FAQ: Difference between revisions

(consult also the Help screens within Cumulus software, and learn more from the rest of this Wiki)

= Installing and Running Cumulus  =

{{Version badge 1}}Reminder, this FAQ answer is ONLY for Cumulus 1

Consequently, there is no possibility of any new features for Cumulus 1.

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

Format information is also in the Cumulus 1 help file, in the section “Data log file format”

Davis station firmware supplies two wind speeds, a 3-second average and a 10-minute average (later versions of the firmware also supply a 2-minute average, Cumulus currently doesn't use this).   

* The latest Davis 3-second average is treated by Cumulus as 'Latest' (available via <#wlatest>, matching direction is '<#currentwdir>' and '<#bearing>')

* The Davis 10-minute average is the Cumulus 'Average' (available via <#wspeed>,  matching direction reported as '<#wdir>' and '<#avgbearing>').

** If 'Calculate 10-min wind average' and 'Use speed for avg calculation' are both selected; the average of the Fine Offset 'Wind' values read over the previous N (configurable, defaults to 10) minutes is reported.

== How do I set up recording wind speeds in Cumulus 1, with Oregon Scientific and La Crosse stations  ==

La Crosse and some Oregon Scientific weather stations only output a single wind speed.  To allow Cumulus to calculate 'gust' and 'wind speed' with different values, select the '''Station''' dialogue from the ''Configuration'' menu and set ''Calculate 10 min wind average'' in the 'Settings' frame, so in [[cumulus.ini]] this will produce the parameter 'Wind10MinAverage=1 when cumulus is next stopped.

* The station's 'Wind' value will then display as Cumulus 'Latest'.

* The highest of the station's 'Wind' value in a 10 minute period will then display as Cumulus 'Gust'.  Note that the WMO definition of a wind gust is the mean wind speed over a 2 to 3 second sample period (not the maximum instantaneous wind speed).

== How do I make Cumulus 1 run automatically when Windows starts?  ==

**Don't forget that Cumulus uses binary arithmetic to base 2, that does not correctly represent what in base 10 are decimal places, so you may see slight errors for those using inches and expecting correctness to two decimal places (read up this on internet if you don't understand binary arithmetic).

** The rainfall totals shown on the ''This period'', ''This month'', and ''This year'' screens within the '''View''' menu in Cumulus 1 are generated by adding up the daily rainfall totals found in [[dayfile.txt]] for the selected period.  Using default settings via '''View''' menu in Cumulus 1, ''This month'' screen for this month excluding today, ''This year'' screen for this calendar year (this does always start on 1 January, unless you only started using Cumulus after that) excluding today. ''Note any rainfall for the current (meteorological) day is excluded as the latest dayfile.txt row is for yesterday.'' Totals can be shown for any past period, by selecting the required dates, the figures are recalculated when you press the ''Update display'' button and will include all days available in dayfile.txt for the chosen period. ''Important note: The view menu 'This year' screen always calculates the total for a selected calendar year starting in January.''

**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.

**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!''

**There is no corresponding setting for amending the total for the first 'this month' of Cumulus operation.  The only way round this is to manually change the rainfall in dayfile.txt for the first day of operation to include rainfall on all previous days of month, but that could potentially cause you to set the maximum daily rainfall extreme record wrongly.

*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?  ==

can all be customised by using the [[strings.ini]] file.  

On the downloads page you can find third-party alternative web pages, these typically include some language translation modules, but beware that these may not be maintained to work with latest versions of Cumulus.

3 options:

Don't attempt to run Cumulus 1 and MX at same time, they cannot share a single weather station. However you can with a single weather station, stop Cumulus 1 and then run MX if they use different data folders, then later stop MX and run Cumulus 1.

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

== My sunrise and sunset times are wrong  ==

*Do make sure you have exited out of the built-in viewer or editor before rollover is due.  

**If you inadvertently forget this, the cure of overwriting files mentioned above is applicable if your weather station has an internal log and it is around 2 logging intervals (see [[#Cumulus_takes_a_long_time_to_download_the_data_from_my_Davis_station_at_start_up]]) after rollover.  

== Why do I have some unexpected zero figures? ==

== Cumulus read some invalid figures from my station ==

If you have:

*just started using Cumulus,  

... check you have the correct station type selected (see the Cumulus ''Help'' for the settings screen).

*Is the information ''correct on the station console'' (i.e. not a fault with a sensor), but incorrectly displayed on Cumulus screen (i.e. transfer problem)?  

Check all your settings on Cumulus, or see a [[#Cumulus_can.27t_read_a_data_update_from_my_station|previous question]].

Over successive versions of Cumulus more and more code has been incorporated to deal with the way some stations are prone to reporting rogue readings.

*Ensure you are using the latest Cumulus build, if you are using an old version you will not have any enhancements made since the earlier build that might improve the way Cumulus reads from your station type.

