FAQ: Difference between revisions

= Installing and Running Cumulus  =

Cumulus 2 explored an improved data approach using UTC and having better handling of rainfall. Although it was hoped it would make enhancement easier, and allow use of alternative languages possible, it proved too complicated. and has been abandoned and is no longer available, so if you don't already have it hard luck.  Subsequently, some of the developments in Cumulus 2 were ported into new version 1.9.0, and remain in final Cumulus 1.9.4 from where they were in turn ported to Cumulus MX. So whichever of the two versions still available you choose, you are benefiting from work done for Cumulus 2.

== I use Cumulus 1 and want to move to Cumulus MX ==

* While Cumulus 1 has a tool to generate graphs itself and then uploads them to your website, the graphs used in Cumulus MX are drawn when the end-user loads the web page, they use Highcharts routines that are free for non-commercial use only, i.e. you may not use MX with these graphs on a company web site.

* While Cumulus 1 runs as an application that includes a main screen, and other screens, that appear when you start it, Cumulus MX is two separate applications, there is the "engine" that connects to your weather station and processes that data, but there is also a separate user interface that can be viewed on a browser on any device connected to the same local network as the device that runs the engine (for key security reasons this user interface should not be exposed over the wider internet).

* The '.txt' files in the data folder will work with both Cumulus 1 and MX - assuming you are using the same decimal and list separators in MX as you used in Cumulus 1 (i.e. the same locale).

* Your "Cumulus.ini" file must start with a capital letter for MX, and all the characters used within the configuration file must be within ASCII range, Cumulus 1 on Windows is not fussy about case in the file name. Cumulus MX adds further items to this file, but you do not need to change the contents of it for moving in either direction except in regards to the NOAA reports. Those from Cumulus 1 and MX are set up differently because of different codes to output a month format parameter as the change to date/time formats in webtags also applies to NOAA report file format lines in Cumulus.ini.  Also the [FTP site] section in Cumulus.ini will only work in MX with 'site' entirely in lower case, so if it is different in your copy, edit that.

*(Other file names within MX will be as supplied in the file that you download, or as Cumulus MX decides when it creates the file).  

Finally if you are moving from Windows to Linux, remember you need to learn a host of new commands!

== What weather stations does Cumulus work with?  ==

*Davis Vantage Pro (VP), Vantage Pro2 (VP2), and Vue (the Envoy8X is '''not''' supported).  

*Oregon Scientific WM918, WMR918, WMR928, WMR968, WMR88 (see [[FAQ#How do I set up recording wind speeds in Cumulus, with Oregon Scientific and La Crosse stations | this FAQ]]), WMR100, WMR180, WMR200.  

== Why haven't you added the feature I asked for a long time ago? ==

== How do I upgrade to a new release?  ==

# "cumulus.exe"; - the latest build

# "unins000.exe";

*So tick this option, if you have a standard Cumulus implementation and then you can be sure to upgrade the standard templates.

*Untick this option if you have  [[Customised_templates#Creating_Your_Own_Templates|customised the existing pages]],  so that if your customised versions  are in "web\*.*" they don't get overwritten. It is recommended that you store any customised pages in a directory outside the Cumulus folder, as you can specify up to 10 such files on the local side of the files tab in the Configuration menu Internet settings screen and (if you are not using standard files) untick ''Include Standard Files'' on the same screen. (100 such files can be specified in [[Cumulus.ini]]).

== Changing to different weather station ==

== Moving Cumulus software to a new PC (or updating Windows Operating System) ==

Cumulus will continue to work with your existing weather station and existing log files, providing

#Your Windows regional settings are the same (i.e. date format unchanged, same time zone, decimal point symbol unchanged, list separator character unchanged) - if there is a difference, the new installation cannot understand the old lines in the log files and will give an error when Cumulus is restarted.

== How do I back up my data?  ==

*Copy the contents of the Cumulus ‘data’ sub-folder on a regular basis to a different storage device.  Then if you have any problem with the original storage device, or corruption of files, you can minimise the loss of logged observations. To restore from the backup, just copy the saved data folder back into your Cumulus installation, with Cumulus stopped.

*You should also back up, at least once, your cumulus.ini file in the main Cumulus folder.  This contains all the key settings and you need a record of those!

== Moving Cumulus software to a different location on your PC? ==

== What are the formats of the Cumulus data files?  ==

== Can I import logged information from before I installed Cumulus? ==

== I was away on the last day of last month/year - How do I see the final lowest and highest figures for last month/year? ==

'''View''' menu, ''This month'' or ''This year'' screens show some figures for any month or year selected by you, but do not show all the figures shown on a standard web page or as shown on the ''Highs and Lows'' screen for the current month/year.

== How does Cumulus handle Daylight Saving Time?  ==

As far as the timestamps in the extreme logs, monthly log, and the graphs, are concerned; Cumulus doesn't do anything in particular for DST.  

