711 Days without Interuption

Well the streak had to end sometime.  It was not a failure of the hardware or software, just a failure on my part .  I accidently killed power to the Raspberry Pi,  But it gave me the opportunity to investigate possibly adding an extension in Weewx.  Ultimately it didn't work out, but I've wanted to try it for a long time but didn't want to shut it down.

But it back up and running, but I'll probably be quicker to do updates or make changes without trying to break any uptime records.

Weewx and Website Running Over 1 Year w/o Interruption

 

In the past, while running Wview or Weewx, I have had times where the station has run for a few months before something would happen, like a power blip or outage.  I've had the Davis console fail, batteries and capacitors in the integrated sensor unit fail, USB hubs, fail, serial port glitches, memory problems on the Raspberry-Pi, etc.  But after a new Raspberry-Pi in Dec 2020, and a UPS last February 2021, the Raspberry-Pi and Weewx have been running over a year without a restart.  I have had connection to the internet fail a few times, but the system keeps on recording data and updates when it is restored.

The UPS has been the biggest improvement.  I'd guess we have had 3 or 4 power outages in the last year.  Most were short, one was a couple of hours.  But it is nice to not have to connect up to the Pi and start everything up again for every power glitch.

I have a couple of things I'd like to do on the Pi, but almost don't want to shut it down and break this streak.

Inside Humidity

One of my hobbies is playing guitar.  I have several, both electric and acoustic.  Humidity plays havoc with the wood, especially the neck of a guitar, affecting the tuning and playability.  The seasonal changes in humidity is when it is most noticeable.  We have air conditioning, and I have reduced the number of times that we keep windows open in the summer, as I felt going back and forth was not great for the guitars.  Last winter, after some very cold dry weather when the indoor humidity was in the low 30% range, I finally had a humidifier added to my hot-air furnace.

The humidifier has a rough adjustment, but I have been depending on my Davis Vantage Pro II console for the indoor humidity.  Weewx, by default, does not include indoor humidity in it's standard report (Seasons).  It does include indoor temperature.  I guess it is because not all weather stations include an indoor humidity measurement.  But I wanted the ability to track the indoor humidity so I can adjust the humidifier to ensure it is keeping the house in the proper range.

So today I delved into trying to figure out how to include Indoor Humidity in the Weewx generated web pages.  It wasn't particularly difficult if I don't include the couple of hours to figure out how to do it.  The actual changes took maybe 15 minutes.  I was surprised that there wasn't specific instructions on how to do this.  I searched the User Guide, Customization guide, and User Forums.  Eventually I narrowed in on a solution, but it wasn't easy.  Essentially it required changes to the skin.conf and index.html.tmpl in order to display the Indoor Humidity.  At least those changes didn't require a Weewx restart, and I am still going on 335+ days without a restart.

One of my issues is that I'm not a Linux expert or super user.  My Raspberry Pi has been running for 335 days, and that is how long it has been since I actually typed any commands in Linux.  So I have to re-learn everything when it has been that long.

It would be nice if Weewx had options in a config file for what to display by default.  There are specific options for Vantage stations, why not make a switch?  Or at least semi-detailed instructions on how to add the Indoor Humidity.

Anyway, it is working now, and since the data has been recorded all along, I can see the history of the indoor humidity for a year, and see the difference it made when my humidifier was installed.

Station Up for 200 Days

Just noticed on my website that the wx station has been running 200 days straight without a hitch.  I haven't kept track, but pretty sure this is a record for me.  The UPS has helped, though I'm not sure we've lost power, but the new Raspberry-Pi and SW probably has helped as well.  I also noticed the battery in the sensor unit was low, so I replaced that before it caused an issue.  Anyway, happy to have this working well.

USB Hub

 Very odd.  The problem with the webcam seems related to the USB powered hub I was using for the webcam.  The webcam was the only thing connected to the hub.  I have been using it for years, and why it decided to act up is unknown.  I disconnected the webcam from the powered hub and now going straight to the Rasberry Pi.  We'll see if it keeps working, but so far the webcam is back online.

Webcam Issues

 I just noticed earlier today that my webcam image has not been updating since January 27.  Nothing has been touched, everything has been running fine.  So when I went to look at the Raspberry-Pi UI, the monitor will not read the signal from the Pi.  So I set up another PC to attach remotely.  Restarting the webcam software did not help.  Then I just took a photo with the webcam, and it seems to be working, so luckily it is not the webcam itself.  So I looked at the syslog for the Pi and I am getting a bunch of USB related messages that look like errors - disconnecting/reconnecting, etc.  It's late, I'll have to look at it tomorrow.

Finally a UPS

 I finally got around to purchasing an Uninterruptable Power Supply for the Davis console and the Raspberry Pi.  If you know Linux, it isn't good to just drop power from the PC.  Probably more so when the operating system is on a SD card.  I'm not really running much else with it, so I should have a bit of run time, though the internet would probably be down, but the Davis should collect wx data for a bit.

It will definitle help with the short 2-10 second power outages that happen a few times a year.