'''Possible Cure:'''

The purpose of the backup files is to allow Cumulus to be 'rewound' to a particular point in time.  It simulates the situation where someone had closed Cumulus down at that point, and is only now starting it up again, and needs data to be downloaded from the station's logger to catch up to the present time. Obviously this cure will not work if your station type does not have a logger (one is needed for Cumulus to read old readings again).

*If you have only installed Cumulus a few days ago, or have just re-started Cumulus after it was stopped and encounter multiple ''rogue readings in the catch-up from the station logger''; '''one possibility''' is to stop Cumulus and find the [[#On_restarting_Cumulus.2C_it_did_not_successfully_read_all_data_from_when_it_last_ran|backup files]] that it took when you started it up (or just after the previous roll-over time), copy those files into the data folder, overwriting the ones that are there, then when you start it up again it will rewind back to the time in that back-up, and could sort itself out.

== How to restore a corrupted log file ==

Full information about all the log files is elsewhere  [[:Category:Log_Files]], so you can study the notes linked from there, but here is a very quick summary.

* Remember 'alltimelog.txt' logs each change made to 'alltime.ini' so you don't need to correct the former, but it can help you know how to regress the latter.

* "speciallog.txt" (if used) holds internal temperature and internal humidity, it does not get copied to backup folder, so you need to back it up yourself.

* 'yesterday.ini' will get overwritten at end of day, so it is rare to edit that.

* "dayfile.txt" has a new line appended to it at the end of each day, if you go back to the backup copy and you lose the latest line, then most of the information can be extracted from the 'today.ini' in the same backup folder, but you need to understand the process and content differences as explained in the Wiki for the two files.

* 'log.xml' is another file that Cumulus does not copy to the backup folder, so you should back it up periodically.  It is only found in Cumulus 1 and is edited using the 'Weather Diary' screen in the 'View' menu.  Although it can be edited by a 'XML' editor, I advise against it, as the way that the field 'RowState' is calculated is complex, and if you corrupt the file, Cumulus 1 will crash.

* "mmmyy.txt" (naming varies depending on computer settings) is the detailed log mentioned above

Because many positive values are realistic, Cumulus generally will accept those odd increases as a result of accidental knocking of a tipping bucket gauge, due to wind effects on the gauge, or even due to the station electronics generating a rogue reading. The sub-answers below explain how to correct such errors.

=== (Invented rain) Error in today's total ===

=== (Invented rain) Error in date/time of 'Last Tip' ===

=== (Invented rain) Error in number of consecutive days with or without rain ===

# Remember that 'ConsecutiveDryDays' and 'ConsecutiveWetDays' do not include today, they reflect the daily rainfall amounts stored in the [[dayfile.txt|daily summary log]].

=== (Invented rain) Error in total or high rainfall rate for any day before today ===

=== (Invented rain) Error in total, or extremes, for this month and/or this year ===

*Longest dry period

*Longest wet period

=== (Invented rain and) Rain Counter ===

===  (Invented rain) More information ===

== My monthly and/or annual rainfall totals are wrong  ==

Cumulus calculates these when it is restarted, holds the values within memory, and increments them as required while it is running. This FAQ in the previous section [[#Where_does_Cumulus_get_its_this_month_and_this_year_rainfall_totals_from.3F]] has a concise description of how Cumulus calculates these figures.

* The rainfall total reported by the ''<#ryear>'' web tag is for the rainfall season to date, it is calculated from taking today's rain and then adding the sum of the totals in dayfile.txt starting with the first (meteorological) day of the month specified in the 'rainfall season' frame on the ''station settings'' screen within the '''Configuration''' menu, until the end of dayfile.txt is reached. So check you have specified the right starting month there before deciding the rainfall total shown is wrong. This is the same figure as is shown on the main screen of Cumulus 1 for "This year" in the rainfall frame.

See immediately preceding FAQ [[#My_station_invented_some_rain_that_didn.27t_really_occur.2C_and_I_want_to_set_it_to_zero_.28or_some_other_figure.29 |correcting rainfall]]  for how to correct errors in total for particular days and how to correct the high extremes for the various periods.

If you do this, you will probably need to edit your log files in the '''data''' folder as you may have duplicate entries and/or entries out of order. Your rain totals will almost certainly also be wrong - the total for "today" in particular. See the [[FAQ#My_station_invented_some_rain_that_didn.27t_really_occur.2C_and_I_want_to_set_it_to_zero_.28or_some_other_figure.29 |FAQ]] entry about correcting rainfall data. If you have only just started using Cumulus, you could delete all of the files in the data folder, and just create a simple today.ini as below. Then when you start Cumulus, processing will start again with just the data from the station's logger.

<pre>

[General]

CurrentDay=10

</pre>

Change the dates and time to match the point from which you want Cumulus to start downloading data. If the station has already sent the data, this may not work, unfortunately.

