Data input appears to have stopped

[EW1628]

I'm getting the following error on average about 20 times/day.

12/18/2012 5:35:00 PM : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections

Here's my setup:

Davis Vantage Pro 2 with IP data logger
Cumulus v 1.9.2 running on Windows Server 2008

I've gone back and correlated the occurrences of this error with messages in the diag logs and here is what I see each time the error occurs:

12/18/2012 17:35:00.927 : *** Data input appears to have stopped
12/18/2012 17:35:00.940 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 12/18/2012 5:35:00 PM raindaystart = 18.7299995422363 rain counter = 18.7299995422363
12/18/2012 17:35:26.124 : VP2: LoadCurrentVantageData_V, error = -32701
12/18/2012 17:35:26.124 : VP2: Closing connection, result = 1
12/18/2012 17:35:27.125 : VP2: OpenTCPIPPort_V, res = 0

The datalog interval is set to every 5 min.

Any ideas what the problem is?

[steve]

The -32701 error is returned by the Davis DLL when it can't communicate with the station. Unfortunately it doesn't give any more information.

[EW1628]

Thanks for the quick response. Any other suggestions for troubleshooting this issue?

[steve]

I'm afraid I know very little about IP loggers. I know some people have found them problematic. Hopefully someone who uses one will see this and be able to suggest something.

Does it carry on OK after it's reconnected, without any intervention?

[EW1628]

Yes it does appear to carry on just fine. I've gone into the server running cumulus and disabled a bunch of power saving settings on the network adapter and explicitly allowed cumulus through windows firewall. We'll see if these changes make a difference.

[steve]

Do you just have Cumulus connecting to the IP logger? Does the logger upload to weatherlink.com, and are you using the periodic disconnect setting in Cumulus?

[EW1628]

Do you just have Cumulus connecting to the IP logger?

Yes, I've entered the static IP assigned to the data logger in the station setup window.

Does the logger upload to weatherlink.com

Nope... I'm only uploading to the Weather Underground and to CWOP

Are you using the periodic disconnect setting in Cumulus?

No... this is set to 0

Looks like disabling all the power saving settings didn't have any affect on the errors. They are still coming in at the same rate.

[steve]

It's hard to say where the problem is - the logger or the connection to it (or even the Davis DLL). I was wondering if using the periodic disconnect setting (set to the minimum of 1 second, say) to force the connection to be reset, might stop the problem occurring. It's probably worth trying.

[EW1628]

I was wondering if using the periodic disconnect setting (set to the minimum of 1 second, say) to force the connection to be reset, might stop the problem occurring. It's probably worth trying.

I'll give that a try and let you know how it works. Thanks for the support!

[moungersa]

I just started having the same error show up continuously every time Cumulus updates my website and the Weather Underground.

12/22/2012 9:24:00 PM : Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections

The data is otherwise being tranferred to my website and Weather Underground, but I still get the error message. Annoying!

[moungersa]

I just made sure I was all up to date on Windows updates (found quite a few). Downloaded them, installed and restarted. Haven't seen the error message since and I'm not asking why.

[oh6hfx]

Well I have had this error message coming few times a day since I have installed my system.

First it was running in my LAN (VP2 + ip logger) and I got error message, and now when the station is running behind ADSL line, I got the error message as well.

However that does not have no effect, I just need to click the red error "led" to turn it off and all works still ok.

Johannes

[steve]

First it was running in my LAN (VP2 + ip logger) and I got error message, and now when the station is running behind ADSL line, I got the error message as well.

However that does not have no effect, I just need to click the red error "led" to turn it off and all works still ok.

With a 'direct' type of logger (serial/USB) getting 'data stopped' would normally be an indication of some kind of problem that needed fixing. But I guess with an IP logger (particularly across an ADSL line) you might expect to get communication dropouts from time to time. It does mean you lose some data, but that's just something you have to accept with TCP/IP.

You can if you wish turn off the reporting of these errors by adding a line anywhere in the [Station] section of cumulus.ini with Cumulus stopped:

ReportDataStoppedErrors=0

[EW1628]

I can confirm that upgrading to firmware 3.12 has resolved the problem.

[steve]

It's just a shame that we didn't know then what we came to discover later; that it was the Davis firmware that was causing the problem.