New Router, New Fiber and 4.1 Weewx

[John S]

Weewx 4.1.1 running on ubuntu 18.04 with a Vantage PRO station.

   INFO __main__: Initializing weewx version 4.1.1

   Using Python 2.7.17 (default, Jul 20 2020, 15:37:01) #012[GCC 7.5.0]

   Platform Linux-4.15.0-112-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-18.04-bionic

   weewx.drivers.vantage: Driver version is 3.2.1

I waited for a long time for fiber to be installed in the neighborhood and when it happened I knew there would be a few challenges due to the new modem.

I documented all my firewall settings from the old router and after a bit of twiddling was able to punch in the right setup on the new SMART/RG SR516ac for all my needs.

Or so I thought, weewx would intermittently fail with a driver load error

ERROR weewx.drivers.vantage: ip-read error: timed out

and

ERROR weewx.drivers.vantage: LOOP try #4; error: Expected 99 characters; got zero instead

and

ERROR weewx.drivers.vantage: Socket error while opening port 22222 to ethernet host 192.168.42.66.

 CRITICAL __main__: Unable to load driver: [Errno 113] No route to host

I had set that Vantage to a static IP address from the pool on the router.

So I upgraded to 4.1.1 just to see if there was any advantage there. It reacted pretty much the same, unpredictable disconnects which required a restart.

I rechecked my router setup, I had opened port 22 and so I added 22222. That helped a little bit but I was still getting dropped.

I finally changed a couple of things in the weewx.conf:

# How long to wait before timing out a socket (FTP, HTTP) connection
# was 60
socket_timeout = 360

and

# How long to wait for a response from the station before giving up (in
    # seconds; must be greater than 2) (was 10)
    timeout = 100

With these two changes my setup doesn't lose its connection and keeps trying to connect. I can see in the signal quality graphic on line that there are some burps but it seems to recover well, currently up and running over 8 days. I'm hopeful that this is it, and will continue to function properly.

I also hope this might help others who can't maintain a good connection to their Vantage PRO.

[John S]

This didn't end as well as I thought it would. After running OK for a few weeks, things went wonky again. I do not have a good idea of why, I did upgrade to 4.2.0 but don't think that really had anything to do with it, in fact, I was hoping it would fix the ip-read errors I'm seeing.

The scenario is pretty much the same, the system chugs along well for a few hours then I see either the ip-read error or a broken pipe error message and the software doesn't recover nor does it finish its loops and publish data.

But, I have another work around that is working fine for the last 24 hours. While trouble shooting this, I noticed weewx will collect any old interval data and store it in the db, this is normal behaviour. The ip-read error or broken pipe error occurs later in the cycle.

So, if I run weewx_reports /etc/weewx/weewx.conf, that will pick up all the data and format the output then FTP it to my website.

I added a few lines to the crontab to do this for me:

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# Example of job definition:
# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# |  |  |  |  |
# *  *  *  *  * user-name command to be executed

0,15,30,45 *    * * *  root  /etc/init.d/weewx restart
10,25,40,55 *   * * *  root wee_reports /etc/weewx/weewx.conf > /dev/null

Now, I get an update pushed to web by the wee_reports containing the archive interval data at 15 minutes.

Let me know if you see any issues with this method.

Also, I have been using "nmap -p 22222 192.168.42.66" to test if the Davis VP2 is alive and have rarely found it offline. Statistics returned by nmap are interesting, sometimes the query takes a milliseconds longer than other times, but seldom is it down. I'm not sure why the weewx vantage driver 3.2.1 fails on this new router, but at least there is a workaround.

Also, I've upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04  Focal hoping for help but no cigar.

Cheers,

John

[weather list]

You don’t mention if you are connection to the Vantage via wi-fi (Meteobridge NANO or similar) or a TP-link 3020 (or similar) flashed with Metoebridge, or something else.

If you are using a Meteobridge NANO that relies on wi-fi, set your router to use a specific channel. I had these troubles for a long time until I did that, and it *seems* to have fixed it, so far.

Otherwise, give the Vantage a fixed IP tied to the MAC address of the connection to the Vantage.

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[John S]

I'm using the ethernet dongle for this device, the one Davis just discontinued - WeatherLinkIP datalogger. (I just noticed that Davis has a firmware update for this but haven't installed it as I don't use their cloud services.)

I do have a static IP assigned to the IP logger mac - that works fine and is why I use nmap to test if it is alive.

Cheers!