Upgrade from weewx 4.6.2 to 4.8, can i use the same config file?

[f4n...@gmail.com]

When upgrading weewx, which is the normal procedure, keep or merge files? Or can I just use configs that i created earlier with weewx 4.6.2?

Also, I adapted some skin confs for my sdr setup and use weewx-multi, can I just keep the old skin confs or are there any new values for weewx 4.8?

Just to make sure before upgrading

[matthew wall]

On Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 6:15:16 AM UTC-4 f4n...@gmail.com wrote:

When upgrading weewx, which is the normal procedure, keep or merge files? Or can I just use configs that i created earlier with weewx 4.6.2?

use 'keep my changes' if you want to manually process any differences.  in this case, the standard-for-the-new-release conf file will be saved so that you can manually compare.

use 'merge files' if you want to accept new features and options without reviewing them.  in this case, your customized conf file will be saved in case you want to manually compare or revert.

in theory you should be safe to choose either option.  new features should always have sane defaults, so if you use your existing config the new features should just work, or should be disabled by default.  changes to existing settings have backward-compatible syntax whenever possible - if a configuration option must change with no backward-compatible option, it will be noted in the upgrade page in the docs.  if there is change to behavior, that will be noted in the upgrade page.

best practice for skins is to make a copy of the skin, then make changes to that copy.  that way you can always easily compare to the original, and easily switch between the original and your modifications, or even compare both running at the same time.  this is true whether you modify skins that ship with weewx, or skins that you obtain from other sources.

best practice for data is to make a copy of your database(s) before doing an upgrade.  for a standard install, that means copying the 'weewx.sdb' sqlite database.  the installation process never touches the database, but it is good to keep snapshots of your data.

we work very hard to maintain backward compatibility, but sometimes we miss things.  so thank you for your patience.

 

Also, I adapted some skin confs for my sdr setup and use weewx-multi, can I just keep the old skin confs or are there any new values for weewx 4.8?

the upgrade page in the weewx documentation lists all of the changes that you should consider in an upgrade.

 

[matthew wall]

forgot to include the link to the upgrade page in the docs.  here it is:

http://weewx.com/docs/upgrading.htm

[matthew wall]

On Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 6:15:16 AM UTC-4 f4n...@gmail.com wrote:

Also, I adapted some skin confs for my sdr setup and use weewx-multi, can I just keep the old skin confs or are there any new values for weewx 4.8?

there are quite a few changes to the Seasons skin, but those were introduced in 4.6.  we made the skin more generic by parameterizing variables, so that it *should* adapt automatically to most sensor suites with most weather stations.  it is also easier to use with non-weather devices, such as power monitors, solar/battery monitoring, tide/river/tank monitoring, although there are still some corner cases to resolve for those.

this was a major change to the seasons skin.  it reduced the amount of code, and eliminated many of the html/cheetah copy-paste blocks.

unfortunately this is not detailed in the upgrade guide - we need to create the documentation for this at some point...

[f4n...@gmail.com]

Thanks for all the info and clarifications! So I'll try it out following the best practice steps. Will have to find some time for it