Need help installing WeeWX. IPv4 address problem?

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Bill Butler

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Jan 23, 2020, 7:47:51 PM1/23/20
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I recently tried to install WeeWX on my new Linux (Cinnamon Mint 18) computer in an attempt to transfer Davis Vantage Vue (with WeatherLinkIP) display/control from my old Windows 7 computer to my new Linux computer. I copied the instructions at http://www.weewx.com/docs/debian.htm to the terminal, but the installation failed – presumably due to the different addresses of the two computers on my home network. Please see the large picture of the log at http://durangobill.com/TempPictures/WeewxErrors.jpg – especially the last 4 lines. (or the attached file)

I originally set up the Vantage Vue on my old Windows 7 computer several years ago.
Its IPv4 Address is displayed as: 192.168.0.219
There is also an IPv4 Default Gateway at: 192.168.0.1

The IPv4 Address on my new Linux computer is: 192.168.0.143
(And so much easier to find)

Both computers have Ethernet (wired) connections to a CenturyLink PK5001Z router. (GUI address 192.168.0.1)

Can anyone tell me what I should do to get WeeWX up and running on my new Linux Computer?
After WeeWX is up and running, is there any way I can move the historical Vantage Vue weather data from my old Windows 7 computer to my new Linux computer?
(Note, I can write a “quickie” “C” program to input the old data and write it out in whatever format is needed for WeeWX. Physical transfer of files is not a problem.) 

WeewxErrors.jpg

Bill Butler

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Jan 24, 2020, 4:44:03 PM1/24/20
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Tried a few experiments - nothing worked. The Vantage Vue still is viable on my old Windows 7 computer, so I'll continue to run the reports there.

Purged WeeWX off the Linux computer.

vince

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Jan 24, 2020, 8:14:30 PM1/24/20
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On Friday, January 24, 2020 at 1:44:03 PM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
Tried a few experiments - nothing worked. The Vantage Vue still is viable on my old Windows 7 computer, so I'll continue to run the reports there.

Purged WeeWX off the Linux computer.


Whatever makes you happy.

That said, you really provided insufficient data (and perhaps patience, but I know it's frustrating) to have us know enough about your setup to try to help.

Some thoughts:
 - you could install weewx, so your host can get to Internet.  Good.
 - but you can't connect to the .10 address on your LAN - is that 'really' the Weatherlink IP address ?  Or did you typo it in weewx.conf ?
 - if it 'is' the real address, no-route-to-host typically is a messed up subnet mask someplace.
 - and you're also actively blocking things via a firewall, so you could be blocking reaching the Weatherlink IP maybe

The one thing that I did notice is the no-route message has a trailing '.' character in the address.   I'm guessing you typo'd weewx.conf

Try pinging 192.168.0.10 from your linux box and see if it responds.  If it does, you're either firewalling and blocking the traffic, or you had typo'd weewx.conf


Bill Butler

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Jan 24, 2020, 9:47:03 PM1/24/20
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I’ve tried the following experiments.

The install process seems to go thru OK up to the last prompt which is the IPv4 address.

I’ve tried running the whole process using:
1)  The default 192.168.0.10   (Which doesn’t seem to match anything)
2) 192.168.0.143        (Which is what the network info gives me on my Linux computer)
3) 192.168.0.1            (Which is what is on my Centurylink router)
4) 192.168.0.219        (The network info on my old Windows 7 computer)

All of the above produce the same “No route to host” sequence of messages.

I have just tried all 4 of the above experiments with the firewall set to “off” which seems to have made “slight” progress. I now get a “refused” message using the address 192.168.0.143 (Please see picture at http://durangobill.com/TempPictures/WeeWXerrorRefused.jpg or the attached file.) Note that this is different from the first picture.

If other additional documentation would help, please let me know what might be relevant.

Notes: All addresses used the numerical format (above) with no trailing "."
I've turned the firewall back "on" pending further experiments.
WeeWXerrorRefused.jpg

vince

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Jan 24, 2020, 10:33:02 PM1/24/20
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On Friday, January 24, 2020 at 6:47:03 PM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
I’ve tried the following experiments.

The install process seems to go thru OK up to the last prompt which is the IPv4 address.

I’ve tried running the whole process using:
1)  The default 192.168.0.10   (Which doesn’t seem to match anything)
2) 192.168.0.143        (Which is what the network info gives me on my Linux computer)
3) 192.168.0.1            (Which is what is on my Centurylink router)
4) 192.168.0.219        (The network info on my old Windows 7 computer)

All of the above produce the same “No route to host” sequence of messages.