Probably some of your inserts used the wrong format (blank rows, fields with real numbers where integers expected, alternatively missing or duplicated fields). See [[:Category:Log_Files]]. Note that Cumulus will only flag errors in the log files that it reads (e.g. those relating to the period for which it displays trends graphs).  Check all the log files you have amended.

== Cumulus doesn’t show the same pressure as my Fine Offset console  ==

# that you are comparing the Cumulus display with the ‘relative’ pressure on your console,

# that only one copy of Cumulus is accessing the weather station (and no other software),

# and that you do not have a setting for pressure on the Cumulus calibration screen.

The Fine Offset stations only store absolute/station pressure readings in their weather memory locations updated with each transmission and read by Cumulus. Within Cumulus, the software applies the adjustment to sea level before any further processing. It does ''not'' use the altitude setting in the cumulus station configuration screen.

Make sure that you have set your console's relative pressure correctly:

  EWpressureoffset=x.y

== My pressure suddenly dropped! Or suddenly increased!  ==

== I get an error when I try to view my all-time records. Also, they don’t appear on my web site  ==

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

== My forecast says "Not available"  ==

== 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 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.

== The longest dry/wet spell for this month/year includes days from last month/year ==

This is an attempt to make sure that bad data is not logged. If your weather station is not fully functional, you will not be able to use Cumulus fully.  

(You need to do this while Cumulus is stopped). Note that you are likely to get bad data logged if you do this.

# start Cumulus up again.

   

If your all-time and/or monthly all-time records have been affected, see the next [[#How_do_I_correct_my_all-time_.28or_monthly_all-time.29_records.3F|FAQ entry]].

== How do I correct my all-time (or monthly all-time) records? ==

== It's January 1st and my 'rain since midnight' and/or 'last 24 hours rain' and/or Evapotranspiration are wrong/negative ==

If you look in the status bar at the bottom of the Cumulus window, there may a message "Error: no response"; this would confirm that the station has locked up and needs resetting.

FOReadAvoidPeriod=N

{{Version badge 1}}See this forum post - https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14148

= Website =

== How do I replace the 'bird' image on my website? ==

* The simplest way is to upload a new picture to the images folder of your website; the file should be called picture.jpg.  Please ensure the image is not too large and bear in mind it will appear on the bottom left of the page; the site data may cover some of the image.  As a guide, the default image is 600 x 450 pixels.

* Secondly, you may upload an image using your own file name.  Edit the ''weatherstyle.css'' file and look for the line <tt>background-image: url(images/picture.jpg);</tt> around line 9 and adjust as necessary.  Upload the edited css file to your website.

     <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.

**Deselect the option where indicated by red arrow if your template includes something like <code><meta content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type" /></code>

**For customised pages, (without standard Cumulus template names), select/un-select the UTF-8 encoding in the appropriate column on the '''Configuration'''  menu, ''Internet'' dialog, '''Files''' tab screen where you list the local and remote names.

== My web pages have obsolete web tag values in them  ==

You'll need to list the (source) file including paths on the files tab of the internet settings, and specify a destination path and file name for the remote file in each case. Don't tick the ''FTP?'' box for standard cumulus pages (the exception is for a local web server and any non-standard web page that attempts to read using a script a local file such as dayfile.txt as this does need FTP to generate the server-based web page). For the standard images, you can supply a folder name (specify on the same screen), and they will all get copied there. See [[Customised_templates#What_to_select_on_the_.27Files.27_tab_of_the_Internet_Settings_screen_within_the_.27Configuration.27_menu|here]] for greater detail.

== Error Codes generated by FTP or Winsock ==

Cumulus 1 doesn't support Secure FTP. You can configure Cumulus to invoke an external program like WinSCP, as described here: [[SFTP | SFTP article]]

== Directory related problems in FTP ==

* Any ''files you specify'' for uploading at standard update frequency are uploaded between standard pages (if 'Include Standard Files' selected) and (applies only to Cumulus 1) standard images (if 'Include Standard Images' selected).  You should specify the path (including any web site directory) in 'remote filenames', as there is no call to 'change directory'. In this case, if that path is invalid, the upload fails.

* If you have enabled ''Realtime'', the realtime.txt file is uploaded without doing a change directory, (by appending "/realtime.txt" to the directory on the ''Internet settings'' screen in '''Sites/Options'''). In this case, if the web site directory in your settings is invalid, the upload of the real time file fails.

* On the ''NOAA Setup'' screen the optional '''Directory''' parameter required is the relative path; from your FTP root, to where the NOAA report pages are to be stored. (It is totally independent of the directory on the ''Internet settings'' screen in '''Sites/Options''').  Click the '''Help''' button for full explanation. Like realtime.txt, the upload destination is determined by appending the file-name for the report to any NOAA directory, and will fail if that directory is specified wrongly.