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Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Discussion specific to Davis weather stations
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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
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Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by PaulMy »

I need to consider if CMX is a viable alternative. Does it affect my website? I wouldn’t want that changing. What hardware is best for MX? Something radically different? Data still uploaded to my website hosted by HostPresto?
Hi Ray,
Unfortunately you can run only one weather program with one console/logger. But you can test CumulusMX by shutting down Cumulus1 for a short while and run CumulusMX to get a good feel of it.
You can switch back and forth and each accesses your logger on its own, so Cumulus1 will always go back to where it was stopped for a restart catch, and the same for CumulusMX, as it also is for Weatherlink.

I presume on your website you can create a new remote folder /cumulusmx and then in CumulusMX Internet settings set the Web/FTP Site Remote FTP Directory to public/html/cumulusmx. You would one-time FTP all the files in \CumulusMX\webfiles to that new /cumulusmx folder, the same way you would have FTP all the \Cumulus\webfiles in 2008.
This way no connection or interruption between remote /cumulusmx and your existing Cumulus1.

It may sound haunting, but in reality quite easy once you overcome "this is how I've always done it..."
The scary part to many old-school newcomers to CumulusMX is the DOS screen popup, and then a message that no station is recognized. All this is normal and quickly learned that you need to open a new browser and type in the url localhost:8998 and enter or http://localhost:8998

The settings layout is much different but quite easy to follow. And lots of answers here if you run into a difficulty.

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

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RayProudfoot
Posts: 3372
Joined: Wed 06 May 2009 6:29 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 with Daytime FARS
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Location: Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England
Contact:

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by RayProudfoot »

Hi Paul, thanks for the brief overview of MX. What makes that version so much better than Cumulus? Is it the fact that C1 is effectively frozen in time so what you have can never change?

Or is it the features in MX that make it so much better? I know it can run on a Raspberry Pi but that is totally alien to me much like Apple OS. At the end of the day all I want is to capture, store and display the basic elements of our weather. I don’t yearn for anything more than what I have now.

C1 is robust and just works. I’m reluctant to move away from it because even if/when my hardware fails I have enough knowledge to get new kit and get C1 running again. Buying a new laptop every 7-10 years isn’t an issue. Running costs are minimal.

I have VirtualVP on this laptop which allows me to run Cumulus, Weatherlink and VPLive using virtual COM ports. I would lose that moving away from XP.
Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

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water01
Posts: 3215
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2011 9:33 am
Weather Station: Ecowitt HP2551
Operating System: Windows 10 64bit
Location: Burnham-on-Sea
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Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by water01 »

I presume on your website you can create a new remote folder /cumulusmx and then in CumulusMX Internet settings set the Web/FTP Site Remote FTP Directory to public/html/cumulusmx. You would one-time FTP all the files in \CumulusMX\webfiles to that new /cumulusmx folder, the same way you would have FTP all the \Cumulus\webfiles in 2008.
His website is a heavily modified version of Steve's old default website and I believe he wants to keep it. He can by just making sure MX is uploading the same files as his current site.
However, after looking at the site I foresee 2 problems - 1) he is using Steve's old Silverlight realtime code (this could be changed to Mark's realtime plot using Highchart graphs and 2) his Graphs use the old Cumulus 1 48 hr graphs which would have to be changed to the Trends graphs. Other than that I see no real problems moving.
David
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water01
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Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by water01 »

C1 is robust and just works. I’m reluctant to move away from it because even if/when my hardware fails I have enough knowledge to get new kit and get C1 running again. Buying a new laptop every 7-10 years isn’t an issue. Running costs are minimal.
I understand Ray but eventually you will not be able to buy a computer that would allow XP to be installed as the drivers etc. will not be available. Later versions of Windows can run Cumulus but eventually the GUI and various other elements will not be supported, so you will be forced to go to MX. Also I would suggest that eventually Davis will cease to maintain some older DLLs that you may need.

MX not as hard as it looks and you will get all of us supporting you as you move, so if you are forced to go to W7 or W10 then it would be a good time to change.

