No data with WMR918

[thegasman]

Hi,

I have an OS WMR918 which I have had running perfectly with Weather Display on XP on my laptop.
I have decided to change to Linux, and installed Ubuntu 8.04 and WD for Linux (latest version).
I can't get the weather station to talk to WD now though, no matter what settings I choose. 
I have the right comm port selected I'm sure, and if I select the WMR918/WMR968 station in WD I sometimes get one temp reading and one humidity reading appear, but no more. If I choose the straight WMR918 setting in WD I get nothing.
Any ideas? I'm not sure if this is a WD issue or perhaps a comm port thing with Ubuntu.

Thanks,

Martin

[Weather Display]

Hi
does the data received light flash ?

[thegasman]

I have seen it flash, but generally no, it doesn't.
It also sometimes says Comm #1 OK in the title bar, but other times it doesn't.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Martin

[thegasman]

I also get this from the terminal, which I guess is probably relevant:

Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width 17 and height 65535
TApplication.HandleException Access violation
  Stack trace:
  $B78D0811
  $B7CD057E
  $0844F473  TFORMCOMPORT__OPENTHECOMPORT,  line 336 of comport.pas
  $08130E15  TMAINFORM__COMPORTCONNECT,  line 44764 of mainunit.pas
  $081409FD  TMAINFORM__COMMUNICATIONS1CLICK,  line 52123 of mainunit.pas
  $088AD9D9  TFORMCONTROL__IMAGE1CLICK,  line 223 of controlpanel.pas
  $0807C9A4  TCONTROL__CLICK,  line 2094 of ./include/control.inc
  $0807C78D  TCONTROL__WMLBUTTONUP,  line 2006 of ./include/control.inc
  $08C98829
  $0807AA18  TCONTROL__PERFORM,  line 984 of ./include/control.inc
  $080722EF  TWINCONTROL__ISCONTROLMOUSEMSG,  line 4129 of ./include/wincontrol.inc
  $08073579  TWINCONTROL__WNDPROC,  line 4687 of ./include/wincontrol.inc
  $08B19757  DELIVERMESSAGE,  line 3605 of gtkproc.inc
  $08B24343  DELIVERMOUSEUPMESSAGE,  line 1642 of gtkcallback.inc
  $08B24447  GTKMOUSEBTNRELEASE,  line 1698 of gtkcallback.inc
  $B7AD0754
  $B7B050A2

Martin

[Weather Display]

try running the QT version instead

[thegasman]

OK, running the QT version now.
Looks much nicer 

Still not getting any data though 

The terminal now gives ever increasing numbers off:
"ser_read error Resource temporarily unavailable"
The title line of the WD window still says Comm OK #1. The data received button is not flashing.

Thanks for your help,

Martin

[Weather Display]

do you have a usb or true serial port?
is the wmr918 station running on AC power?

[thegasman]

It's a true serial port, weather station on ac power.
As I say, this exact hardware was working with WD on XP 2 days ago.

Thanks,

Martin

[Weather Display]

what shows under view, ws2010/ws2500 data setup?
if you select the wmr968 station type, does the data received light then flash?
(on restart)

[thegasman]

Hi,

Ok, under the data setup page it says:
Loaded all time records
Connecting comm port
Trying to open comm port 1  handle -> 16
Comm port connected OK

Changing to the WMR968 and restarting doesn't cause the data received light to start flash. The data logger says the same as above, plus 'Set comm port to 9600 OK'. If I click 'Get Data' in the logger it repeatedly scrolls 'trying to get data, Retrying 0'.

Thanks again for your help,

Martin

[Weather Display]

do not click on any buttons in the ws2010/ws2500 data setup screen
as they are not for your station type

does any other software pick up data?

[thegasman]

I haven't tried any other software under Linux. What would you suggest I try?
I tried a few programs under XP and they all worked fine.

Martin

[n7dq]

You might try validating serial communication with logserial.  You may want to check this thread out http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php/topic,36357.0.html just to validate that you are getting data down the serial port from the weather station.

Several things to check permissions on the serial port, use logserial to validate data flow and statserial to check the status of the serial port.

Not sure if this will but it might.

Mike - N7DQ

[thegasman]

Mike,

That thread looked very promising, as the problems are exactly the same as I'm experiencing. I thought I was going to get the problem solved, till I got to the punchline:
"I don't know what I did, it just started working."

Now that's no help to me I'm afraid! 

I've used minicom to see what's coming down the serial port (as I can't compile logserial), and I'm getting a regular feed of data from the weather station through the comm port OK.

I have tried everything in that thread, including amending permissions of ttyS0 and WeatherD, and running as super user. It's definately a problem with WD reading from the serial port though, because I get 'ser_read error. Resource temporarily unavailable' straight after initialisation.

I'm really stuck here. Any more ideas anybody?

Martin

[n7dq]

Martin,

One key thing is to change only one thing at a time and test.  Most common is making sure you have the right serial port with the correct permissions. 

It seems odd that if you have data coming through the minicom and running WD as root did not work.  One thought is that you are not using the right hardware port, do you have two serial ports on the box? 

My understanding of the ser_read error is that it is timeout message and may be an indicator that you are not actually talking to the serial port.

What is the reason you can't compile logserial?  I may have a perl script that I can configure to test the serial port but logserial is pretty good and it may take me some time to get the perl script in place.

Mike - N7DQ