Cumulus Support

Does anyone know if I can use the Sandysoft program and the Davis software at the same time?
I would like to use both programs for a short period of time then fully switch to the Sandysoft program.
If the Sandysoft program reads data from the station will the logger clear itself so that the Davis softwate
will not be able to read the data. And, if this happens is there a way to set the logger so it will not clear
after the data transfers to a program?

The logger never deletes data unless you explicitly clear it. You can run Cumulus and Weatherlink together (though not at the same time, as you clearly realise) without either interfering with the other. Note that if you have a USB logger, it has to be in serial mode for Cumulus to be able to use it.

Does anyone know if I can use the Sandysoft program and the Davis software at the same time?
I would like to use both programs for a short period of time then fully switch to the Sandysoft program.

As Steve mentioned, Yes you can run both WL and Cumulus but not both at the same time. I shut down Cumulus for a few minutes every 15 days to run WL (the maximum days for my 10 minute interval setting before the data logger would be overriding the oldest data) so as to keep my Weatherlink data up to date. Both WL and Cumulus will catch up the stored data from the datalogger when they restart.

p.s. I did run the VVP program that allows both WL and Cumulus to run at the same time but with poor results so have discontinued that, and also VVP is currently not available.
Paul

Denny wrote:Does anyone know if I can use the Sandysoft program and the Davis software at the same time?
I would like to use both programs for a short period of time then fully switch to the Sandysoft program.
If the Sandysoft program reads data from the station will the logger clear itself so that the Davis softwate
will not be able to read the data. And, if this happens is there a way to set the logger so it will not clear
after the data transfers to a program?

Hello Steve and Paul

Thank you for your reply.
I look forward to trying Sandysoft.

PaulMy wrote:I did run the VVP program that allows both WL and Cumulus to run at the same time but with poor results so have discontinued that, and also VVP is currently not available.
Paul

Hi Paul,

I'm surprised you've had trouble with VPP. I've been running it for 3 years without problem. I run Cumulus, WeatherLink and VPLive. I did run Cumulus v2 for a while too so had 4 programs running off VPP.

Whilst it's not currently possible to purchase a licence for VPP the author has generously offered to extend free of charge the 30-day trial period should anyone wish to try it.
http://www.softwx.com/purchase.html

Hi Ray,
I had frequent WL stops and Steve at Softwx said it had to do with Windows 7 64. He had me try Windows 7 in test mode but the problem persisted. Cumulus has just been 100% solid so am fine with just periodic running WL to keep the data current and up load to http://www.komokaweather.com/weatherlin ... ge_Pro.htm

I look forward to trying Sandysoft

Denny, you will be very pleased with using Cumulus

Paul

Hi Paul,

I'm using 32-bit XP so that would explain the lack of problems. I see Steve made VSP Manager available for a while but this has now been withdrawn until a signed driver is available.

WL is very reliable but it really does need a redesign. Given the excellence of the hardware their software visuals do let Davis down.

Paul and Ray, I am running Virtual VP on three computers, on one old computer running under Windows XP and on two computers running under Windows 7 64-bit.

Both Cumulus and Weather Display are continuously running on both Windows 7 computers - once in a while, for testing purposes, I will also run WeatherLink and Virtual Weather Station.

I know I cannot run WeatherLink continuously as, after a few hours of operation, it will cause some problems within Virtual VP thus preventing the other software from getting their weather data from Virtual VP - the only way out of the problems cause by WeatherLink is to re-start all weather software and Virtual VP.

Hi Ray,

So the problem appears to be with WL, not VVP but only with 64-bit systems. Pity.

RayProudfoot wrote:So the problem appears to be with WL, not VVP but only with 64-bit systems.

Ray, as you wrote, the problems with Virtual VP are caused by the WeatherLink software and has been seen on all versions of Windows (XP and 7, both 32 and 64-bit). Steve Hatchett has tried contacting Davis Instruments for some assistance but his requests have all been turned down. From my few contacts with Davis Instruments, the WeatherLink software has been designed to be the ONLY weather software to be used by/with the Davis Instruments weather stations - thus not designed to behave in a friendly manner with other weather software...

Note that there are also known issues with using Virtual VP with Cumulus (i.e. with the Davis DLL which Cumulus uses) which Steve Hatchett has been unable to fix, possibly because he was unable to get any help from Davis.

Indeed! Over the past weeks, on both my Windows 7 64-bit computers, Cumulus has 'frozen' without producing any error, more so if Cumulus was using one of the serial ports rather than one of the TCP/IP ports.

I think that particular problem occurs when Cumulus calls the DLL to read some data, the DLL calls VVP, and nothing ever comes back, so the Cumulus data reading thread is stuck inside the DLL. Other problems include invalid logger entries being returned, missing logger entries, and no logger data being returned at all (the latter because of a problem where VVP can't read the EEPROM data from the station).

As I see this, the protocol to the data logger is published (and the same protocol works direct to the station), but all the client software seems to use the Davis DLL to proxy this protocol?

So two options:

1. Clients connect direct to the data logger - but then no shared connections.
2. Someone writes a 'server' DLL that connects to the Davis and accepts multiple client connections

Hmm, option 2 sounds very much like what we do with telescope mount drivers, where there are multiple clients an a single (usually serial) connection to the telescope controller. The server shares the connections, arbitrates between them, caches responses from the station (so rapid fire queries from clients do not queue on serial responses from the station). The 'scope community has templates for DLLs that implement all of that.

Now if I had a Davis I might have a bash at implementing that...

mcrossley wrote:As I see this, the protocol to the data logger is published (and the same protocol works direct to the station), but all the client software seems to use the Davis DLL to proxy this protocol?

Cumulus (1) and VWS use the DLL, WD and WL (and Cumulus 2) don't.

2. Someone writes a 'server' DLL that connects to the Davis and accepts multiple client connections

Hmm, option 2 sounds very much like what we do with telescope mount drivers, where there are multiple clients an a single (usually serial) connection to the telescope controller. The server shares the connections, arbitrates between them, caches responses from the station (so rapid fire queries from clients do not queue on serial responses from the station). The 'scope community has templates for DLLs that implement all of that.

Now if I had a Davis I might have a bash at implementing that...

What you've described is basically what VVP does. It also caches logger data.