weewx fails to boot because of station name?

[Chris Richmond]

I bought a VantageVue, and I thought I had this working once, but trying to get weewx going again,

and it's failing to boot.  It's set up almost exactly like the VP2 I've had running a couple of years.  The relevant

config is below, as are the errors.  It turns out that the station_type name has to match the DRIVER_NAME in the

associated driver.py.  With the try/except in engine.py commented out I can see this:

    return VantageService(engine, config_dict)

  File "/home/weewx/bin/weewx/drivers/vantage.py", line 1828, in __init__

    Vantage.__init__(self, **config_dict[DRIVER_NAME])

  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/configobj.py", line 554, in __getitem__

    val = dict.__getitem__(self, key)

KeyError: 'Vantage'

There's no config section called Vantage, so configobj fails the look-up.  Once I changed

the station_type to Vantage, I get past this and fail for not being sudo'd, which is fine at

the moment since it isn't related.  I guess after all this messing around, I didn't put 2 + 2 together

that the station_type value was something more that a config section name.  The basic log

message wasn't particularly helpful either, and the stack dumps take some getting used to.

Chris

Without the try/except commented, this is all that shows up in the syslog:

Jun 18 05:58:45 pi2c weewx[3509]: engine: Initializing weewx version 3.9.1

Jun 18 05:58:45 pi2c weewx[3509]: engine: Using Python 2.7.13 (default, Sep 26 2018, 18:42:22) #012[GCC 6.3.0 20170516]

Jun 18 05:58:45 pi2c weewx[3509]: engine: Platform Linux-4.19.42+-armv6l-with-debian-9.9

Jun 18 05:58:45 pi2c weewx[3509]: engine: Locale is 'C'

Jun 18 05:58:45 pi2c weewx[3509]: engine: pid file is /home/weewx/vue.pid

Jun 18 05:58:45 pi2c weewx[3513]: engine: Using configuration file /home/weewx/weewx.conf

Jun 18 05:58:46 pi2c weewx[3513]: engine: Debug is 1

Jun 18 05:58:46 pi2c weewx[3513]: engine: Initializing engine

Jun 18 05:58:46 pi2c weewx[3513]: engine: Loading station type VantageVue (weewx.drivers.vantage)

Jun 18 05:58:46 pi2c weewx[3513]: import of driver failed: 'Vantage' (<type 'exceptions.KeyError'>)

Jun 18 05:58:46 pi2c weewx[3513]: engine: Unable to load driver: 'Vantage'

Jun 18 05:58:46 pi2c weewx[3513]:     ****  Exiting...

pi2c_/home/weewx> more weewx.conf

debug = 1

WEEWX_ROOT = /home/weewx

# Whether to log successful operations

log_success = True

# Whether to log unsuccessful operations

log_failure = True

socket_timeout = 20

version = 3.9.1

[Station]

    location = Oregon 97007

    latitude = 45.46

    longitude = -122.88

    altitude = 335, foot

    station_type = VantageVue

    rain_year_start = 8

    week_start = 6

    station_url = http://filer2.chaos.home/vueweather

[VantageVue]

    type = serial

    port = /dev/serial0

    baudrate = 19200

    iss_id = 2

    timeout = 4

    wait_before_retry = 1.2

    max_tries = 4

    model_type = 2

    driver = weewx.drivers.vantage

[mwall]

On Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 10:15:32 AM UTC-4, Chris Richmond wrote:

I bought a VantageVue, and I thought I had this working once, but trying to get weewx going again,

and it's failing to boot.  It's set up almost exactly like the VP2 I've had running a couple of years.  The relevant

config is below, as are the errors.  It turns out that the station_type name has to match the DRIVER_NAME in the

associated driver.py.

that depends on the driver.

VantageVue, VantagePro, etc are all served by the Vantage driver; you should use Vantage as the station_type 

there must be a stanza in the configuration file whose name matches whatever you specify for station_type.  the driver field in that stanza indicates where to find the driver.  most drivers use the station_type as a key for many configuration options.

although editing the configuration directly will work just fine, you can avoid these issues and ensure that all of the per-driver options are set properly by using the wee_config tool (see the weewx user guide for details).  it works with any driver that implements the right methods.

for many types of hardware, the wee_device utility will let you talk directly with the hardware to change its settings.

m

[Chris Richmond]

Thanks.  I'm suspecting the time it did work was when I reinstalled and used the generated config.

Since this case is about finding config data, the block that failed could be getting the config section

by getting the value from station_type = <value> in Station, then doing the lookup.  That would disconnect

the DRIVEE_NAME from the config section name (for better or worse).  If there are more than a couple of

other places where driver name is used like that, the discussion is over.  :^)

Chris