Page 1 of 1

Cumulus 4 Nightmare

Posted: Sun 22 Dec 2024 4:18 pm
by m3lox
Hello everyone,

What a shame. I've been using Cumulus for several years and have never had an issue installing or upgrading it.

I realised I had to install Debian 12 instead of 10 before I upgraded, so I did that. I followed the instructions for installing MX 4, including installing Mono and .NET. I couldn't get it to run because I kept seeing a CIL error. After many hours, I decided it was beyond me. I'm quite used to Linux, but I couldn't get my head around all this.

So, I opted for the InstallCMX utility, but the instructions don't make sense to me either. Where is the installcmx.exe file it talks about? It's not in the ZIP file, that's for sure. Perhaps I don't understand Linux as well as I thought, which is strange as I run several VPNs using Debian, running HBLInk, ASL and DVswitch.

Now, I'm back to running Cumulus MX 3.27.0 b3257 and wondering what other options I have for up-to-date weather station software.

Personally, I see V4 as a major setback for me and Cumulus. I would appreciate any suggestions you may have.

Re: Cumulus 4 Nightmare

Posted: Sun 22 Dec 2024 5:06 pm
by freddie
First off, if you see an error it is a good idea to get a screenshot or make a note of it.

Second, did you read the post containing the details on what is required for upgrading? viewtopic.php?p=179794#p179794

Mono is not required to run MX version 4 - this is covered in the above post.

It is worth reading this post and persisting with the upgrade, as MX version 3 will not see future updates - except perhaps a security update if it is serious enough.

Take special note in the info post about converting your existing data.

Re: Cumulus 4 Nightmare

Posted: Sun 22 Dec 2024 6:22 pm
by SamiS
m3lox wrote: Sun 22 Dec 2024 4:18 pm Now, I'm back to running Cumulus MX 3.27.0 b3257 and wondering what other options I have for up-to-date weather station software.

Personally, I see V4 as a major setback for me and Cumulus. I would appreciate any suggestions you may have.
Sorry to hear you had problems. Moving from CMX3 to V4 is technically a huge leap under the bonnet. V3 was based on dotnet 4.x, released over 10 years ago, V4 is based on .NET8 that was released last year.

But for a user the upgrade is not actually too big, it just requires some thought and attention. I agree, that the instructions may seem overwhelming, since they include (different) steps for windows, linux and mac. It would be more readable if we had 3 separate instructions, but I well understand that Mark rather uses his time developing the code than fine-tuning the instructions for every possible scenario. This forum is here to help.

Basically there are only a few major steps:
- install dotnet8 (that replaced mono that is no longer used)
- create a clean install of v4
- copy your existing v3 data, reports and configuration and convert them to v4 format
- choose if you want to install as a service or run from commandline as many have with v3
- (note that the old unsupported cumulusmx.sh is not usable anymore)

The actual detailed steps are quite well documented in the message that freddie linked before. Of course it does not cover every (unofficial) modifications that users may have done to their installs.

At the end of the document there are also the required steps that you should do in the future when upgrading from v4 to a newer v4 build.

Re: Cumulus 4 Nightmare

Posted: Mon 23 Dec 2024 7:18 pm
by ConligWX
I found it quite easy to upgrade in Ubuntu, following freddie's notes from a previous post.
  • Install dotnet with

Code: Select all

apt install dotnet-sdk-8.0
  • Download the distribution zip
  • Shut down MXv3 and rename its folder
  • Extract the distribution zip.
  • Copy Cumulus.ini and the contents of Reports and data folders from MXv3 to the new installation.
  • Rename the data directory in the new installation to datav3
  • Run the migration utility with

Code: Select all

dotnet MigrateData3to4.dll
  • Install MX as a service with

Code: Select all

dotnet CumulusMX.dll -install -user cmx
  • Reload the systemd daemon config with

Code: Select all

systemctl daemon-reload
  • Start up MX with

Code: Select all

systemctl start cumulusmx
think it took all less than 15 minutes without an issue.