Weather Station Still Failing with CRC Errors

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Mike Pelley

I have just upgraded the Cumulus weather station software to version 1.9.2 Build 1032 from 1029. As I was upgrading the software I was reading the release notes (yeah, not a good practice: One should always read the release notes before upgrading! However, I always have a good backup so it isn’t that bad. Or so I keep telling myself…) and is a fix for my Oregon Scientific WMR-200 weather station to fix a wind chill issue but that was fixed in 1031.

The problem continues to be, seemingly, with the StarTech USB1000IP as I have noted previously. There seems to be two issues:

1) The USB1000IP “disappears” from the network. The more interesting thing plugging the device into a 10/100 Mbit/s switch seems to somewhat alleviate the issue in that it decreases the  frequency that the device drops off the network. Of course, to have the device get back onto the network requires a power supply unplug/replug – no remote option seems to be available to me.

2) The USB1000IP seems to occasionally reboot. What this means is that I have to manually have to connect to the WMR200 using the USB1000IP software. Then I have to restart the Cumulus software.

Herein seems to be the problem: Cumulus does not “know” how to deal with a) the device connecting and disconnecting and b) recovery from CRC errors. It is hard to contact the software author when he is providing the software for free…

On the USB-over-IP front there seems to be some commonality between the various vendors. From previous posts you can read that I have had problems with the SIIG device as well with the same problems. The same software seems to be used by all the vendors with only cosmetic changes to the driver. I asked both SIIG and StarTech if they were working on a Linux version or would release the source code. Both, not surprising me in the least, simply stated that they were not working on a Linux version, had no intention of doing so and had no response on releasing the source code. Grrr….. Gut feeling: the same chip is being used by all the vendors supplying the USB-over-IP products (the Ethernet controller not withstanding; e.g. the StarTech is 1.0 Gbit/s and the other are 100 Mbit/s) and they are the only ones supplying the software driver.

About Mike Pelley

Let’s see… A little about me… I’ve been around information technology since 1983 with computers such as DEC Rainbows (weird machine – the standard DOS couldn’t format its own floppy disks – remember them? – and I had to format them on a friend’s IBM PC) to Radio Shack TRS-80 to Apple ][e and Apple //c in the beginning. I have programmed in 8-bit assembly language on 6502, FORTRAN and COBOL on IBM System/370 (and I still hate JCL), VAX BASIC and COBOL (and a weird and massive WordPerfect 4.0 macro) on DEC VMS (Alpha), C/C++ on Digital Unix (ALPHA), and C/C++, Perl (it may be powerful but I still hate it), PHP on Linux (Red Hat, Centos, Ubuntu, etc.). I have work with databases such as Digital RDB (later to become Oracle RDB), Oracle DBMS, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL on VAX, Alpha, Sun and Intel. Check out my professional profile and connect with me on LinkedIn. See http://lnkd.in/nhTRZe I still think that Digital created some of the best ideas in the world: VAX clustering, DSSI disks (forerunner to SCSI) and the Alpha processor (first commercial 64-bit processor – Red Hat screamed on an Alpha!). DEC just could not seem to be able to give air conditioners away to someone lost in the Sahara Desert! VMware is one of the best ways to get the most out of an x64 server. And I have tried Oracle VM, Virtual Box and Microsoft Virtual Server. Outside of that I am a huge military history buff starting in the early 20th century. I love Ford Mustangs (my ’87 Mustang GT was awesome) and if I had the money I would have a Porsche 928S4. If I had a lot of money I would have a Porsche 911 Turbo. I also play too much AmrA 3 Exile mod. Over 5,000+ hours... I have a wonderful son, Cameron. I have a long suffering (Do you really need all that computer junk?) wife, Paula. I live in Paradise, Newfoundland and Labrador.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.