This section covers error messages from Weatherlink for Windows that don’t fit into any of the above categories:
Upload issues from Weatherlink for Windows software
Weatherlink for Windows contains tools for uploading template and other files to the user’s nominated servers. The Help section of WLfW gives detailed instructions for setting up these uploads which we won’t repeat here. But occasionally uploads which have been running successfully start to fail – the target website may stop updating or there may be other symptoms. Often these issues are caused by something remote from the user, perhaps most commonly a technical or policy change at the server or hosting service being used. It’s not possible to catalogue all the issues that may arise but what we can do is to suggest some troubleshooting steps as follows:
A file called download.log is maintained in the main Weatherlink folder. This is a simple text file that can be viewed in eg Notepad and which records, amongst other things, details of file upload attempts and any error messages from uploads that may have failed. The entries in this file can be a good guide to understanding how and why an upload may have failed.
If download.log doesn’t provide sufficient clues then:
1. Ensure that ‘Local Transfer’ is turned ON in the Internet Settings dialogue and check that your files are being created locally as expected. Perhaps a change was inadvertently made to a template file or there’s some problem with sensor data such that the upload file is not being correctly created.
2. If [1] checks out OK then try to upload one of your files manually using a free FTP client like Filezilla and exactly the same folder paths and other settings as you have got configured in Weatherlink. This will often reveal that some change may have occurred at the server, eg FTP uploads must now be done in Passive mode.
Rainfall database
The Weatherlink software maintains a potentially obscure feature known as the rainfall database which provides a summary table of rainfall totals over a year or a period of several years. You only see this feature if you select ‘Yearly rainfall’ from the Reports menu. Activating this option causes a new ‘Rain’ menu to appear on the top-level menu with a few simple options for managing the rainfall table. This rain database can be seen in eg Windows File Explorer as the file rain.db within the main station folder.
Occasionally this table can become corrupted, which can happen especially if the main wlk monthly data files have also become corrupted. Fortunately there is an easy fix, which is just to select New from the Rain menu. This causes the complete rain database to be regenerated from data within the monthly data files. Of course, any corruption in eg the latest monthly data file needs to be fixed first otherwise the new rain database may still be corrupted. Cautious user can find and rename the existing rain.db file to eg rain.db.old if they wish, but this precaution is not usually necessary.
Weatherlink passwords
The Weatherlink program does provide an option to set a password. We strongly recommend that you do NOT set a password – it serves little purpose and if you lose/forget the password then you can be completely locked out of accessing both Weatherlink and your data.
If you do lose the password
Note that there is no point in trying to create a new station or trying to reinstall Weatherlink – this will typically not help at all. The reason is that although you might set the password in the Weatherlink program, it is also effectively stored in the console (or more precisely the CRC checksum for the password is stored in the console).
Fortunately there is a simple fix which should work in most circumstances: A file is hidden in the WeatherLink directory called tsp.utl. Hidden files must be set to visible to see this file. Use Notepad to open this file. In it is the “last” password set. If multiple passwords have been set in multiple consoles this file will only have the last password set.
There is also a second option, which is to clear the the 2-byte memory locations which hold the CRC checksum in the console memory, but most users will not have the background necessary to do this.
Cannot open database
This is an obscure error that will only ever be seen by (very) long-term users of Weatherlink. The symptom on trying to start WL is a ‘Cannot open database’ error message and it’s impossible to download archive data. This will typically happen on systems that have previously been running for many years.
It turns out that WL can accumulate a maximum of 25 years’ worth of data and cannot then accept any new data downloads. This might actually be a maximum of 300 monthly data files – conceivably as an array bound. However, the precise cause is not clear currently and all one can say is that it’s obviously a longstanding and hitherto unknown/unfixed bug in the WL code.
A workaround is to create a new station in WL and to move a block of old monthly files (eg pre-2000 files, but could be any cut-off date you choose) into the new station. The existing station should then resume working normally again. Your older data will obviously only be accessible from the alternative station.
It’s not known whether Davis will issue an update to WL to correct this bug, but until a new version appears the workaround above should provide a solution.
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