Cumulus Support

Hi,

A couple of weeks ago I had a problem where the Fine Offset would stop reading data, and then would just hang on a restart while downloading data. I've since moved the Fine Offset off of a USB hub and onto it's own port. The problem now is that the error log and debug file have lots of entries with '*** Data input appears to have stopped', strange thing is though that Easyweather software seems to work no problems. I've also applied the .ini parameter EWdisablecheckinit=1 as I noticed that the first 2 bytes had 00 AA in a couple of the files. The only thing that seems to work for a few days is to unplug the Fine Offset and restart it. I do have the Fine Offset running only on USB power, but assumed that's ok, and certainly EasyWeather does not seem to mind.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

It's only an advisory, Cumulus will still be working just the same as it always has; presumably Easyweather doesn't do the check. Or are you saying that data input really does stop and you have to take action to get it going again?

If you think Cumulus is incorrectly reporting the problem, or you just want to ignore it, you can turn it off by adding a line to the [Station] section of Cumulus.ini:

ReportDataStoppedErrors=0

Hi Steve,

It looks as though the data input has acually stoped. I had a debug file fill of the error messages, every minute, and the charts are flat, suggesting no new values are being read. One thing I did notice was that the station memory was showing about 25% full and stayed that way till I ran easyweather which seemed to download them, as soon as I did that and re ran Cumulus then Cumulus also downloaded the data. However after one minute the data collection stopped.
Even odder.. I set Cumulus to read the easyweather .dat file and browsed to the correct file location in the setup, but I still get the 'data input stopped' error.

cancunia wrote:It looks as though the data input has acually stoped.

Then you probably have an issue with your station. The fact that the 'initialised' bytes in your station don't have the correct values would tend to confirm this.

Even odder.. I set Cumulus to read the easyweather .dat file and browsed to the correct file location in the setup, but I still get the 'data input stopped' error.

What interval did you set? Was EW actually updating the easyweather.dat file? Does the 'last update' time in the status bar change?

Edit: actually, the 'input stopped' warning probably doesn't work with the easyweather.dat input method anyway, as EW won't be updating the file often enough.

Hi Steve,

I've taken a look at the .dat file and it's definitely adding records, the interval is set to 5 mins and I set Cumulus to the same interval. I'll leave it overnight to see if the graphs update, I'd not done that due to the error messages.
There's always the chance of a problem with the station, but it seems strange that Easyweather has no issues.
I'll report back in a couple of days.

Many thanks for your time on this.

cancunia wrote:I've taken a look at the .dat file and it's definitely adding records, the interval is set to 5 mins

Yes, that's why the 'data stopped' check is activating; it checks once a minute.

Just to be clear about this - before you switched to the 'easyweather.dat' setting, you weren't running Easyweather and Cumulus at the same time, were you?

Quick update, it seems that Cumuls is looking for data every minute, and gets data every 5 as per the settings in EW.
No error message for 17:34, 17:39 etc. The Cumulus interval is also set to 5.000. The good news however is that the data seems to be getting captured by Cumulus.

01/11/2011 17:30:01 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:31:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:32:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:33:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:35:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:36:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:37:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:38:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:40:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:41:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:42:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:43:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:45:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:46:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:47:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:48:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:50:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:51:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:52:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:53:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
01/11/2011 17:55:00 : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections

Hi Steve,


I've run EW with Cumulus overnight and data is still being logged / processed, I also downloaded a trial version of Weather Display and that seems to be ok too, so can only assume there's a problem with Cumulus and the USB interface. I'm running the latest version of Cumulus.
Am I the only one with this problem? If so I guess it points to my setup, but can't understand why only Cumulus is affected, unless it accesses the USB in a particular way?
The Laptop I'm using has 2 USB ports, Cumulus has it's own port as I had earlier problems with it stopping when sharing a port via a hub. The other USB port has a hub, which has a webcam and Current Cost monitor attached.

cancunia wrote:Am I the only one with this problem?

As far as I am aware; you're not the only one to have problems getting Cumulus to read the data from the station, but generally people soon find they have a hardware issue when that happens.

As it's a laptop, is the power to the USB port perhaps being turned off?

Did you see my question above?

Hi Steve,

In answer to your question, no. If I remember the sequence I followed: I reconfigured Cumulus to use the .dat file, then stopped Cumulus, then started EW and restarted Cumulus. I've since stopped and started both a few times, but always started EW first.
I had the USB port that Cumulus is on now running a USB camera for several months with no problem, and as the other apps don't seem to have issues, I'd ruled out hardware errors but bext time I get the chance, in a couple of weeks time, I'll swap the USB ports over. I can't try before then as I'm at the other end of the country and remote in to the laptop via teamviewer.

hi, I had the same problem... solved it by restarting the station, just unplug the usb cable,take batteries out and put them back after a few secs. then run software again.
hope it will solve your problem 2.

Hi, problem is that I work away from home for long periods so can't be there to do the resets. The method you describe certainly works, but for obvious reasons you need to be there to do it!.


Steve,

As promisied a few days ago I'll look into the connections and swap usb ports this weekend, but what I can't understand is how Easyweather & Weather Display both have no problems to read the data. I also noticed today that after several days of not running Cumulus, I started it and it read all of the history data since I shut it down with no problems at all, then stopped reading any more data?

cancunia wrote:As promisied a few days ago I'll look into the connections and swap usb ports this weekend, but what I can't understand is how Easyweather & Weather Display both have no problems to read the data. I also noticed today that after several days of not running Cumulus, I started it and it read all of the history data since I shut it down with no problems at all, then stopped reading any more data?

If you zip up the diags folder and attach it, I'll have a look, but it's unlikely that will lead to a solution. If Cumulus is unable to read the data from your station, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to make it work.