Incorrect rain amount

[PaulMy]

When I browse the data from my Davis data logger/Weatherlink the rain amount seems correct. The Cumulus nov08log.txt data file also shows the same rain.

However my Cumulus main screen has shown excessive rain amounts the last days - i.e. 12:12 a.m. this morning shows 93.4 mm/hr and 93.4 mm last hour and today so far and something similar yesterday but there was no rain at all. The this month and this year also shows that incorrect accummulated rain amount. Any thoughts what may cause this and what I can do to correct and avoid this?

[steve]

What version/build of Cumulus are you using? Did the extra rainfall get added at startup or out of nowhere while running normally?

The fact that you say 12:12 am worries me a little, I think there may still be a few bugs in the area of starting up just after midnight, if that's what you did? There definitely were some bugs in this area in some versions of Cumulus prior to the later 1.8.3 beta versions.

Steve

[PaulMy]

About Cumulus shows Version 1.8.3 build 482 which I downloaded and installed Oct 23. If I recall correctly I did shut down and then restart Cumulus about that time. Tried the shut down and start up again after midnight today and had error message several times and could not start up "Error 32703 - while trying to initialize the station" until about 12:10 and shortly after that was able to start up and no rain shown so far today by Cumulus (and no actual rain).

[steve]

If you send me the contents of the Diags folder I can have a look at the startup log to see what happened.

To remove that rainfall now, you will need to edit Nov08Log.txt and dayfile.txt - formats are in the help file. Do it while Cumulus isn't running.

Steve

[williston]

I just installed the latest beta. This may already be known or reported, but the daily rain shown is actually the yearly total. This is on a Davis VP2.

[TNETWeather]

Not sure "which" latest beta you are using.

I'm using 1.8.4 bld 556 and the realtime.txt info is correct. Looking at the screen, that looks correct too.

[steve]

I just installed the latest beta. This may already be known or reported, but the daily rain shown is actually the yearly total. This is on a Davis VP2.

Cumulus uses the yearly total as a running total from which to calculate the total so far each day. It seems that sometimes when someone runs Cumulus for the first time, the entire total is attributed to today. What should happen is that on the first run, it notes the current total and then starts counting from there.

If you could send (zip up and attach here) me the files from the Diags folder, I may be able to work out what went wrong.

Steve

[williston]

No problem, I'll send you the diag files when I get a chance. I tried re-installing the app from scratch and the second time it reported the yearly total correctly. Is there any way to manually enter the totals for the month?

[steve]

The monthly rainfall totals are calculated from the daily totals in dayfile.txt, so you'd need to edit those.

Steve

[williston]

Thank you. I'll add the monthly totals. Great program. I have a lot of fun with it.

[williston]

Hi Steve,
I installed the lastest beta (592) and see the same problem as previous when I upgraded: incorrect rain totals. In the current case, it took the yearly rain total and added to the daily column. (Yearly total is now doubled) Diad files are attached as per your request. Hope you are feeling better!

[steve]

I can't work out what happened, but basically your Dec08log.txt file got a value of 44.68 written to it for the daily rain so far at some point during the 10th. You will need to edit this file and correct the erroneous lines, I'm afraid. You will probably also need to edit dayfile.txt as the total is presumably now in there for the 10th. I don't know why this is happening to you and apparently to no-one else. I have a VP2, and I'm constantly stopping and starting Cumulus and installing new versions, as you might imagine.

Steve

[williston]

Thanks for taking a look Steve. I have only seen this when doing an upgrade and didn't realize I was the only one having the problem. It's no big dealy really and I have edited the files so they amounts are correct.

[steve]

It's a bit strange that upgrading should appear to cause the problem, I can't really see how that would happen - I assume you're just running the setup and letting it overwrite your existing installation?

Now you've corrected your data files, hopefully it won't happen again. Note that Cumulus now takes backups each time it runs, so you can always 'rewind' and run again from a point before a problem occurs by copying the files from the backup directory. Of course, it's not always obvious exactly when a problem occurred, it might not manifest itself straight away!

Steve

[ajdavidsome]

For steve re incorrect rain amount.
Everyday I recieve 0.3mm of rain when there is no rain.
This has been happening for approximately 4 days.
I am using WH 1081 Station. So far there have been no problems apart from this.
I have attached a .rar with all cumulus data so far.
Hopefully you can work out what the problem is.
Thanks in advance.
Andrew