WS-1001 data direct to WD?

I am not using USB, and don’t have that checked. Though I did try this unsuccessfully on Win10. But I suspect that Win 10 does not support connecting this weather station to USB, because lack of support in Win 10 for WinCE which means I don’t get to see the files. I did try with USB in Win 7 to confirm if this is Win 10 issue, and it seemed to work with Win 7. However, I need to get this going on Win 10 PC, so thus wanting to go the direct access approach.

See attached settings.


I am not sure that this will be due to Windows 10. There aren’t any reason that your WS connect to Windows 7 and not to Windows 10, it will connect to both without problem, or the reason maybe other than this. I have searched on Internet and other people haven’t any problem to connect Ambient Weather WS-1001 with USB to Windows 10. Maybe you have some drivers issue or maybe cable or connector.

You can check this: Connect and open Device Manager (right button on Windows Icon on menu bar, and the 6 item on the list). See on Device Manager what appears, because maybe when you connect apear some device with exclamation mark. If this happens, maybe is a driver issue.

Other thing that you can try is capture the packets using my program, the same method as I use for my IP OBSERVER clone that not has console. You only need to change the WU server address.

Ruben

@swainstm
I do have a test program to check on the direct IP connection
http://www.weather-display.com/downloadfiles/testmulticast.zip

Thanks Brian. Your program gave me a clue to what I believe is the cause of the problem. I have VM Workstation installed, and that installs a couple of virtual network adapters. When you “Testmulticast” tool came up, it auto selected the IP of 1 of these adapters, and of course nothing came back. If I change the IP address to the IP address of my LAN adapter, it all started working. So this gave me a clue, that maybe WD is selecting 1 of these Virtual adapters rather than the LAN adapter. To test the theory, I disabled these virtual adapters, and bang WD started working (once I added a rule to the McAfee Firewall to let the traffic back in).

This is ok, as a test workaround, but I need to try to get this working together if I can. So is there a way or tell WD which adapter to use, or can that option be added?

Thanks heaps.

Matthew

Thanks Ruben for the thoughts. I believe the Windows 10 issue is because I think to connect the Win CE device (ie WS-1001) you need “Windows Mobile Device Center” which I found some information that support for this has been depreciated in Win 10?? I think there might be some people who have worked around this (eg https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32052429/how-to-connect-a-windows-mobile-pda-to-windows-10), but in truth if I can get direct access working, it works around this issue, and I can go back to Windows 7 if I need to do a FW upgrade for the device to change things like wireless frequency.

But I am a bit curious if you are aware of Windows 10 people who are connected to the WS-1001 console via USB without all this hassle. Do you know if these people went to the steps above to manually install “Windows Mobile Device Center” or was there a simpler workaround.

BTW, when I plug the device in, the PC beeps with the sound it makes when new device is added, and there is no sign of error. But I also can’t find the device in device manager, and not sure what it should be named or what category it should show up as. I do get a new device called “microsoft” under “Unspecified” category in “Devices and Printers”. If I double click on it, it shows the Hardware as “Microsoft USB Sync” and type “Mobile Devices”. But I can’t see anywhere where this is mounted int he files system that I can browse?? I am guessing this is what I need “Windows Mobile Device Center” for or am I missing something.

Cheers Matthew

So is there a way or tell WD which adapter to use, or can that option be added?
what id I added where you can set the IP address to use (override)?

Yes, some way of overriding WD selecting the wrong interface. I have confirmed with Wireshark capture that WD is trying to find the ws-1001 on the virtual interface (192.168.73.255 in my case which is the virtual interface), and not the LAN interface which is 192.168.10.255.

Thanks heaps.

Well, sorry but I can’t tell you much more because I don’t have the station. But people seem to connect to USB and browse files without any problem. For example here: WS-1001 having trouble with firmware 2.2.9, the second entry:

I verified the updates were going in by looking at the files in NAND memory when hooked up by USB to Windows 10.