It is just the fear of change but once you are MX I am sure you will soon become a MX Ninja!! :lol: :lol: :lol:
David
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PaulMy
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Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by PaulMy »

What makes that version so much better than Cumulus? Is it the fact that C1 is effectively frozen in time so what you have can never change?
C1 still works so that shows it robustness but correct, no new additions. It looks much different locally but basically, for a website, very little difference.
The local Dashboard looks much the same as Brian's MXUI template http://www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.php with the Dashboard | Now | Gauges | Charts | Today/Yesterday | Records | Reports all being about the same. Much easier to add new items to Extra web files.
CumulusMX is better in that it can run more of the newer weather stations and devices like Weatherlink Live and AirLin. and the RPi which is important to many.
I have VirtualVP on this laptop which allows me to run Cumulus, Weatherlink and VPLive using virtual COM ports. I would lose that moving away from XP.
I had forgotten on you using VVP. Seems to me that I have read of people still able to get VVP to work on later Windows. I don't as my old Windows8 had problems with it.

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

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RayProudfoot
Posts: 3372
Joined: Wed 06 May 2009 6:29 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 with Daytime FARS
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Location: Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England
Contact:

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by RayProudfoot »

Chaps, thanks for your feedback. I need time to consider my options but I don’t have that luxury whilst my website is not getting updated. Let me get this new SSD installed- cost £55 - and my site running again.

That takes the pressure off and I can investigate MX and how it works. I’m not saying I’ll move to it as no one has given me any compelling reason to. It sounds like my hand may be forced should I need to buy a Windows 10 laptop and Cumulus/ Weatherlink not eventually work for whatever reason.
Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

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prodata
Posts: 317
Joined: Sat 05 Feb 2011 7:13 pm
Weather Station: VP2
Operating System: Windows - all flavours
Location: Littleport, East Cambs, UK

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by prodata »

RayProudfoot wrote: Tue 06 Apr 2021 10:36 am I have a spare Windows 7 laptop and I tried to install WeatherLink from the original CD. A
Sorry but a bit late to the party here. Not much consolation I know, but this sort of thing shouldn't be happening. Looks like some sort of very obscure Windows error, maybe laptop-specific, that Davis may or may not have got to the bottom of as and when Davis support get a chance to answer. I know their support is extremely busy and also, like many of us, still working under constraints, ie largely from home.

Key points in installing from the download:

1. Preferably needs to be explicitly installed under an admin login;

2. Must be installed to C:\Weatherlink and not accepting the default install location if it should happen to be different.

3. I'm always a bit sceptical that the USB drivers make any difference - no obvious reason why that should be the case (NB provided the logger is not connected while installation is attempted). But there is a relatively recent (v5.9.2a) WL version that doesn't have the USB drivers included, downloadable from http://toolbox.davisnet.com/downloads/ . Obviously, if needed then the USB drivers would need to be installed separately.
Last edited by prodata on Wed 07 Apr 2021 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
John Dann
Prodata Weather Systems
Littleport, East Cambs, UK
http://www.weatherstations.co.uk
RayProudfoot
Posts: 3372
Joined: Wed 06 May 2009 6:29 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 with Daytime FARS
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Location: Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England
Contact:

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by RayProudfoot »

prodata wrote: Wed 07 Apr 2021 9:35 am Sorry but a bit late to the party here. Not much consolation I know, but this sort of thing shouldn't be happening. Looks like some sort of very obscure Windows error, maybe laptop-specific, that Davis may or may not have got to the bottom of as and when Davis support get a chance to answer. I know their support is extremely busy and also, like many of us, still working under constraints, ie largely from home.

Key points in installing from the download:

1. Preferably needs to be explicitly installed under an admin login;

2. Must be installed to C:\Weatherlink and not accepting the default install location if it should happen to be different.

3. I'm always a bit sceptical that the USB drivers make any difference - no obvious reason why that should be the case. But there is a relatively recent (v5.9.2a) WL version that doesn't have the USB drivers included, downloadable from http://toolbox.davisnet.com/downloads/ . Obviously, if needed then the USB drivers would need to be installed separately.
Hello John. I can understand the CD version not working as it's for 32-bit OSs only. But the download from WeatherLink.com should have. My account has admin privileges and I was trying to install to C:\WeatherLink. I've not heard back from Davis.

No matter. After some thought I decided I can get more time out of my Samsung NC10 and have ordered an SSD which will arrive tomorrow. I hope to be up and running by close of play tomorrow.
Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

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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: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by sfws »

RayProudfoot wrote: Wed 07 Apr 2021 9:47 am I hope to be up and running by close of play tomorrow.
On that basis, you may no longer be considering MX, but perhaps you might be interested in a view of another old timer, who (despite my contributions) has never trusted technology.
.
RayProudfoot wrote: Tue 06 Apr 2021 9:03 pm I need to consider if CMX is a viable alternative.
The only bug I am aware of in Cumulus 1 is only applicable to Fine Offset weather stations and is that Steve Loft got the wrong advice about which memory locations to examine to read pressure. Anyway, in an early MX release by Mark, that bug was corrected, and so MX (in that context) works better with ancient Fine Offset stations.