I have just tried all 4 of the above experiments with the firewall set to “off” which seems to have made “slight” progress. I now get a “refused” message using the address 192.168.0.143 (Please see picture at http://durangobill.com/TempPictures/WeeWXerrorRefused.jpg or the attached file.) Note that this is different from the first picture.

If other additional documentation would help, please let me know what might be relevant.

At this point you're basically firing a shotgun multiple times and praying you hit something.   You're just firing away blindly. 

You have no chance of success taking that approach. You need to slow down and do things in an orderly fashion.

So lets see where you're at...
  • Your windows computer is 192.168.0.219 (fine but totally irrelevant to weewx on your linux box)
  • Your linux computer is 192.168.0.143
  • Your router is 192.168.0.1
  • What is the ip address of the Weatherlink IP device you want weewx to connect to ?
Look at your weewx.conf file.  You will see a stanza that looks something like the following:

[Vantage]
    # This section is for the Davis Vantage series of weather stations.

    # Connection type: serial or ethernet
    #  serial (the classic VantagePro)
    #  ethernet (the WeatherLinkIP)
    type = serial

    # If the connection type is serial, a port must be specified:
    #   Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat, Fedora, and SuSE:
    #     /dev/ttyUSB0 is a common USB port name
    #     /dev/ttyS0   is a common serial port name
    #   BSD:
    #     /dev/cuaU0   is a common serial port name
    port = /dev/ttyUSB0

    # If the connection type is ethernet, an IP Address/hostname is required:
    host = 1.2.3.4

Yours probably sets connection_type = ethernet which is fine.   I 'think' you need to change the 'host = n.n.n.n' line to have the ip address of your Weatherlink IP device, then weewx should likely work unless your firewalling blocks it from working or you have something pretty obscure in your network.

Start slowly.  Don't change more than one thing at a time.  Breathe.
  • what is the ip address of the Weatherlink IP device ?
  • from the Windows box, can you ping that address ?
  • from the Linux box, can you ping that address ?
  • (if so, your network is ok and your computers are ok....probably...)

If your Linux box can ping the Weatherlink IP device, make sure you have connection_type = ethernet, and the 'host = n.n.n.n' line should have the 'target' device IP address in it....not the weewx host address.  That's probably where you're getting all wrapped around the axle.

Give it a try.

vince

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Jan 24, 2020, 10:34:50 PM1/24/20
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Slight edit - of course it is 'type = ' not 'connection_type = '.  Sorry for the typo in the reply above.

Bill Butler

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Jan 24, 2020, 11:39:54 PM1/24/20
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Q: “what is the ip address of the Weatherlink IP device ?”
A: I haven’t got the faintest idea. I’ve been following the instructions at http://www.weewx.com/docs/debian.htm I just copied and pasted the instructions to the terminal.

As for what is in the config file, I’ll try another install tomorrow (Saturday) and post the results.

p q

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Jan 24, 2020, 11:54:34 PM1/24/20
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Your router will have a list of devices on the network. Take a look.

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vince

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Jan 25, 2020, 9:57:25 AM1/25/20
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On Friday, January 24, 2020 at 8:39:54 PM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
Q: “what is the ip address of the Weatherlink IP device ?”
A: I haven’t got the faintest idea. I’ve been following the instructions at http://www.weewx.com/docs/debian.htm I just copied and pasted the instructions to the terminal.

As for what is in the config file, I’ll try another install tomorrow (Saturday) and post the results.


Your Windows PC's software had to have that in there 'someplace'.

Basically you need to tell weewx on the Linux box what it needs to know in order to connect to your weather station.  If it's a network device like the Weatherlink IP, that would mean the network address of the remote device.

One link I can find is https://www.manula.com/manuals/pws/davis-kb/1/en/topic/weatherlinkip-configuration - maybe that'll help.  Looks like the WeatherlinkIP software has a 'find' button to locate the ip address of the Weatherlink device on your network.   Look in section 5.12.2 in the link above.


Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 11:42:33 AM1/25/20
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I've attached the conf file. My answers to the conf prompts look like what I entered. I'll get the IP address of the Weatherlink IP device when I have a chance.

