Daily Rain reset to 0 after restart

[Greebo]

I've just installed a new WS-2355 and discovered Cumulus. Great bit of software, well done Steve!
I'm currently running 1.8.5 build 726.

I've discovered that after I restart Cumulus, my daily rain total is reset to 0.
After reading a lot of posts in the forums, I understand that the day total of rainfall comes from the today.ini subtracted from the setting read from the station.
I've edited the today.ini file and set the [Rain]Start=0, but Cumulus seems to overwrite that with the last entry from the Feb09log.txt file (which is still from the same day)

Here's what's in the latest file in the Diags folder:
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Station type: LaCrosse WS2300
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Loading all time records file C:\Program Files\Cumulus\data\alltime.rec
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Showing main form
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Read today file: Date = 14/02/2009, LastUpdateTime = 14/02/2009 5:55:00 PM
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Todayfileraindaystart = 0
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Todayfile is for today
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Finding raintoday from logfile C:\Program Files\Cumulus\data\Feb09log.txt
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Setting raintoday from logfile = 37.2999992370605
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Setting uncalibrated raintotal = 37.2999992370605
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Read yesterday file: Date = 14/02/2009
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Yesterday file is valid
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Rainthismonth from dayfile.txt: 0
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : Rainthisyear from dayfile.txt: 0
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : 6:01:14 PM EWUSB Form Create
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : WS2300: Attempting open on COM3
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : WS2300: ComPort opened
2009-02-14 18:01:14 : WS2300: current rain total from station = 39.36
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300: current rain counter from station = 76
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300 History Details: Data: 3B 30 00 04 17 14 02 09 08 09
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : interval=60 countdown=4 numrecords=9
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : hr=17 min=4 d=14 m=2 y=2009
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300: Pressure offset = 0.4
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300: Downloading history data
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300: Processing history data
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300: Raindaystart = 0
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300: End processing history data
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : WS2300: Closing Please Wait form
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : PleaseWaitForm.Close executed
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:15 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:16 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:16 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:16 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:16 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-02-14 18:01:16 : 6:01:15 PM EWUSB: HidControl DeviceChange
2009-02-14 18:01:17 : First rain data, raindaystart = 39.3600006103516
2009-02-14 18:01:17 : Writing todayfile, LastUpdateTime = 14/02/2009 5:55:00 PM raindaystart = 39.3600006103516
2009-02-14 18:01:18 : Logging switched

Here's the last few lines from my Feb09log.txt file
14/02/09,17:45,17.9,92,16.6,0.0,0.0,0,7.8,36.8,1007.8,36.8,23.5,63,0.0,17.9
14/02/09,17:50,17.9,92,16.6,0.0,0.0,0,8.3,37.3,1007.9,37.3,23.6,63,0.0,17.9
14/02/09,17:55,18.1,92,16.8,0.0,0.0,0,0.0,37.3,1007.9,38.3,23.6,63,0.0,18.1
14/02/09,18:05,18.3,93,17.1,0.0,0.0,0,7.3,0.0,1007.7,39.4,23.6,63,0.0,18.3
14/02/09,18:10,18.1,92,16.8,0.0,0.0,0,8.3,1.6,1007.9,40.9,23.7,63,0.0,18.1

As you can see, I restarted Cumulus at 18:01 and the daily rain has gone from 37.3 at 17:55 to 0.0 at 18:05.
Am I missing something?

[steve]

The first day's rain is always going to be off as Cumulus has no reference for the start of day. I would suggest waiting until tomorrow (I guess it's nearly midnight with you now anyway) when tomorrow's data should be OK, and retrospectively editing today's data to show what you want it to show.

Having said that, I'm not really sure why what you're doing isn't having the required effect. But the WS23xx is a bit odd in having two different rain counters, one for the sensor and one in the station, and it may be that the changes I put in recently to cope with them sometimes being different are having this effect. But normally you would do this sort of editing when something has gone wrong, to put it right, and in your case nothing has actually gone wrong, you're just trying to fudge the first day's total to be correct?

Steve

[steve]

Actually, looking at the code, I see what's happening. It's the specific value of zero that you're setting the start= value to; Don't ask me why it's doing this, I must have had a reason, and unusually I haven't put a comment in the code to say why.

If you set start=0.0000001 or something, that may well make what you're doing work. Or wait until tomorrow

Steve

[Greebo]

Ok, somehow I seem to have sorted it out...
I just restarted Cumulus after it had been stopped for about 30 minutes and the day total rain in Cumulus was at 50mm - so it hadn't been reset to 0.
I closed Cumulus down again, edited my today.ini and set my [Rain]Start=0 again... Edited by Feb09log.txt file and fixed all of my rain totals for today up and restarted Cumulus.

Now, Cumulus is showing 92mm for todays total - which agrees with my Station console.

Looking through the diag logs, I think the reason it worked for me this time is that I've had rainfall readings between shutting down Cumulus and starting up again - not sure if that helps (shrug)
Let me know if you'd like me to upload the diags logs from when I noticed it.

Ok, just saw your posts In the latest diag log there's this:
2009-02-14 22:32:36 : Read today file: Date = 14/02/2009, LastUpdateTime = 14/02/2009 10:04:00 PM
2009-02-14 22:32:37 : Todayfileraindaystart = 0.00999999977648258
2009-02-14 22:32:37 : Todayfile is for today

Thanks for the response

[steve]

Looking through the diag logs, I think the reason it worked for me this time is that I've had rainfall readings between shutting down Cumulus and starting up again - not sure if that helps

It did occur to me that allowing data from the logger to be downloaded might fix it.

I think in general my advice would be that the data from the first day you start running Cumulus should probably be discarded. It's not just the rainfall, there are other issues like the max and min temperatures.

Steve