Weewx-celestial question

[Dan Hinckley]

Celestial.index seems to render properly, with the exception of the 'geocentric live' view

The status line above geocentric says: "NO DATA (HTTP 404) — check loop_data_file"

The log shows no errors related to celestial running: sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog | grep 'weewx'.

Extensions:

celestial         8.3.5     A live celestial report driven by weewx-loopdata almanac fields.

loopdata          6.11.1    Loop statistics for real time reporting.

new-belchertown   2.0       A clean, modern skin with real time streaming updates and interactive charts.

weatherflowudp    1.10.2    Capture data from WeatherFlow Bridge via UDP broadcast packets

wxskyfield        2.3.3     Replaces WeeWX's built-in almanac with a Skyfield based almanac for report generation.

Loop-data.txt attached, and I can see it update in the files window on the server.

[jterr...@gmail.com]

May be the path of the loop-data.txt file  in weewx.conf does not corresponds to the actual path of the file :

    [StdReport]

      [[CelestialReport]]
        [[[Extras]]]
            loop_data_file = ../loop-data.txt

where loop_data_file is the path  relative to the skin's main folder (https://suiattle.net/CapeSmallHarborWeather/sp-vm/celestial/)

[John Kline]

Thanks for the log and the loop-data.txt -- between them they say exactly

what is wrong, and it is a wiring problem rather than anything to do with

the almanac.

First, the good news: your loop-data.txt is perfect.  I diffed it against

the field set the Celestial skin consumes and all 100 fields are there,

including current.dateTime.raw.  Nothing to fix there; the install-time

field append did its job.

The 404 is a URL mismatch, and it is the most common one there is,

because two sets of stock defaults do not meet:

- weewx-loopdata writes to [[FileSpec]] loop_data_dir, relative to its

  target report's HTML_ROOT.  With the defaults (target_report =

  LoopDataReport, loop_data_dir = .) that is the loopdata/ directory.

  Your log confirms it:

    user.loopdata: Renamed to /var/www/html/weewx/loopdata/./loop-data.txt

- The Celestial page fetches Extras loop_data_file, default

  ../loop-data.txt, relative to its own page.  Your page lives in

  celestial/, so it asks for <webroot>/loop-data.txt -- one directory

  above where loopdata actually writes.  Nothing is there, so the web

  server says 404 and the badge tells you so.

Nothing appears in the log because nothing failed on the WeeWX side: the

fetch is made by your browser, and weewxd never sees it.  That is what

the badge is for.

The fix is one line in weewx.conf:

    [StdReport]

        [[CelestialReport]]

            [[[Extras]]]

                loop_data_file = ../loopdata/loop-data.txt

Point Celestial at loopdata rather than the other way around: the

LoopData report's own page reads loop-data.txt sitting beside it, so

setting loop_data_dir = .. would just move the 404 onto that page.

Restart WeeWX, reload the Celestial page, and the badge should go LIVE.

One more thing you will meet right after that.  Your log shows the site

going out by FTP:

    ftpgenerator: Ftp'd 61 files in 31.65 seconds

loopdata/loop-data.txt rides along in that batch, which means it reaches

your public web server once per report cycle rather than on every loop

packet.  The page will work, but the badge age will climb to about an

archive interval and reset instead of settling at LIVE, and the dial will

step once per cycle rather than move -- it extrapolates for up to two

minutes and then deliberately freezes rather than drift.  If you have ssh

to that host, weewx-loopdata can rsync the one file on every packet,

which is what the live page really wants:

    https://chaunceygardiner.github.io/weewx-loopdata/rsync.html

If it is FTP only, the page on your local server (same one-line fix, and

the file is genuinely fresh there) is the live one, and the public copy

updates at archive cadence.

The relevant manual pages, for reference:

    https://chaunceygardiner.github.io/weewx-celestial/troubleshooting.html

    https://chaunceygardiner.github.io/weewx-celestial/configuration.html

John

On Aug 22, 2026, at 7:47 PM, jterr...@gmail.com <jterr...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[weather list]

Yikes, that is a real noob error I made! Thank you for the pointers, and the badge age pointers.

And double thanks for all the hard work assembling your extensions!

Much appreciated.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/6DA42175-41DC-44D0-841E-5BE056EC77C5%40johnkline.com.