**So basically, at the start of DST (i.e. when the clocks 'go forward' for the summer) you will get an apparent gap of one hour in your data logs and on graphs.

**Similarly at the end of DST (i.e. when the clocks 'go back' for the winter) you will get an apparent hour of duplicate timestamps in your logs and graphs.  

**This is because the console memory does not time-stamp the data blocks and each memory location simply contains the number of minutes elapsed since the previous memory location was last updated.

**Cumulus does not remember the console data block used just before shutdown, (after all depending on how long Cumulus has been stopped and the station logging interval, the old memory location could be overwritten by now), and so Cumulus works out a time-stamp based on current clock time and the stored elapsed interval times as it works back through those memory locations.

**On restart Cumulus just tries to read the appropriate number of hours worth of observations back from the block now marked as latest.   

**For example if it was stopped at 2200 DST and restarted at 0600 standard time, Cumulus catches up with the last 8 hours worth of stored measurements as if going back to 2200 standard time, that means it retrieves back to 2300 DST and has forever lost the period 2200 to 2300 DST.   

** Cumulus MX builds below 3008 do not include rainfall for year to date, other rainfall calculation items were fixed in 3022 to 3042, you should use latest build for best functionality.

**Today's rain is added to the figures (as described above) derived from dayfile.txt for what the front screen in Cumulus 1, labels '''This month''', and ''This year'' (this last figure is the seasonal total, you can choose for it to start on 1 January or any other month). Thus these figures are updated each time Cumulus receives a rain reading from the station (they all include today-so-far), and these figures will not be displayed if Cumulus is unable to read rain information from your station.

** The today's total so far at each reading time is also added to the 'recent tag' array allowing total values for the day-so-far at one minute intervals for up to a week ago to be added as web tags to a web template.

**Important, for the <#ryear> web tag, and for the 'This year' display on the ''main'' Cumulus screen, the processing reads the ''dayfile.txt'' for the rainfall season starting with the month set on the station settings screen and stored as the value for attribute ''RainSeasonStart'' in [[Cumulus.ini#Section:_Station]] (its default is January).   

**If you have set a 'year to date' value and Cumulus is being re-started when the year specified beside that figure matches the current calendar year, your year-to-date amount is also added into this year's total. This should normally only be relevant in your first rain season of operating Cumulus, but could be used if in any season you needed to add an extra amount because for some reason you had a gap in your recording period.  ''Do be aware that if you select a rain season starting in a month other than January, the year to date figure will stop being added on 1 January because the year specified next to the figure to add on will then be the previous calendar year!''

*Note that you need to stop and then restart Cumulus to update these initial values that are stored in memory and get any corrections you made to rogue values in the daily summary log (or year-to-date) reflected on the main Cumulus screen and in web tags.

== How do I reset all my data to start again from scratch?  ==

== Why does Cumulus do some things the way it does, when there are better ways? ==

The fact that it works with several different types of weather station means that much of it is a compromise; it doesn't use certain features of the weather station which it could use if it were dedicated to that type of weather station. For example, it typically does not use any high/low data that the station might store internally. Instead, it maintains its own high/low data from individual readings. There are a number of reasons for this; the fact that Cumulus supports an 0900-0900 day, and the weather station does not, and the fact that typically Cumulus maintains far more high/low values than the station does, and these need to be self-consistent.  

*It is possible to back up the Cumulus files from one installation running off a weather station, and briefly have another reduced functionality copy just looking at historic data without ever any updating (the second Cumulus is set up as if reading from an EasyWeather.dat file, but not given a path/file name) - see [[Cumulus.ini#Introduced_for_problems_with_Fine_Offset_family:|Easyweather.dat section here]].

= Troubleshooting  =

== My 'Error' light is flashing  ==

== My ‘new record’ light has stopped flashing  ==

== I installed a new version and my web page templates got over-written  ==

== I can’t find my data files!  ==

== I can't save my NOAA reports! ==

== I get an error when I close Cumulus  ==

Cumulus does sometimes report an error when you close it. This does not appear to cause any problems, you can just close the error message. I don't seem to be able to do anything about this, as the 'crash' is not in code that I have control over. You may be able to avoid this error by avoiding closing Cumulus while it is uploading to the internet. Please don't bother sending me a bug report about this.  

== My computer hibernated/suspended, and I lost data/my graphs 'flat-lined'  ==

Cumulus can't cope with being suspended, it just carries on as normal after being woken. There is an option in the station settings to 'close on suspend', so Cumulus will close itself as a safety measure, if you forget to do it manually. Don't use the 'close on suspend' option and the 'confirm shutdown' option at the same time; this will cause problems.  

== When I start Cumulus, the graphs restart again each time and don't show the earlier data  ==

This problem can also occur if you change your system format settings (date format, decimal and list separators etc). Again, check the diags file for a message about a number not being a valid floating point value.

