Issue with Rainfall after Reboot

[hazyarc]

Hi All:

I have a Davis Vantage Vue with the USB Data Logger. I turned off my computer late last night and restarted it this morning. When I fired up Cumulus this morning, it reported that exactly all of my existing yearly rain had fallen during the time the computer was off (no rain had actually fallen), thus doubling my rainfall for this year. I've restored the backup I have, but each time I start Cumulus again, the yearly rainfall doubles because Cumulus thinks it's new accumulation. I've attached two logs - the correct backup when I shutdown last night, and the log after I restart Cumulus with the bogus rainfall amounts. My Davis Console reports the correct rainfall.

I've restarted my computer countless times before with no issues - this is the first time this has happened. Any help with fixing this would be appreciated.

[steve]

Please zip up the diags folder and attach it.

[hazyarc]

Attached. Thanks!

[steve]

It seems to have been caused by a combination of two things:

1. You have Cumulus set to a 10-minute logging interval but your weather station to 30 minutes, ignoring the advice to have them set the same. This invokes the Davis 'feature' where the station dumps the entire contents of the logger when Cumulus asks just for the 'recent' data:

12/5/2011 18:21:42.244 : VP2: Downloading history from 12/4/2011 11:40:00 PM
12/5/2011 18:21:42.244 : y=2011 m=12 d=4 h=23 m=40
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: DownloadData_V = 2557
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: GetNumberOfArchiveRecords_V = 2557
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: Number of history records = 2557
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : Logger entry zero: Y = 2011, M = 10, D = 13, H = 11, M = 30
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: Earliest timestamp 10/13/2011 11:30:00 AM
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: Earliest timestamp is earlier than requested
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: Find first entry after 12/4/2011 11:40:00 PM
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: Checking logger entry 0 Y = 2011, M = 10, D = 13 H = 11, M = 30
12/5/2011 18:23:01.809 : VP2: New earliest timestamp 10/13/2011 11:30:00 AM

2. You closed down at 11:40 pm, so with your 30-minute logging interval, there were no further entries in the logger until midnight (effectively the next day).

Cumulus tries to cope with both of these - individually - but it looks like you may have uncovered a hole where it doesn't (didn't) cope with both of them at the same time.

You're also using an old version of Cumulus; it's quite possible that this issue doesn't exist in the latest code. I advise that you set your station to the same 10-minute logging interval as Cumulus, you try to avoid closing Cumulus just before midnight (i.e. when there will be no more entries made in the logger), and you install the latest version of Cumulus.

[hazyarc]

Thank you for the reply. I will upgrade my Cumulus and change the logging interval.

Now that we've discovered the issue, what do I need to do to "clean" my data from last night? After I restore the backup from earlier in order to prevent Cumulus from having the incorrect rainfall data, how do I prevent Cumulus from pulling the incorrect rainfall data again?

[steve]

If you restore from an earlier backup, then start Cumulus, the problem shouldn't be repeated as you will avoid the close down just before midnight. The only problem with that approach is that your previous backup is from the 23rd November, so all of your data since then would be from the logger (at its 30 minute resolution). If you don't want to take that approach, edit today.ini to correct the 'start' figure (it looks like it needs to be 8.34), then start Cumulus to allow it to download any data, then stop it again and do any necessary edits to the rain totals in dayfile.txt and Dec11log.txt.