Pressure readings seem to be stuck

[johnac5cv]

Hi. My Ambient WS-2080 seems to be working fine. I can see the values from the control unit via USB using the software that comes from Ambient. But the Cumulus program frequently seems to get confused reading the pressure--getting stuck on one value. It also frequently must be seeing garbage for pressure values and resorting to a "zero" offset, as I've read elsewhere, because it will report the absolute pressure as the relative pressure.

Any suggestions on how to resolve this? I'd be glad to submit some logs, debug-dumps, or whatever.

John
Waco, TX

[steve]

Apply the ini-file work around for the pressure offset as described in the FAQ, and then turn on the debug log. When the pressure reading gets stuck, zip up the diags folder and attach it, along with the debug.log file.

[steve]

You're not running Easyweather at the same time as Cumulus, are you?

[johnac5cv]

No, I only fired up EasyWeather to verify that the WX receiver is still working, and reporting the correct pressure (it is).

I *am* running Cumulus "in the background" as a scheduled task, i.e., it starts automatically whenever Windows 7 starts up. I hope that doesn't cause anything to mess up...it hasn't so far that I can tell. The ftp-operation seems to carry on as usual in the background, with no visible signs of Cumulus running. I am puzzled why I can't see Cumulus running in Windows task manager. However, I am a little curious what happens when I then try to run a second instance of Cumulus by double-clicking the desktop icon, in order to see why the pressure is not working, for example. It would seem that there would be some sort of conflict generated by that.

My web page can be seen here: http://hotarc.org/weather

I've started the debug logging, as you suggested, and will soon share something from that with you.

Thanks for your help, Steve.

John

[steve]

Running two copies of Cumulus at the same time will cause faulty readings, in the same way that running Cumulus and EW at the same time would.

[johnac5cv]

OK. I think this (attached) is what you requested. I really appreciate your looking at my situation. I've tried several things in the past days to resolve/understand this myself, so I hope that the diags are not too convoluted. If you like, I can uninstall/reinstall and try to get back to some sort of virgin setup for you.

In the past I would have Cumulus running "in the background" via the TaskScheduler, and then would double-click the desktop icon to work with Cumulus, not realizing exactly the consequence. Now I know better. At this moment, I have disabled the background task, and am running only the foreground Cumulus, in which I have enabled the Debug logging, as requested. I stopped it to get (unrestricted?) access to the logs and diags folder, zipped 'em up, and am attaching the zip file to this post.

I normally have the updates set to 10 minutes, but now 3 minutes for debugging purposes.

Cumulus is even now apparently resorting to the absolute pressure value, because the actual values should be greater by 0.58 inHg. I have inserted the EWPressureOffset parameter, per the FAQ, but it does not seem to have any effect. Is this the same parameter set in the Calibration menu for "pressure"? It's now showing "0.0000".

John

[steve]

It's using a configured offset of 0.6:

10/25/2012 15:45:39.617 : EWUSB: Using configured pressure offset: 0.6

(The offset has to be specified in hPa; the FAQ didn't make this clear).

You've configured a 'spike removal' setting of 0.1 hPa:

10/25/2012 15:59:44.714 : Pressure difference greater than specified; reading ignored
10/25/2012 15:59:44.714 : Old value = 991.6 New value = 991.8 EWpressurediff = 0.1

The setting of 0.1 hPa is far too low; it's likely to be exceeded for genuine reasons quite frequently, after which the pressure reading will not change until it returns the the same value.

[johnac5cv]

Thanks for the very prompt reply, Steve. You're amazing.

OK...I don't know how that spike thing got changed, but the pressure spike removal is now at 999. Let me know if that's bad (for now anyway).

I might have had the offset in the program set to +0.6 sometime in the past, but it's been set to 0.000 now for at least three weeks. The WX station itself is set to +0.58 inHg, and it displays that value, as does EasyWeather (if I query the station with that program). I think I read in your Help info that Cumulus should get the relative pressure value from the WX station, and not need an adjustment by the program. Right?

When I start up Cumulus, it seems that in the past it would usually get the pressure correctly adjusted, but recently it's been showing only the absolute pressure reading (e.g., 29.27 inHg) even though the station display and EasyWeather report the relative pressure (e.g., 29.85 inHg).

John
Waco, TX

[johnac5cv]

I just tried removing the EWPressureOffset from the INI file, and restarted Cumulus, and it correctly reported the relative pressure reading from the station!

Cumulus apparently did not like my EWPressureOffset value in the INI. Hmmmm...

Anyway, we'll see if things work correctly for a while...

Thanks for your help, Steve.

John
Waco, TX