== The peak values on my graphs are not the same as my extreme values  ==

This is most noticeable with wind gusts, the value of which can change rapidly, even over a period of a minute. The 'Plot latest gust' setting causes the 'Latest' figure (as shown on the main screen) to be plotted. What this figure represents exactly depends on your weather station type. This figure may vary rapidly, e.g. on Davis stations, it changes every 3 seconds or so. The graphs are plotted once a minute, and hence, with Davis stations, for example, there is approximately a one in 20 chance of any given 'latest' figure actually being plotted.

Cumulus will always show zero average bearing when the average wind speed is zero (it can't be otherwise because it's calculated using the wind speed). In addition, it will show zero current bearing when the current wind speed is zero if you have ''use bearing zero when calm'' selected in the [[Cumulus_Screenshots#Station|station]] settings (accessible from '''Configuration''' menu).

== My graphs appear to be plotted less frequently just after Cumulus starts up  ==

== My temperature Min/Max/Avg graph is empty ==

The most likely explanation is that you have only recently started running Cumulus (in the last day or two). It adds new values to this graph at the end of each day; it wouldn't make sense to add a value part of the way through the day, and you need a few points to be plotted before the graph starts to take shape. You need to wait until you have been running Cumulus for a few days.

== I've changed my Twitter password, and now Cumulus won't update Twitter ==

You need to force Cumulus to re-authenticate with Twitter. Stop Cumulus and edit cumulus.ini. Find the [Twitter] section, and '''delete''' the lines which start

== Cumulus stops at the "Downloading data" screen ==

If you have a Fine Offset station, this is probably caused by the station's USB interface locking up - a known problem with some Fine Offset stations. You should be able to get it going again by doing a reset - remove batteries and the USB cable. Recent Fine Offset models have a problem where they can lock up frequently, requiring a reset. From version 1.9.3 of Cumulus onwards, there is an option to synchronise the reading of data with the console writing the data, to avoid doing both at the same time, and this seems to avoid most lockups. The setting is "Synchronise Fine Offset reads" on the station settings screen.

== Cumulus locks up when it starts and I have to use the task manager to kill it ==

If you have a ''Fine Offset station'', this is most likely caused by the station's interface locking up, i.e the station has stopped communicating with the PC.

== Cumulus gives an error and won't run on my HP computer ==

It's a known problem with HP computers; they have missing fonts. One solution is to install [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&id=16083 this font update] from Microsoft. It appears that computers other than HP can have the same font issue, so it is worth installing the font update anyway, if you get a problem where Cumulus won't start.

== I have problems after upgrading to Windows 10 ==

= Website =

== How do I remove Inside Temperature graph or add solar/UV/sunshine? ==

Locate the Cumulus 'web' folder on your PC and edit the following file:

'''trendsT.htm'''

     <td></td>

</pre>

*To show solar instead, replace 'intemp.png' with 'solar.png', replace 'intempsm.png' with 'solarsm.png', and change the wording of the value associated with the alt property.

*To make Cumulus upload the solar graph, select it on the 'files' tab of the internet settings.

== Why are there no graphs on my standard trends web page? ==

Either 1) You have not created an images sub-folder (within your folder that holds web pages) as instructed in the Cumulus Help ('setting up your website' page) -  also explained in [[Simple Website setup]].  In this case, the bird image will not be appearing in the bottom left corner of your web pages.

== What is the size of the standard Cumulus update? ==

In total for version 1.9.2, it's about half a megabyte - about 100kB for the pages (about half of that is the gauges.htm page with all the detailed wind plotting points, and half the other pages) and 400kB for the variable images (moon phase, some gauges images and trend graphs - the exact size of latter can vary if you change the period they cover).

== My web pages are empty ==

One common cause of web pages appearing to be of size zero, or not uploading with new contents when Cumulus attempts to use FTP, is that your firewall (or your FTP server) has limited the allowed operations (e.g. can't delete, can't insert, can't rename ...). Try changing from passive mode to active mode transfers (or vice versa). Try using a manual FTP operation (with your own FTP client) and see if that works.

If empty web pages are being successfully uploaded to your web site (i.e. they report size of 0 kB, but do not produce 'error 404 - page not found' message), and your browser shows that their modification date is recent (see next FAQ), then another likely cause is that the [[Customised_templates#What_is_meant_by_.27Cumulus_processes_templates.27| Cumulus processing]] of templates is failing:

*Either (since build 1093, as made clear in the release notes)[[File:Web settings.JPG]] the character encoding (for standard named templates that are [[Customised_templates#What_is_meant_by_.27Cumulus_processes_templates.27| processed by Cumulus]]) is specified incorrectly on the '''Configuration'''  menu, ''Internet'' dialog, '''Sites/Options''' tab, ''Web Settings'' frame as shown about half way down on this screen extract: