*** READ THIS BEFORE YOU INSTALL WD ON SNOW LEOPARD ***-> Davis VP USB

I have gone nuts for two days trying to get WD to run with a Davis Vantage Pro on Snow Leopard. Thanks to Windy and Jmar, I got a few hints and a few kicks in the butt. I will share the secret that made it work.

If you are going to install a Davis unit, and if you have not installed WD yet, get the USB/UART driver from SiLabs and install it FIRST I don’t know why this works, but it does. Then install WD, configure your station and select the SLAB USB/UART driver and click it.

[color=red][font=Verdana][b] DO NOT, ** DO NOT ** use the Davis driver, as it is old.[/b][/font][/color].

I am sure Windy and Jmar can add to this comment, but unless you have nothing to do and don’t mind severe frustration, try this pearl and start enjoying WD sooner.

Thanks to all,

Ed

There is a new driver on the davis page as of today:
http://www.davisnet.com/support/weather/software_sftwr.asp

Did you try this as well?

No Casper, I did not, as it was not available at the time.

Davis doesn’t seem to care about Apple computers, and the tech actually told me they have no one in house that is tech savvy in Apple whatsoever.

It took me two days of going about it the hard way to get up and running, but Brian (poor ole Brian) and Windy helped along with Jmar and we are up and running.

Thanks for your input.

Ed

Great to see you got it all worked out Ed! Good post for new Davis and Snow Leopard users too!

Another question: did you install the Davis program Weatherlink at all?
or did you just install the usb driver from SiLabs and after that WD?

I did not use weatherlink. I started clean, went to Silicon Labs site and downloaded the updated driver. Installed that first and by itself, then reinstalled WD. Running like a screaming eagle now.

Worked for me as well.
thanks!

Well I did exactly what was suggested but it crashes as soon as I start the prog. Freezes & then crashes. Suggestions???

new installation of Snow on a clean machine?
first thing you did was installing the usb-driver?
connected the envoy or station after that?
then installed WD?
choose the right usb driver in setup?

In this order it should work

Critically important for Davis users- If you are either upgrading to Snow Leopard, OR installing the Davis drivers from either Davis or Silabs, then installing WD Mac after, you MUST repair permissions on the hard drive BEFORE installing WD Mac. One of the 3 combinations mentioned here is breaking the permissions on the /usr/lib/ folder and not allowing us to install the correct lib files. Then after repairing disk permissions, install WD Mac and proceed to set up normally. It’s ok if you already installed WD first and then came here and read this, you can reinstall again after performing the steps above.

To repair permissions - Go to Utilities folder, open Disk Utility, select only your MacIntosh HD (the system hard disk) and click on Repair Permissions. Should take about 10 minutes and you will likely get a ton of messages in the window. (Would be nice to know which of the drivers above is responsible so wecan inform the vendor) or if it’s a Snow related breakage, it will just say repairing /usr/lib/ and at least we will know.

This should be performed before AND after any system upgrade as good system maintenance, and after installing third party drivers such as mentioned above.

All the best

Jmar

Grrr followed instructions but I can’t get anything in the USB to serial except /Dev. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.

make sure the davis USB VP is connected to the Mac when installing the Silabs USB driver for the Mac

Yup it was plugged in during the install. I just can’t figure out what /dev is the weather station.

Any ideas? In windows 7 its assigned Com 3. What would it be in Mac OS?

Any ideas? In windows 7 its assigned Com 3. What would it be in Mac OS?

Yup it was plugged in during the install. I just can’t figure out what /dev is the weather station.


Hi I’m using this:
/dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART
(see attached picture)
Bertil


1.jpg

NBH,

Hmmm. Can you point me to the driver you used? Apparently I don’t have the correct one.

See here on this thread

http://discourse.weather-watch.com/p/327262
Bertil

Thanks,

Now next dumb question. How do I uninstall the old driver? I’m a Mac novice.

If it’s Davis drives you have?
As it says in the thread I linked to:

[quote]First uninstall the old drivers. The download of the old drivers from Davis has an uninstall feature. If you deleted this you may have to go back to Davis and download this again.

Remember after installing the new drivers you have to do to Control Panel > Com Ports> click on Refresh list of comports and select the URART to USB selection.

Hugh

Now that I’m an all Mac user, I have to run Weatherlink using a virtual app and it’s a PITA slow flea bitten mangy dog. Weatherlink is the only app that I can’t run on the Mac. Yes there is the Mac version but it doesn’t download and display the sunlight (radiation) sensor data. This is really a big oversight. How can you look at the weather; temperature, humidity, wind, rain etc. and not be able to see the most basic driver for the weather: sunlight. What are they thinking?
Am I missing something here?