[wxqc] Weather station crash

Wed Apr 9 14:22:51 CDT 2008

Really, honestly, for sure, I mean it. _IF_ your issue is the usb/serial
driver.  Get the update.    I did do some script magic myself (at first)
to check and restart my app.  But then found the blogs, tried that and
it has NEVER crashed again.  IF it is the problem.

Mark

________________________________

From: wxqc-bounces at lists.gladstonefamily.net
[mailto:wxqc-bounces at lists.gladstonefamily.net] On Behalf Of Steve
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 3:13 PM
To: Discussion of weather data quality issues
Subject: Re: [wxqc] Weather station crash

I'm a little hesitant to make this suggestion since it may smack of
promotion since the program is shareware. But since the program's
freeware mode allows monitoring a single application, and you're having
a problem with just a single application, I'll go ahead. You can try my
program StartWatch http://www.softwx.com/windows/startwatch.html 

StartWatch will start up and then monitor a program for hangs, crashes,
etc., and if that's detected, the application is terminated and
restarted automatically. This works most of the time, but there is a
rare situation where nothing can kill a hung program, and it is due to a
design issue of Windows itself, and in this case the computer must be
rebooted. 

I'm guessing that if WeatherLink is hanging, it started recently, and it
seems to do it while sending APRS data, then it is probably hanging
while attempting to communicate with the CWOP2 server that's been down a
fair amount lately. This is a different problem from the USB issue. In
the USB issue, the WeatherLink program loses communication with the VP
data logger because of a failure in the USB to Serial driver that gets
installed with WeatherLink. I have seen this problem myself, and for
those who have it, it can be troublesome. All that fixes it when it
happens is to unplug and replug in the USB cable or reboot the computer.
I wrote a program that will solve the problem programmatically by
resetting the driver, but in order for this to be automated, it has to
be initiated by the program that is connected to the data logger port. I
built this feature into my shareware program VirtualVP and my freeware
program VPLive, both of which are also on the softwx website. I know
this fix works because I've been able to test it on my setup, and also
because numerous people have told me these programs fixed the problem
for them too. It's really more a workaround than a fix. The davis driver
will still hiccup from time to time, but this gets detected, the driver
is automatically reset, and the communication re-established. The best
solution though, is to use the serial data logger, not the USB data
logger. If all you have are USB ports, little adapters are available for
well under $10 that allow you to plug a serial device into a USB port.

Steve

SoftWx

----- Original Message ----- 

	From: Robert Pick <mailto:pick95051 at sbcglobal.net>  

	To: wxqc at lists.gladstonefamily.net 

	Sent: 04/09/2008 8:02 AM

	Subject: [wxqc] Weather station crash

	Six days ago when I checked the status of the local weather (my
station). Windows had left a message that Weatherlink 5.7 had a fatal
error and had to close. I've checked everything, even deleted the
software, reloaded , rebuilt the station, checked the internet settings
and still no go. This all happens when the program opens the window to
show the progress of the download to aprs. and when it gets to the step
"down load images" it freezes, and completely shuts down. My internet
connection is working fine. The other programs I run all work fine. I do
number crunching for BOINC ( Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network
Computing ) This program is moving data on and off my computer all day
long and has been for longer than I've had my weather station.
Everything has been working in fine harmony up until 6 days ago. I've
been on the phone with Davis half a doz. times this week to no avail.
Can anyone help or suggest where I can get some.

	Respectfully, Robert Pick

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