There is a lot of new functionality in MX, but anybody satisfied with what they have got, has no reason to be thinking about what extras might be of benefit!

It is worth reminding people that Steve Loft gave the community a beta MX that had minimal functionality, and he was in early stages of developing his C# coding skills.
Mark has done 64 releases since December 2018, each either adding more functionality, correcting bugs, or both.

I'm sure there are people appreciating all this new functionality, but I just want software I can install and not worry about. So for me, many of the 50 (or so) bug correcting (or adding new features) releases since I first installed MX have, either not affected the little functionality I use, or (because of implementing functionality I don't want) have made MX less good for me.

For example Ray, you might not enjoy the way that Mark has made MX constantly nag anyone who does not upgrade to his new releases, these occur at least once every month. (I recall when Steve Loft despite Cumulus only being his hobby, was producing new beta builds to his original software several times a week, but nothing constantly nagged me to upgrade). Yes HansR offers a utility to make upgrade easier, but each upgrade still consumes time and effort.

I miss Cumulus 1, but given the unreliability of my Windows PC, in an earlier lockdown I decided I would try buying a Raspberry Pi computer, and (despite the continuing learning curve) I am really delighted with it, and I use it more than my PC. Thus for me, I can't go back to original Cumulus, MX is needed to run on my RPi.

Another point, not mentioned by others, is that Cumulus 1 is very tolerant of different formats in files like dayfile.txt. As MX starts it reads every line from this file, this is needed for the new historic plots functionality. Mark has rewritten the MX code, and (from release 3.5.4 onwards) this means it is fussy about characters such as what is used to separate parts of the date. Since you currently have betel_datasummary.php installed, your dayfile.txt may be okay, but migration to MX is likely to be more work than others are hinted, they will have done the migration to an earlier MX release when it was easier.
RayProudfoot wrote: Tue 06 Apr 2021 9:03 pm Does it affect my website? I wouldn’t want that changing.
Your website is customised from that Beth Loft designed, but only by cosmetic tweaks. As I say in response to quote below, it will need more than cosmetic tweaks to work with MX.

I went for a totally different set of pages, generally showing a key parameters table and an optional all derivatives table; instead of today.htm and yesterday.htm my web page shows a whole week of statistics, instead of thismonth.htm mine shows consecutive months, and so on. My "gauges page" is a customised version more like the original instead of the steel series that comes with MX. My experience was that it took me an awful lot of time, when I moved from my original Cumulus to MX, keeping my customised website (it is not public) working in the way that suits me. Of course, making web pages work is low on priorities after a move to a different home (especially when Covid-19 means less work by contractors).
water01 wrote: Tue 06 Apr 2021 9:46 pm However, after looking at the site I foresee 2 problems - 1) he is using Steve's old Silverlight realtime code (this could be changed to Mark's realtime plot using High STOCK graphs and 2) his Graphs use the old Cumulus 1 48 hr graphs which would have to be changed to the Trends graphs.
1) David is wrong to say that your gauges.htm page uses "silverlight", as your page does not have the realtime gauges on it; anyway you have also implemented gauges-ss.htm which is similar to what MX includes.
2) The position for graphs is more complicated than the above quote says, yes original Cumulus uploaded graphs (loaded onto static "trends.htm" web page) , while MX uploads data and has static web pages that plot that data. However, later MX releases have added historic plots, select-a-graph, and so you have different functionality. I believe the more recent releases give you more control over what data uploaded and what is plotted.

Water01 does not mention, all MX releases replace the XHTML (using charset=iso-8859-1) pages that you have, with modern HTML using UTF-8 encoding. For you, Cumulus processes template file to generate web pages, these are then uploaded to your web site.

Finally, there has been a big revolution for Cumulus web sites, the latest MX uploads data (no more Cumulus processing templates into web pages) and has static web pages that sit on your web server and read the uploaded data. Someone who actually uses these might have more to say.
RayProudfoot
Posts: 3372
Joined: Wed 06 May 2009 6:29 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 with Daytime FARS
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Location: Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England
Contact:

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by RayProudfoot »

sfws,
Thanks for your thoughts. I can understand why MX was attractive to you if it fixed a bug with your weather station. Fortunately there weren't any affecting the Davis kit which is why I was never eager to leave Cumulus1.

