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”

**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.

**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_(Cumulus_1)#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?  ==

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:

*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_(Cumulus_1)#Introduced_for_problems_with_Fine_Offset_family:|Easyweather.dat section here]].

*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? ==

== 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 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.

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  ==

Normally when Cumulus starts, it reads in [http://www.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/weather/mm/ the fixed block] in the console a pair of absolute/station pressure and relative/sea level pressure readings and uses the difference between these as the ‘offset’ in millibar for the station;  Cumulus uses this offset subsequently to calculate the sea level pressure (each time when reading the absolute pressure in the weather memory locations of the station), but it is possible to define the offset in '''Cumulus.ini_(Cumulus_1)''' instead.  

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"  ==

# 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 ==

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

= Website =

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.