A minor complication - Last night's "experiments" turned off my wife's TV/DVR recorder. It seems to be OK this morning, but the TV/DVR (from DISH) runs instructions thru the same router/home network that the computer uses.
weewx.conf

vince

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Jan 25, 2020, 11:52:59 AM1/25/20
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On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 8:42:33 AM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
I've attached the conf file. My answers to the conf prompts look like what I entered. I'll get the IP address of the Weatherlink IP device when I have a chance.


Looks good other than the ip address being incorrect.

I'd suggest changing debug=0 to debug=1 at least for a while.  That'll give more logging info if we need it.

 
A minor complication - Last night's "experiments" turned off my wife's TV/DVR recorder. It seems to be OK this morning, but the TV/DVR (from DISH) runs instructions thru the same router/home network that the computer uses.


Impossible to guess what you touched or how.   The one thing I would say is that you 'never' want to configure two computers with the same IP address on the same network.  That way causes lots of things to go very irrevocably stupid.

Figure out the ip address of you Weatherlink device, edit it in, restart weewx, it should work fine....

Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 12:45:35 PM1/25/20
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It looks like the Weatherlink IP address is 00:1D:0A:00:BB:D1 (See attached picture)
(Linux is so much easier than Windows 7 for screen captures) 

Should I change the
host = 192.168.0.143
statement in the conf file to
host =  00:1D:0A:00:BB:D1
or would it be better to purge the current installation and then reinstall using
 00:1D:0A:00:BB:D1
for the address?
Windows7ComPort.jpg

p q

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Jan 25, 2020, 1:18:07 PM1/25/20
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Well that's the MAC address not the Ip address. Mac is a unique id for that device and the ip address is usually set by the router. What do you get if you click on the ip address radio button?

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p q

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Jan 25, 2020, 1:20:54 PM1/25/20
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Oh and the ip address is like 168.10.25.10 decimal numbers as opposed to hexadecimal separated by colons

vince

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Jan 25, 2020, 1:53:18 PM1/25/20
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On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 9:45:35 AM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
It looks like the Weatherlink IP address is 00:1D:0A:00:BB:D1 (See attached picture)

No, that's the MAC (hardware) address of the board.  We need the tcp/ip address associated with that.

Open a cmd window and type "arp -a" which should give you the arp table.  The ip address will be on the line with that MAC address. 

vince

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Jan 25, 2020, 1:54:26 PM1/25/20
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On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 9:45:35 AM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
or would it be better to purge the current installation and then reinstall

Please stop uninstalling and reinstalling.
You are 'one' entry on 'one' line from working.

Patience.  Breathe.  Really.
 

Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 1:57:20 PM1/25/20
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Neither a left click or right click TCP/IP button does anything. If I click on the "Remote Device IP Address" (further down the screen), a blank field opens up to the right of the button. (I could enter something there, but no information is displayed.)

If I click on "Web Download", the 2 fields to the right open up - again with no information. Right clicking doesn't do anything for either of these fields.
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Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 4:07:38 PM1/25/20
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Got the following back from the arp -a command

(Please see http://durangobill.com/TempPictures/arpaFromWin7.jpg or the attached picture)

arpaFromWin7.jpg

p q

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Jan 25, 2020, 4:26:48 PM1/25/20
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Look at the mac address in the physical address list and you'll see the ip address 192.168.0.188

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Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 5:09:38 PM1/25/20
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Changed the line in the conf file to read:
host = 192.168.0.188
as per the attached file (or  http://durangobill.com/TempPictures/WeewxConf.jpg )

What do I do next?

On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 2:26:48 PM UTC-7, p q wrote:
Look at the mac address in the physical address list and you'll see the ip address 192.168.0.188

On Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 1:07 PM Bill Butler <lisa...@centurylink.net> wrote:

Got the following back from the arp -a command

(Please see http://durangobill.com/TempPictures/arpaFromWin7.jpg or the attached picture)


On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 11:53:18 AM UTC-7, vince wrote:
On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 9:45:35 AM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
It looks like the Weatherlink IP address is 00:1D:0A:00:BB:D1 (See attached picture)

No, that's the MAC (hardware) address of the board.  We need the tcp/ip address associated with that.

Open a cmd window and type "arp -a" which should give you the arp table.  The ip address will be on the line with that MAC address. 

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WeewxConf.jpg

rich T

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Jan 25, 2020, 5:11:34 PM1/25/20
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You could try "Advanced IP Scanner" to find all your addresses within your network.

vince

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Jan 25, 2020, 5:39:39 PM1/25/20
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On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 2:09:38 PM UTC-8, Bill Butler wrote:
Changed the line in the conf file to read:
host = 192.168.0.188
as per the attached file (or  http://durangobill.com/TempPictures/WeewxConf.jpg )

What do I do next?

c'mon Bill - nobody is this helpless.