I'm a firm believer in less is more. I look at some websites and the amount of info is overwhelming. You can't see the woods for the trees. Steve's supplied templates suited me fine. I just wanted to make some cosmetic changes and other things such as Today and Yesterday combined in a single page. Likewise for This Month and This Year. I rarely look at the gauges as they only update every 30 secs.

Regarding MX updates I can understand why Mark would want all users to be on the latest version. Trying to support multiple versions would be a nightmare. I know a friend who supplies software for flight simulation (my main hobby) and he won't support anything but the latest version. Cumulus has proved its worth to me and I value the quality of my data in dayfile.txt. I import it into an Access database where any inconsistencies would be immediately obvious.

I trust you make regular backups of your Pi weather data. We never imagine the worst will happen but rest assured they have yet to design a hard drive that lasts forever.

You clearly derive great pleasure from modifying your website. I did a while back but have reached the point where I'm removing some things associated with Flash as it's no longer supported. What I have suits me fine.

My only concern is should / when the NC10 fails I would probably have to move to a Windows 10 laptop and as I need to configure my Davis VP2 I need WeatherLink to work. Yesterday's experience with it failing to install on a Windows 7 Pro laptop is worrying. And I've yet to hear back from them. I have need to call on the help of John Dann at ProData at some point - hopefully not for a while.
Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

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sfws
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Weather Station: Chas O, Maplin N96FY, N25FR
Operating System: rPi 3B+ with Buster (full)

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by sfws »

RayProudfoot wrote: Wed 07 Apr 2021 6:00 pm You clearly derive great pleasure from modifying your website.
I did not derived any pleasure from the chore of making my web pages work again with MX.
RayProudfoot wrote: Wed 07 Apr 2021 6:00 pm I look at some websites and the amount of info is overwhelming.
I agree MX has gone too far in having too much functionality and too much output. ( I wish it was in modules, and you could just implement those relevant to you, for me I'd be happier if MX was just reading the weather station and maintaining the various derivatives and the extremes).

I rarely use the MX admin interface, because its web pages are all fixed and include information I don't have sensors for. I have not looked at the new MX web pages, but I already gained the impression they are including far too much information by default.
RayProudfoot
Posts: 3372
Joined: Wed 06 May 2009 6:29 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 with Daytime FARS
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Location: Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England
Contact:

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by RayProudfoot »

sfws, at least getting them to work was a one-off.

Better to have too much than too little though. I hope you can disable the things that don’t interest you.

Anyway, the SSD was delivered 1 minute before the hour window so that was good. Restoring now but it’s a slow job via an external USB drive. That should be finished in another hour then add another 15 mins to get my latest files from the NAS and I should be done.

The stress levels are reducing but until the job is done they’re higher than I’m happy with.
Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

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RayProudfoot
Posts: 3372
Joined: Wed 06 May 2009 6:29 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 with Daytime FARS
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Location: Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England
Contact:

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by RayProudfoot »

Back up and running!

I'm pleased and hugely relieved to report that my NC10 is operational and has resumed uploading data to my website.

This is the first time I've had to recover from a disaster and I'm really impressed the way all the hardware and software has performed. The data logger was set up to capture every 5 mins but I think I'll change that to 15 as it gives me longer to recover should / when disaster strike again.

Fingers crossed I don't have to do this again for a very long time! :D
Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

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RayProudfoot
Posts: 3372
Joined: Wed 06 May 2009 6:29 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2 with Daytime FARS
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Location: Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England
Contact:

Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by RayProudfoot »

And a final post script. No data at all was lost with this HDD crash. As soon as the console couldn’t connect to the PC the data logger took over. What a brilliant system. Well done Davis. Twelve years in use and still 100% reliable. :clap:

Time to find something else to worry about now. :lol:
Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

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Mapantz
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Joined: Sat 17 Dec 2011 11:55 am
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Operating System: Windows 11 x64
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Re: Netbook failed - Unable to install WeatherLink on W7 SP1

Post by Mapantz »

RayProudfoot wrote: Thu 08 Apr 2021 9:28 pm Time to find something else to worry about now. :lol:
SSL so we can see your banner? :lol:

PS: Don't forget to change your setting to 15 minutes in Cumulus, if you change your logger interval.
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