WD Crashes periodically and now will not restart

I have recently taken over responsibility for the IT at our local National Coastwatch Institution branch. We have used WD for a number of years and a constant feature has been periodic but unpredictable crashes. We have a procedure for watchkeepers to follow in the event of a crash which means re-booting the PC after attempting to close WD. In most cases this works and the data is intact which is important as our data is used by the local council and also by Southampton University for beach erosion modelling.

We have a HP PC with 8MB RAM and 250GB SSD running Windows 10. All updates are applied automatically. We have WD 10.37S44 and I keep it up to date. We have ample free disk space and there are no obvious errors in the windows logs. We have a Davis Vantage Vue station with datalogger connected directly to the PC by USB with a ferrite choke. There is no other software running on the PC other than Edge.

Last Friday, WD crashed once more but would not restart. The display came up with blank data with the exception of daily max gust,max gust last hour, max average windspeed and maximum rain rate. The Davis VP Data History Extraction window appeared, the counter got to 1 and then the window disappeared and WD went into sulk mode. The debug log gave no clues. I have made several attempts to get the system restarted including:
deleting the .inf files in case of corrupted data
restoring the logs and .inf files from backup
setting the Data logger feature to restore the data from 1 minute after the crash

I have now resorted to extracting the data from the datalogger form the beginning of the month. 11800 records have been restored so far after 14 hours of running and I assume that there will be about 39000 records to restore which will complete in another 35 hours.

Firstly, how can I determine the cause of the crashes.
Secondly, what process should I follow the next time that I have this experience.

Hi
make sure WD is set to do the daily databackups
so that you can then use the last wdisplay.ini settings file, from the databack up folder , if the normal one, where WD is installed, gets corrupted

Hi Brian,

Thanks for that. Any ideas on how to solve the crashing problem?

John

Hi
I could get you a version with the some crash detection code
but you could try and narrow down what is causing the crash
e,g by turning off functions that you have set in WD?

Did windows do an update that day, if so check your barometer offset. I had a similar problem and reset barometer offset.

Hi Brian,

I can’t get into WD as the extraction process is still running after 4 days. The counter got up to around 38000, turned negative and counted back to 0 then started counting up again! When will it complete. If I aborted at this stage, what would be the effect?

Crash detection code would seem to be the best way forward.

John

Hi zeppline,

The last windows update was a week before the crash so it seems unlikely that was the cause.

Thanks anyway

just click on abort
and then under control panel, data logger, turn the switch off there
then restart WD
and see if live data arrives
(and see what shows under view, debug info)

Aborted data extraction. Closed WD. Copied in last backup of wdisplay.ini prior to crash. Started WD. Extraction box opens, record number shows a 1. After a few seconds, the box disappears and WD shows blank dials with LEDs solid red. Debug info:

Doing checking of time zone calculation
Daylight saving in use
Loaded all time records
connected OK to com port 3
restarting timer
connected OK to com port 3
*sending DMPAFT
Asking for archived data download
re starting download, timer
restarting timer
connected OK to com port 3
*sending DMPAFT
Asking for archived data download
re starting download, timer
restarting timer
connected OK to com port 3
*sending DMPAFT
Asking for archived data download
re starting download, timer
restarting timer
connected OK to com port 3
*sending DMPAFT
Asking for archived data download
re starting download, timer
restarting timer
connected OK to com port 3
*sending DMPAFT
Asking for archived data download
re starting download, timer
restarting timer
connected OK to com port 3
*time out with requesting DMPAFT
Aborted
Asking for archived data download
All data downloaded or did not sync correct!
formating the VP data
vp data read in 1
Weather station type number 31

turn off the switch under control panel ,data logger
then restart WD
and then see if live data shows
(and if not, then set under setup, advanced/misc, to log the raw data, so that extra info is shown under view, debug info)

Hi Brian,

Done. Still no data. Debug info :

Doing checking of time zone calculation
Daylight saving in use
Loaded all time records
connected OK to com port 3

I guess that I didn’t save after disabling the logger the first time.

does the data received light flash at all?
is that the correct com port to use?
any error under view, program event log?

data received light steady red
COM3 is the port assigned to USB bridge in Device Manager
nothing in the program event log

No configuration changes have made (knowingly) since the system was last working.

presumably the data extraction process would not have run for so long if there had been an issue with the COM port assignment?

I use TeamViewer for remote access to the machine. Would it help if I granted you access to the machine via TeamViewer??

Hi, yes , email or PM me your team viewer access

Hi Brian,

Is it worth doing a complete re-install. If so, should I remove any registry keys before re-installing.

I logged in
the com port that the davis station would normaly be connected to the pc is not available
you can see that windows device manager
(i.e only com port 1 is available)

maybe the davis station has lost power or the connection to the pc has come loose or similar

Problem solved, thank you.

It turns out that the DIL header which carries the USB connection in the Davis console had come loose. Re-inserting the header securely has fixed the problem. :smiley: