Data input appears to have stopped - but why?

[SUBYDAZZ]

The last few months I have been getting these error messages:

Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
and
Lost sensor contact!!!

It's happening quite frequently now and it's causing a lot of drama with the data (obviously). Until quite recently it was very rare to get these errors, and it would go days or week without them.

Question is, what sort of things cause these faults? My station is never disconnected to my PC and it doesn't go to sleep at all, tried changing the USB cable but that doesn't seem to have made a difference. Batteries in station and receiver aren't low. I have been using all current beta versions of Cumulus 1.9.2 up to 1034 (going to put latest update on now). Are they more likely to be a station problem than a PC or Cumulus one?

My Station is a Digitech XC0348.

[steve]

Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections

Cumulus reports this when it has been unable to read data from the station for over a minute.

Lost sensor contact!!!

Cumulus reports this when the corresponding status bit is set by the console, to say that the console is not receiving data from the outdoor transmitter.

[ejay]

If it's still under warranty, you could ask Jaycar for assistance or to replace it if faulty.

In this day and age where more and more devices are using the 433MHz ISM band, interference could well be the cause. Things such as cordless phones, garage door openers, other peoples' weather stations, etc could all cause it to lose sensor contact.

Do you still get lost sensor contact errors if you move the console closer to the transmitter?

[Charlie]

Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections

Cumulus reports this when it has been unable to read data from the station for over a minute.

It might be worth mentioning that this could also be caused by a sensor reporting a suspect value causing Cumulus to discard the packets, for over a minute. A subtle distinction, I admit, but important when looking for the cause of the issue.

[steve]

It might be worth mentioning that this could also be caused by a sensor reporting a suspect value causing Cumulus to discard the packets, for over a minute. A subtle distinction, I admit, but important when looking for the cause of the issue.

Good point, and one that I must admit hadn't occurred to me. It would be clear from the diags files that this was the cause.