You edited the config file. Great.
Stop and restart weewx.  It should work.
 

Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 7:58:51 PM1/25/20
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Rebooted the computer and then entered: sudo weewxd weewx.conf
Got a “No such file or directory” error when I tried to run weewx.

The conf file is currently at: /etc/weewx/weewx.conf

Should I put a copy of it at: /home/bill/weewx.conf   ?
WeewxRunError.jpg

p q

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Jan 25, 2020, 8:04:22 PM1/25/20
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I don't know how you have your paths set up. Try putting the fully qualified path to weewx.conf, but I suspect you'll get some other error because something else will be looking for that path. 

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Paul McGeorge

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Jan 25, 2020, 9:09:09 PM1/25/20
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Your weewx.conf file is right where it belongs.  After the reboot you can check the status with this command

sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog

You should see the device connected and something like this:
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: WOW: Posting not enabled.
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: AWEKAS: Posting not enabled.
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: WeatherCloud: service version is 0.11
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: WeatherCloud: Data will be uploaded for id=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: OWM: service version is 0.8
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: OWM: Data will be uploaded for XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: Windy: version is 0.5
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: restx: Windy: Data will be uploaded to https://stations.windy.com/pws/update
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: engine: Starting up weewx version 3.9.2
Jan 25 18:59:24 garagepi3 weewx[25463]: engine: Starting main packet loop.

 Let it run 5 to 10 minutes and then check for the webpage as described in http://www.weewx.com/docs/debian.htm

If you want or need to run it directly make sure you stop weewx first with
sudo /etc/init.d/weewx stop

then run direct with

sudo weewxd /etc/weewx/weewx.conf

You should see loop data if you are connected

you can exit with Control C

then restart weewx with

sudo /etc/init.d/weewx start




Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 10:19:02 PM1/25/20
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First, I would like to thank everyone for trying to help.

As of now this is the current status:
/usr/bin    contains multiple weewx files
/etc/weewx exists    with multiple folders and the 2 conf files. weewx.conf looks OK
/etc/weewx/skins    exists with 6 subfolders
/var/lib/weewx/   does not exist
/var/www/html/weewx/   does not exist
/usr/share/doc/weewx/     exists with multiple folders and files
/usr/share/doc/weewx/examples/   exists with multiple files and folders
/usr/bin/wee_*   has multiple files

The two missing folders do not show up even after after I enter
sudo /etc/init.d/weewx start
and let it run for awhile.

However, System Monitor doesn’t show any weewx program running.

At this point I have finally run out the will to try further. After posting this message, I will be purging weewx from the computer , and that will be the end of it. Again, thank you to everyone for trying to help, but at this point I’ve given up on ever getting it to run.

Greg from Oz

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Jan 25, 2020, 10:46:18 PM1/25/20
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On your first picture you have the linux machine being blocked by UFW the firewall


Don't know if you have fixed that or not.....

Bill Butler

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Jan 25, 2020, 11:46:03 PM1/25/20
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I fixed that fairly early in the game, but there were other problems. At this point I've given up on trying to run weewx. I've delete every file on my computer that contains the letters weewx and won't be reinstalling the package again.

Andrew Milner

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Jan 26, 2020, 1:06:07 AM1/26/20
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Well that is your choice - but I suspect your problems are more to do with using Linux instead of windows rather than having anything whatsoever to do with weewx.  Weewx is fantastic software - all that you had to do was tell weewx the ip address of your weather station - but that seemed to be beyond your abilities for some reason.  Linix is not windows - you do not go around rebooting linux just in order to restart a program for example.

Well I think not using weewx will be your loss - maybe you should have made sure you understood linux basics before going down the weewx route!!

when you got your last error the chances are it was because you did not specify the full path to weewx.conf, and at the time you were in your home directory rather than in the weewx home directory.  As I said before, knowing Linux basics would have helped you a lot!!

Never mind - you have made your decision.  Should you decide to try again remember to go one step at a time and follow instructions exactly.  The weewx documenttion is really good and all the users are always willing to help - but go one step at a time.

As I said before I suspect your issues were nothing whatsoever to do with weewx but were connected with your lack of knowledge of linux basics.

rich T

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Jan 26, 2020, 8:51:19 AM1/26/20
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Try installing using the setup.py method. 
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