Cumulus Support

I've been running Cumulus for years and how great it is. I always upgrade to the latest version as soon as I spot it however this time it locks up every day or so. Nothing else has changed hardware or software wise except for the 1.9.2 upgrade to 1.9.3. My PC runs Win7 32 bit and the MS report says this:-

Description:
A problem caused this program to stop interacting with Windows.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: AppHangB1
Application Name: cumulus.exe
Application Version: 1.9.3.1059
Application Timestamp: 510e5874
Hang Signature: 8f3a
Hang Type: 4
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Hang Signature 1: 8f3af2e728e3655e119bfe60dbbd21dc
Additional Hang Signature 2: 5056
Additional Hang Signature 3: 5056f593bfc1712041fc83722c7aa687
Additional Hang Signature 4: 36a8
Additional Hang Signature 5: 36a8eb3f19d4bf5f4778a7f8b4951b86
Additional Hang Signature 6: 3081
Additional Hang Signature 7: 3081f39c1d945ebc3609a818ad4e6425



Any ideas?

I'm afraid that none of that tells me anything. I'm wondering if Windows thinks that Cumulus isn't responding because sometimes it can take a very long time to get data from a La Crosse station. I can't explain why you would see this with 1.9.3 and not 1.9.2, though. You say nothing else has changed on your system - are you absolutely sure? You don't install Windows updates?

If you zip up the diags folder and attach it, I may be able to see something. If you turn on the debug log (delete any existing debug.log file first) and run with it for half an hour, the debug.log file may show whether there are any particular problems reading data from your station (above the usual ones with La Crosse stations, that is).

Yes the MS logs are obtuse. The lock-up started soon after the update, overnight on the first night. I don't recall doing any OS updated - this PC only exists to run Cumulus and send updates via FTP ftp to my website. I'll clear/enable the logs - should I wait until a lock-up before sending the results?

Many thanks

The logs may show something anyway, so please go ahead and attach them. Is there any discernible pattern to when this happens?

This mostly happens at night. I enabled the debug log - it seems to have created a file "cumulus.~og". I have also included a file "cumulus - last_lockup.007" which was running when it last locked up on the 21st (Only spotted the lock-up today)

Thanks

kayjay wrote:I enabled the debug log - it seems to have created a file "cumulus.~og".

No, that's a partially created diags file. The debug log creates a file called debug.log in the Cumulus directory.

The last thing in that cumulus.007 diags file is interesting:

21/03/2013 03:10:25.156 : FTPRequestDone ftpConnectAsync Errcode = 10060

That's a timeout on the ftp connect attempt. So it's possible that the issue is related to some kind of comms problem. Do you upload to any web sites other than your own (Weather Underground etc)?

Sorry - missed that log file. I have now attached the correct one.

No I don't upload anything else - I did notice the FTP error in that file and I have seen it in earlier files as well.

Over the years the Cumulus main window has shown FTP errors in the status area but never locked up before. Historically my ADSL does drop at least once per day.

Thanks

It doesn't seem to be having any trouble reading data from your station, in fact it's working much better than many that I've seen.

Normally ftp/communication problems would just be handled and recovered from. I get them from time to time, and my broadband connection also drops out occasionally. I don't know under what circumstances Windows generates one of those "AppHangB1" things.

A search on the forum shows that a couple of people have had them in the past, with various versions of Cumulus. A search on the web shows that lots of people get them with all kinds of software, and hardware drivers often seem to get blamed.

Yes the Windows message is not much use. When this happens the Cumulus icon is still in the icon tray but nothing happens when you double click on it. I think it does pop up the message box when you hover over it. Cumulus can only be killed from task manager at this point. I have enabled the ftp logs as well and will let it run until the next lock up.

Thanks

Well I had another lockup last night at around 3am. I had left the main Cumulus window open and is now "not responding". The last FTP updated was at ~2:50pm (http://www.keithjacobs.net). Once again it appears to be related to FTP. I've attached both the debug and FTP log files. I must admit they look OK to my untrained eye.

Thanks

That's at about the same time as the previous occasion. Does the diags file have the same ftp connect timeout message at the end? Most of the ftp stuff is done in a separate thread, but the connect is done on the UI thread, so if that did hang for some reason, it would appear that the application had hung. But normally if it failed to connect, after 30 seconds the connect timer would kick in and abandon the connect. And this code didn't change between 1.9.2 and 1.9.3 anyway.

No the diags are different this time - copy attached.

Thanks

I don't know what the cause is, sorry, and at the moment no-one else seems to have this problem. Something seems to happen at 03:00 which causes the main UI thread to hang. If you think that the problem started with 1.9.3, then all I can suggest is that you go back to 1.9.2. Other than that, it would be a case of experimenting to try to narrow down the cause, e.g. turn off ftp, etc. You could also consider something like Startwatch which can apparently detect and restart hung applications.

My cumulus has also crashed three times in the past 10 days at exactly the same time - 03:10. The desktop was bought especially for the task to run cumulus, the latest version of which I downloaded when I set up the system on November 20 last year. The operating system is Windows 7 and the data is uploaded to twitter every hour as well as Wunderground and WOW. Prior to ten days ago it has crashed just twice.
I have yet to look into the problem more deeply but please let me know if you have any thoughts on why it is crashing at 3.10am every time. Many thanks.

Are you getting the same thing - the "AppHangB" message? What version and build of Cumulus are you using?