31-12-2012 19:08:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections

I will attach the diags and the debug.log soon.

Thanks in advance,

Pascal

[steve]

31-12-2012 19:08:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections

Isn't this actually only half an hour ago?

[Vossenberg]

Yep! here it's 19:41 at the moment (still 2012 )

[steve]

When you've uploaded the debug.log file, you can try the following 'fix', if you wish. Edit cumulus.ini, and in the [Station] section add a line

DavisCalcAltPress=0

This will stop Cumulus trying to read the information from the station that it needs to calculate 'altimeter pressure', which is required by CWOP, and will use sea-level pressure instead. I believe it is the reading of this information which is causing the problem.