Following this link on the post you put, MS say this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10/windows-mobile-device-center-compatibility-with/95c017d8-c243-48a1-bbdc-afb77255ca7f
So, Sync Center is also on Windows 10 and maybe this allow you to connect.

Yes, looks like you have been doing similar googling to me to find answer. I did see that post previously, but could not work out how he got that going. Maybe he did the manual install similar to the link I posted?? Anyway, it was a good prompter for me, and I have left a post in that thread to see if he can give an insight into what he had to do.

FYI, I have previously had a poke around the Sync Center thing, but could not see any way to get the file system mounted.

Anyway, hopefully I can get insights from StratosDog on the other thread, because it would be nice to connect via USB for upgrades, and tweaking the configuration without having to go back to old Win 7. But if not, it is not the end of the world, and I hope that Brian will be able to resolve my unique issue with more than 1 interface, and Wifi direct in future versions which I hope will let me choose the correct LAN interface.

Thanks again for you help.

Cheers Matthew

try this update
where you can set the multicast IP to use
and tick to use that…then click on close/save
then restart WD

Where do I get the update?

Thanks
Matthew

oops
http://www.weather-display.com/downloadfiles/weatherdisplaytest.zip

Thanks.

That is very close, but not quite right yet. It is sending packets on the right interface now. But the packet it is sending is to 192.168.1.255, which is the default address you had, and not the 192.168.10.255 that I set for the interface.

Cheers
Matthew


wd-ws-1001-wireshark.PNG

is WD receiving data now though , or not (its a bit confusing)

No. WD is not receiving any data.

This is actually because ws-1001 is not even receiving the packet because WD is sending to 192.168.1.255 and not 192.168.10.255. Although WD is taking my 192.168.10.255 configuration in the configuration (I can go out of config and back in, and it is still configured), it looks like it is using your default 192.168.1.255, rather than 192.168.10.255 I have configured.

Now from a technical networking point of view, when a packet is sent to 192.168.1.255 on 192.168.10.0/255 network, it is not even a broadcast. The TCP/IP stack will take the destination 192.168.1.255 and look up its routing table for that network. Because I do not have a network that 192.168.1.255 fits in connected directly to my PC, it will forward this packet to the default GW (default GW is just the destination to send all packets PC does not have a specific network connect). In my case, my default gateway is on the 192.168.10.0/24 network, so this packet will be forward to my default gateway (192.168.10.1) via layer 2 unicast. Because it is a layer 2 unicast packet, nothing else on 192.168.10.0/24 will even see this packet including the WS-1001, so it has no way to respond.

My network is 192.168.10.0/24 so WD needs to send to 192.168.10.255 that I have configured (broadcast address for that segment).

Cheers
Matthew

Further to my post above, there still seems to be a bug with the configuration of the Ambient/Digigtech/Aercus WS1001 Wifi Pro.

My network is 192.168.192.0/22 which the weatherstation is on. The broadcast address for this network is therefore 192.168.195.255. This is the the broadcast address that WD needs to use to initiate communication to the Wifi Pro can send its data back to WD.

I am trying to get it going via “Use via WIFI direct (easiest)”. So I have checked that box, but it does not work. So I also file out the broadcast address 192.168.195.255 and check the “Use this multicast IP instead”. But it still does not work. BUT if I click on debug, and then manually put in 192.168.195.255 in the “Local IP address” box, suddenly it starts working and I can close debug and all continues to work fine, until of course I reboot the PC and then I am back to square 1. So I suspect their is a little big and WD is not picking up the programmed “Use this multicast IP instead”. Using debug seems to be manual work around to initiate the connection. But does not work automatically which is a problem when the PC reboots.

Can you have a look at and fix this little problem?

Thanks heaps.

try this update
http://www.weather-display.com/downloadfiles/weatherdisplaytest.zip
no gaurantees

That has done the trick. Will that fix be rolled into the normal build at some stage?

By the way…thanks for the very quick response and patch :slight_smile:

HI
yes, that fix will be in the next release
good that works :slight_smile: